Acceptance

I am the first to admit that letting go and accepting things can be incredibly difficult. My issues in this department are likely hereditary; my mom really takes the cake when it comes to reacting to things that don't fit into her idea of how she wants things to be. You see, my mom lives on her own planet, where the world is carefully crafted to fit her aims and desires. Memories become altered in her mind to satisfy her particular point of view, and often things become far rosier in hindsight. Mom will even go so far as to outright deny events or to occasionally fabricate her own version of things that don't exactly mesh with reality.

My relationship with my mom is interesting and definitely not perfect, but I do love her. While having a mother who lives on another planet can be frustrating and sometimes painful, to be fair, I don't think she intentionally skews reality, she just sort of subconsciously molds it to fit her version of the truth. Perhaps it's a defense mechanism left over from her sad, rough childhood. Whatever the reason, once she grasps on to something, there's no arguing with her... and this is an unbreakable wall that separates us.

What has been very difficult for me in my life is my mother's outrageous expectations of me, expectations that never change despite the fact that I'm an adult now and that it should be fairly obvious: I am who I am at this point. How does one live up to a fervent hope they'll become something that is inherently not them? We're not talking about hoping that I become a doctor and being disappointed that I'm heading down the path of serial killer, we're talking beyond the hope of the best for your child into a place that borders on selfishness. For example, my mom always wanted me to be very girly. When I was little, when my mom was the decorator, my room looked like a Pepto Bismol bottle puked all over it. Seriously. Every thing that could be painted was painted vivid pink. Now, girly is something I am not and never have been, and when I finally had my own say, I quickly changed the color scheme to blue. Yet, after nearly three decades, she is still obviously disappointed that I'm still a tomboy.

I consider it outrageous because it's all about not accepting who I am at my very basic. It's about her not seeing me.. the real me, adult me, not a teenager anymore, hello?.. because she quite plainly seems unable to simply accept me. I don't think it's fair to someone to hope they'll be something else when what they are is pretty damn good. I'm sure my mom loves me unconditionally, considering all of the shit I have put her through, but I wish for once she could just drop the bullshit with me and simply see me.

My mom's version of a daughter included a 'straight' sexual orientation, so needless to say, she had a hard time when I spoke to her about my first girlfriend. I just wanted to gush because I was in love and the girl was so awesome, but it was clear Mom was shocked. I had a rather liberal upbringing, so her reaction both hurt and confused me. I had expected her to be happy for me, but I realized that she wasn't happy about it when she quickly changed the subject.

In fact, the great irony here is that my mother is the ultimate fag hag. (No disrespect with that term, by the way, I love gay boys, too!) I was surrounded constantly with gay men while growing up and a great number of them were like family to me. They attended our family holidays and we spent a lot of time together. Later on, I realized that I didn't know any lesbians growing up, which, if you think about it, is a little strange coming from someone who lived in a city with one of the highest gay populations in the country.

Pieced with the reaction I got from coming out, I came to the conclusion that my mom doesn't like lesbians. I know for a fact that she had at least one bisexual experience since I came out, but that hasn't seemed to alter her perception any. At first, it made me angry that she was in such denial about it. I let it go for the most part, though I checked in a couple of times to see if she'd begun to accept it or not, hoping for progress. Each time, her response simply floored me to the point of speechlessness. She told me all sorts of things, arguing the case against me being gay, things I never expected to come out of my mother's mouth. Just... ignorant stuff I would ordinarily make fun of. I couldn't believe she would tell me that I hadn't dated enough men, that I just hadn't found the right guy yet and she didn't want to see me close myself off to the idea.

She would never tell her gay friends they hadn't met the right woman yet. Denial is one thing, but this counts as lying to yourself.

At one point, while trying to get out of an abusive relationship, I was denied rental of an apartment because I was honest with my potential roommate and told him I was gay. I certainly would rather know if someone is a bigot before moving in with them and finding out the hard way. I mean, they're going to figure out I'm gay eventually.

I told my mom about being turned down and she told me that I shouldn't have said anything. I explained my reasoning and we got into a conversation that sort of blew my mind. My mom told me that if she were a landlord and had a choice of a straight tenant and a gay tenant, she would choose the straight tenant. I asked her why and she couldn't give a clear answer, but finished by saying, "Well, I just have more in common with the straight people." This coming from a woman whose social circle once consisted almost entirely of male homosexuals!

She periodically asks me if I think I'm going to have kids, which doesn't bother me much other than my desire for children is slowly decreasing and if I decide not to have them, how disappointed she would be. She wants to be a grandma and I don't begrudge her that. I'm not all anti-Mom, but her weird, sometimes uncool ideas crop up all the time, even now when I thought she was finally starting to accept it.

I'm not entirely sure what catalyzed the change, but Mom has started to accept my sexuality. She is most comfortable trotting me out to win cool points with gay people, but she does talk about it now and in another, bigger step, she even asks me about my love life and the people I'm dating. This change has only been in the past year, but I have been glad of it.

Which is why I was so surprised by what she said to me recently. I hadn't talked to my first girlfriend in a while and in a catch-up email, I learned that she had gotten married to the guy she started seeing right after we broke up. I told my mom this news and before I could finish, she said, "Ooohhhhh... see?" Her tone of voice implied that there was still a chance for me, too, to have a heterosexual marriage. Don't worry, there's a man out there for you!

Grrr. So frustrating on many levels.