Absurd Conversations

Teaching teenagers as an out professional is a precarious path to tread.  For instance:

   "Who's the man in the relationship?"

   "Nobody Justin.  It's kind of our defining characteristic in your eyes."

   "Who's taller?"

   "She's a little taller."

   "Who cooks?"

   "We both do."

   "No, who really cooks?"

   "I do."  He looked quizzically.  "I'm Italian!"  I add.  (This he accepts.)

   "Who cleans?"

   "I straighten; she scrubs."

   "Who does the dishes?"

   "Me."

   "Who does the laundry?"

   "Her."

   "What does she do?"

   "Teach."

   He sighed.  "You drive a truck, or a car?"

   "Both."

   It's amazing how long, and far this kind of conversation can go on.  And for some reason, I find it pleases me.  I think it's because I know how absurd it is to want to categorize people in relationships.  But I've always felt that if dominance remains one sided, it's doomed.  My wife and I call dominance the "Butch Ball" and it's become something we've learned to pass to each other from time to time.  We're just like any good team, - a back and forth depending on a plethora of circumstances.  How do straight people not realize how perilous the dominant/submissive role play really is?

   But even this inquisition is better than my other cumbersome and yet more typical conversation I had with an angry teenager earlier in the week.  Being teachers, we often find we have to thwart the emotional daggers of early adolescents.  However, being an out teacher, those thwarts can sometimes make that get pretty personal.

   "No, I'm sorry Miss but I'm just being honest with you..." Kids are so inherently selfless, aren’t they?  When do I ever get to just “be honest” with them?  Lol

   That’s when I’m slammed with it.  "...Your kids are gonna turn out gay.  [Bad thing]  Kids do what their parents do.  Case in point: My parents smoke.  So what do I do?  Smoke.  It's not my fault."

   Quizzically, I retort without missing a beat: "Funny.  My parents were straight."  Bam!  Four words was all it took to render an actual teenager speechless.  I walk away head high leaving a gaggle of laughter and giggles in my wake.

Why Everyone Needs a Mother's Love

So I was recently told that someone in my family doesn't like me.  It really took me by surprise, not that it should have I guess.  Truth is, I can't think of anyone in my family whom I "like" 100%.  But there's nobody I don't like at all.  There are even people I love to fight with.  I try hard to be respectful.  I've been called out on that and learned from the experience.  Even if they're wrong, nobody deserves an unfair fight.

But every time someone in my family slams me I always find myself in the same exact terrified desolate place I was the moment my dad told me my mother was killed.  I know it's dramatic.  I know it's pathetic.  I also know it will never ever cease.  It's my wound.  It's the one I get so used to that I hate to even mention, but the one that screams with a life of it's own from any real nudge.  The pain of losing your mother after just basically getting to know and appreciate her - yet looong before having any opportunity to disagree or resent her in a stretch for independence.  I see her face vaguely.  I think back to how life felt before.  I feel her so much these days in me.  I am a mother.  The other day my son drew his moms for the first time.  Ema had her arms outstretched spanning the whole page.  My body was bigger :( but inside me, he drew a heart.

I am the world to my youngest.  I won't always be, I know.  What's new to me is how much they are mine.  That's the part I missed.  I don't remember her ever telling me that she loved me or was proud of me or anything like that.  I mean I know she did or was.  I remember crazy things, like a day her and my father fought and I was wondering if the man who owned the corner store would hire me to work for him, just in case I needed to support my mother.  (I couldn't have been 3 years old yet). 

Or the time I stole something from school and lied to her about how I got it.  The guilt was tremendous, but I never fessed up. 

I remember her singing, and reading me The Hobbit.  I remember crawling into bed with her at night if I got scared.  I know she loved me.  I just miss that love.

It's terrible here.  It's so awful to feel alone.  I mean I'm not.  I'm so lucky. It's just when family judges and dismisses you.  When they - who just aren't supposed to - leave ...and not because they were hurt -
I judge.  I know I do.  I'm guilty of the same deed.  But I don't dismiss.  I keep walls up only where they protect my children and only as strong as they need to be to do that.  The rest of me is fair game.  But life is so short.  I hope I learn not to judge anybody anything short of how great they really are.  My kids can do no wrong.  I hope I learn to see more people like that.

But my God how I miss my mother.

Best Reason to Stop

Ahhh... Peacefulness.  You know the moment.  You step outside, you look up, you breathe... It could be one, two or all or of these things but the effect is amazing.  You stop.  As a mother of two young boys, wife, teacher, daughter, etc., I've learn to savor those random couple minutes a day that I get to just stop - that moment when my hands aren't full, that moment I "begrudgingly" volunteer to leave all the fun and go to the grocery.  I love the sound of my children's voices, and it's ironic that only the moment I hear quiet, I really realize that.  How beautiful life is?  How simply perfect knowing  that for all the stress and fatigue I get perfect love and gratitude.  I love these breaks almost as much as I love how happily and quickly I depart them.