Uncomfortable

I recently spent a couple months in the US visiting the kids and the rest of my family in Kentucky. Originally my trip was related to spending some time with the kids during their Spring break. But due to unforeseen circumstances I ended up staying for much longer. My mother, god bless her, saw this as an opportunity for me to drive down to visit them in Georgia. 

To be honest, I'm not all that crazy about the idea of driving down to Georgia. Since I don't drive anymore traffic makes me very nervous, especially with the kids in the car. And then you have the whole big wet cotton ball of discomfort that is spending time with the conservatives. 

Admittedly, most of my family is fairly liberal. They're by and large the modern evolution of the good ol' civil rights-fighting southern Democrats. Long before I came out I spent many Sunday afternoons arguing the finer points of why a white person can't say the N word even if "they say it about themselves all the time."

Of course now that they know I'm queer, they really do try. I have to take the little wins and try my best for the sake of peace to let that be enough. I have to remind myself it's a good thing when they tell me my "choice" to be gay doesn't mean they love me any less. But hey, I've said it before, I had 27 years to get used to the idea before I told them. They need time. 

I can survive around my family just fine for the most part. I know when I can make fag jokes to keep them comfortable. I know when to bite my tongue. And I know when to stand my little piece of ground. The difficulty comes when I interact with people who don't have to (at least pretend to) love me. 

My kids were invited to an Easter egg hunt at the home of one of my mother's oldest and dearest friends. Being out to one's very southern mother means you are out to everyone she knows including all ministers, friends, hairdressers, and guys in the grocery store line in front of her who're buying a copy of the Advocate. So I knew my mother's friend knew I'm gay. I wasn't sure if the other people at the egg hunt knew. 

The group included my mother's friend's daughters and their children, a middle-aged neighbor and her granddaughter, someone's elderly grandmother, my sister and her son, and me and my two monsters. Preparations were made for the kids to decorate eggs and the adults stood around making specious compliments to their artwork and small talk. Small talk in the southern US almost always includes everyone's health and what they're doing, the weather, and church. Discussion of the new minister at my parent's church (specifically the fact that she's female and by extension inept) let me know this was an excellent opportunity to keep my mouth shut. 

Eventually conversation alighted on my personal history and what I'd been up to in the years since I last saw most of the people there. One of the daughters turned to me and asked, "So, what in the world brought you to Spain?" 

A direct question requires a direct answer, right? I looked at the expectant faces of the elderly and the impressionable. The older ladies wouldn't really want to hear about my partner and his globe-trotting job. The mothers might not be too keen on me exposing my "lifestyle choices" to their children. So I gave the best answer I could come up with at the spur of the moment. "An airplane." I smiled my most becoming please-drop-the-subject smile and endured the giggles. 

"Yes, I know but why Spain? What are you doing there?"

I wasn't going to get out of this one easily. I was only trying to avoid a potentially uncomfortable revelation. I was only trying to preserve their false memories of the sweet shy little boy they once knew. I was only trying to hold the tattered remnants of the closet door over myself for the sake of their social comfort. Sure I would like to be out and in everyone's faces about it, but sometimes it's just easier to leave people in their closed-minded cocoons. 

"I'm writing, blogging and fiction, short stories mostly. It worked for George Orwell." Another not-so-clever dodge. But, thank their misogynistic racist god, it worked. 

She pointed at her teenage son who'd been bored with everything, shuffling his sneakers through the whole scene waiting for the first opportunity to get back to his Facebook chats and PlayStation games. "Oh, he's been reading Orwell, haven't you?"

I was off the hook. No old minds were cracked open with my sinful ways. No children's futures were shattered with the knowledge that homosexuality exists. I was, however, left with the feeling I owed her a real explanation. She was, after all, something of a childhood acquaintance. Both of the daughters had been too old to play with me when we were kids, so we had never been really close. But I don't like the implied dishonesty of my question dodging. 

Alas, the opportunity never presented itself. We hid and then helped the kids find eggs. We ate pizza. And then her boys were ready to be somewhere else. 

As we were leaving the hostess pulled me aside to thank me for coming. 

"Thank you for having us." I hadn't completely forgotten my manners.

"I'm glad you came. I didn't know if you'd be, um, uncomfortable." I suppose a sweet attempt at an allusion to my newly known sexuality.

"It was great to see you all again. The kids had a great time." 

I don't know exactly what my mother has told her. I don't know what she thinks of homosexuality. But I can guess given the conglomerate of conservative social opinions among my family and their associates. I certainly didn't want to "throw my queerness in their faces." I was more concerned about their comfort than my own. Maybe she and her daughters were just as worried about being invaded by my unfamiliar world as I was about returning to theirs. But hopefully if there's any bit of light to be found in this muddy mess it's that they got to see an example of a normal gay man. A loving father. A person who hasn't forgotten the politeness of his upbringing. Someone who is still who he was before they knew his sexuality.