I got on the phone this morning to talk to some of my female relatives in another state to wish them happy mother's day. I talked to two of my sisters whom I had not come out to officially--I know they had heard about me, one of them denied it (she is probably the most straight-forward LDS faithful in the family)--but oh well. I still felt impressed to let them know about me, that I wasn't about to force anyone into accepting anything, just wanted them to know what's going on.
The responses were basically that nothing has changed, their love and respect remains the same. I then called the mother of my best friend growing up. Funny how I can go for months not talking to her and the minute I call her it is like we just chatted yesterday. She had only heard through the grapevine that I had separated and I also felt the need to give her the full story. She has a gay son so she started crying, told me that she felt bad because of the hard life I was going to be facing, but at the same time she also congratulated me on being brave enough to take this step.
By now all but one of my siblings know about me by me telling them directly. The only one missing is my oldest one (no answer, no voicemail option) but I know this one knows through my mother. Their overall responses have been of love. My very LDS sister--I had been meaning to talk to her forever about this, the words on the tip of my tongue but they just wouldn't come out, so I had to gather all my strength to just say it. She though about it for a second and then said that she was glad that being gay nowadays is not the ugly stigma that it used to be thanks to it being so much in the limelight and people are more and more used to it. I know she probably had lots of things racing through her mind, but I'm glad she probably bit her tongue and instead just voiced her unconditional love over and over. It felt great to finally get this out in the open with some of them.
I can't believe how emotionally charged I felt after this morning---lately seems that just about anything brings out the waterworks, so much for being Mr Control Freak, which is how I had always thought of myself, ha!
All in all, lots accomplished today, it was a good day!
I'm glad you had a good day and were able to talk to your family. I have all sisters, so I know how it goes.
ReplyDeleteWell, It's nice to come out to your family and to know that they love you unconditionally.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations!
Joned Rahadian
You need to change your name PL. With all of this openness and a boyfriend and all, I just don't see much loneliness in your life, public or otherwise.
ReplyDeleteGood for you. And, yes, I made it home safe. Exhausted but safe.
Thank you fellows. I reflected on how lucky I am having such wonderful and loving family & friends. I know some of them did not want to go into details about anything else and I can respect that very much, just like I don't want to know all the details about their everyday lives! :-)
ReplyDeleteControllerone: I'm not quite ready to stop being PL, there are still some bouts of loneliness here and there, I guess it is all a slow process. Maybe once the divorce and the dust settles I'll have to change my blog name, but to what?
hugs,pl
How about "Public Exposure"? Wait, maybe not a great idea.
ReplyDeleteEveryone is lonely sometimes. If you're never lonely, there's something seriously wrong with you in my book.