testing the waters

Mom left home at 13. She moved from Northern Ontario to southern parts, to work and support her family.

She worked in a nursing home and lived in residence until she got married at the age of 19.

My great grandmother committed suicide when my grandmother was in her early 20's.

There is a history of mental illness in my maternal grandmother's family. See above. As a consequence, there is a history of mental illness among my extended family members.

I was inappropriately touched by a family member.

I didn't tell anybody. Why? Because, I reasoned to myself, that I didn't want t hurt people. And it would.

My mom is emotionally hard to reach. She's spent most of her life working in geriatrics. Until I spent a day with her in her workplace, more than fifteen years ago, I never would have guessed how caring and affectionate she could be with other people. I mean, I know she loves me. She would do anything for anyone. I can talk to her about a lot of things. But she doesn't hug me. I don't remember being told that she loves me except when she's been drinking.

There are topics that she doesn't like to discuss. And when you happen to stray onto one of those topics, it's like a window shade coming down. Her expression grows vague, she looks somewhere other than at you, and she changes the subject as soon as humanly possible. She does not like to discuss my weight loss surgery.

Why? It's not like anything tragic happened. I lost 100 pounds. I'm out there celebrating my success and when I mention my weight loss, my mom looks the other way.

We can talk about issues, like gay marriage, or sex education. We don't talk about abortion because we will be forever divided on that topic. But it doesn't ever get personal.

And when it does, the window shade comes down. She is her guarded self, the person who cannot speak of these things.

Too many secrets.

Unless, as sometimes happens, she has had a drink or three. Then she tells me she loves me and I get supremely embarrassed. Why can't you say it when you're sober?

I tell my kids that I love them every day. I want them to know my affection for them.

And yet in many ways I am too much like my mother. I am a keeper of secrets. Or I have been, until recently.

On Monday, I went to visit my parents. They've just come home from a well-deserved vacation, three weeks away from the demands of work (my mom is near retirement, my dad is retired) and family - grandkids and an aging grandmother who needs a lot of care. The look better than they have in a long time.

I thought I would try easing my mom gently into my newly discovered sense of self. Like I said, I'm not going to hide any more. N says that there's really no reason to tell anyone at this point, unless I want to, especially if the telling of these things might cause me pain. He has a point. But I get sick of the pretending that everything happens to everyone else.

So I mentioned my surgery, and a friend's interest in the procedure. I told my mom that I wanted to meet this friend in person (really haven't seen her since high school) and talk to her about the unexpected emotional impact of losing your crutch. I was forced to deal with things. I think I'm doing a pretty good job, considering how explosive the revelations have been for me personally.

Click. The shade went down.

N thinks that it's because she feels a lot of guilt. She knows part of my story, the story about the withdrawn kid who was bullied, who was shamed into having no voice until she left the small town that she ambivalently loves and hates. She likely blames herself for some of those things - they moved us there from a larger city, she didn't see the signs of my depression. Et cetera. But really, from my perspective, she's just another parent who made mistakes. As I was. As I continue to be. So why can't we talk about it? Why can't I get past the window shade so that I can reassure her, let her know that my experiences, all of them, shaped who I am. And since I really like who I am, it all worked out in the end.

Of course, I would also like to tell her that I'm gay. Someday. When I need to, when the time is right. Whatever. I just want it out there, want it known. I'm proud of who I am. I am sick and tired of carrying around this basket of things that we don't discuss.

It starts with me, and the decisions I've made about how I'm going to live my life. It started with coming out to N and my older daughter. I can't stop now.

and

my desire to move away from this, find someone who can really understand me, with whom I can be whole, and strong with grows more urgent with each moment, with each passing blow to my growing sense of self. Something has to change!

vent

I'm not having a particularly good day today. And it's only 11:30 in the morning.

On one hand, it's nice to be at home with my youngest. She goes to day camp two days a week. The rest of the time, including most of my weekend time, she's with me. Partner's oh-so-important side projects seem to take up a lot of his time, leaving me with the bulk of child care responsibilities. And this child does not amuse herself. She's a verbal processor (as is previously mentioned partner) who constantly needs to be entertained.

My time to myself is squeezed into two precious days a week. In those two days, I still have my day to day - the laundry, the front lawn, the bathrooms, the floors, the cooking, and often the after-dinner clean up. I get an hour, may be two hours to actually sit and be with myself.

And then there's the eighteen-year old, who lives on her own, but hasn't quite figured out how to be independent. She wants a ride here. She needs a ride there. Boyfriend works nights and needs rides at odd hours, when he can't get a bus. All well and good, but there are days when I wake up and think "enough is enough." Today was one of those days.

And so, while I was driving her to work, because she slept in and then the bus went by her or something, I told her that she needed to find a way to be more independent. That I was not going to be available to give her rides whenever she needed them. That I had very little time to myself and I was feeling a tremendous amount of pressure from different directions. Something needs to change.

She cried. She wailed. She told me that I was being unfair because I promised to help her out whenever she needed it, whatever that meant. I do not actually recall saying that. She'd had a really bad weekend (and she did) and the last thing she needed today was a lecture from me, because they always made her feel bad.

Said daughter exited the car crying.

And called home twenty minutes later to tell me that she'd been sent home from work because she couldn't calm down and could I please not lecture her while I'm driving her to work because it makes me feel bad.

Okay, then.

Oh, and can I still drive her to her job interview at four o'clock?

I'd better not make her cry. Or else she won't get a full time job and she'll move back home and I'll have to give up the only space in the house that's really mine, and I'll go completely and totally insane, in a slow and decent fashion as befits a middle-aged woman.

So I'm in the laundry room and the partner comes in and says "Give me a hug,' whereupon he takes one. And I say "Oh, all right." And he says "What, don't you want one?"

Not really. But no one asked me.

And then I start to tell him about my frustrations, that I have no time to myself, and about the daughter, yadda yadda.

"Well" he interrupts me," there is one area that you can control. You can stop giving M rides here, there and everywhere."

I know this. I've just spent time and energy explaining this to her and then defending my position. I tell him that I already know this, that I'm feeling upset and I just need someone to talk to.

"Well. if you don't want to hear my advice, then maybe you should just stop talking. You're not a very pleasant person to be around when you are feeling these pressures."

"Well, I'm just venting."

"If you're going to vent, then I just wont be around you anymore."

Whereupon, he leaves the room and goes downstairs. He works at home in the basement.

Message: There is no room in my life for me to feel, and I'm an idiot for thinking that anyone might want to hear what I have to say.

When did my life stop becoming about me? Why is it that the only value I seem to have is what I can bring to the others in my life?

I listen to him rant and vent all the time. He's depressed, he doesn't like his job, he goes on and on about things that really don't interest me at all. I listen because I care about him and I want to hear what he has to say. Unfortunately I am not being afforded the same consideration.

I feel very small and alone today.

glimpses

What I am doing right now:

• I just finished reading As the Crow Flies by Anne Marie MacDonald. It was an amazing book - and spoke to me in several different ways. Small town SW Ontario was much the same in 1962 (the setting of the book) as it was in 1974, when I moved from London to a small town in Perth County. Her book was inspired by the Stephen Truscott case - most people from Ontario are familiar with his story, and how last year he was finally acquitted. I started the book at home and finished it while camping near Tobermory, where her story ends. Who knew?
• Next on my reading list is "The Night Watch" by Sarah Waters. I'm reading a book about chakras and energy fields and want to finish it before I start anything else.
• After that I have "The truth about Stories" by Thomas King. Yes, I buy several books at once and then read them in an order that only I determine.
• I am writing a short story that has its roots in my childhood experiences.
  
• I am learning a lot of new stuff on my guitar. I recently sent an e-mail to my old guitar teacher (and mentor). I'm hoping that he and I can get together once in a while so that I can improve my technique. I'm not a very good guitar player - I sing, and I like to be able to accompany myself. I decided a few weeks ago that I need to be better with the guitar.
• My birthday was Friday. I turned forty-three. I don't feel forty-three at all.

last night

I held him in my arms and he cried.
He told me that all he wanted was for me to be happy.


This is so hard!

tough conversations

It's like having a fantastic roommate. He's a great friend. I have always been honest with him.

Do I love him? Yes. Am I in love with him? No.

There are things that we can't share. We don't talk about spirituality, specifically mine, because he has a tendency to mock any spiritual leanings I have. Without realizing it. And when I pointed out to him once that I don't make fun of him for being an atheist, he shrugged his shoulders and smiled. We don't share the same music. I can't show him my writing because he corrects my grammar, and points out the sentence fragments with a suggestion that I might want to revise - I know grammar, and I write as I choose. He thinks that global warming is a hoax, and therefore the entire environmental movement is suspect. He calls himself a social liberal (and when it comes to some things he is) but he questions the welfare system, and the validity of universal health care, looking t o the US system as an ideal model.

Essentially, the things that are most important in my life are the things I can't share with him. Except our kids. We raise them well together.

He is supportive of my goals and direction, but he can't figure out why I want to write fiction. Why not do something practical with my degree? I'm kinda done with making practical and safe choices, and I'm ready to do what my heart tells me is right.

I could look beyond all of this once. I can't anymore. Beyond the personality differences, the divergence of politics, spirituality, music, lifestyle, vacation preferences and goals. I have no physical desire. There is no passion - perhaps there never was. He is not female.

I used to believe that this was the best that I could get - that I wasn't destined to find love in the way that other people have it. I made a safe choice, a choice that brought me partnership, security, comfort. But no passion. No desire, and no real fulfillment. My choice - to shield myself from being vulnerable.

It's incredibly difficult for me to verbalize at times, especially when what I have to say is not likely to be well received. He hasn't done anything wrong, and I know that he loves me. So to tell him what's in my heart is incredibly difficult. But I had to. I can't not say, when I am contemplating so many changes and possibilities.

Last night we walked, and between E's imaginings of butterflies and dragonflies, and other demands for attention, I managed to say what I needed to say.

Not easily. I should just carry a notebook and write down what I can't articulate.

Three weeks ago I told him that I was attracted to women, that I've always been, and why I resisted even admitting it to myself. Yesterday I told him a lot more.

And he was so wonderful, it made me cry. He told me that it was better to learn about myself now, rather than ten or twenty years from now. That what I can't control ( and I can't) is not my fault. And that I am always free to stay, or go if I need to, with lots of warning. He told me that he loves me, that his first choice would be to stay with me, and that we would be able to work things out amicably, no matter what happened.

He told me that I needed to experiment and explore my sexuality, and said that was okay, as long as I was honest with him.

I can't do that. I need a clean break. I think he's speaking out of some sense that he has to have me in his life, no matter what the cost. That's not fair to him - he deserves more than just whatever I have left over for him. And he'll get it, but not from me.

But in the end, what it comes down to is that I am free. I always have been. We can live together for now, and as things change for us, as our relationship changes, we will assess what our next steps will be.

This is also the best for E. Any transition we make has to be slow and deliberate for her sake.

Now I am relieved. And grateful. And humbled. And free.

Images of the Bruce Peninsula

It's kitchen witch day - I'm catching up with all my domestic, food-related chores. The bread's in the oven, the granola is cooling and the yogurt is incubating. I still have to weed my postage-stamp sized garden, but that can wait until after supper.

These are photos I took on the Bruce - at Cyprus Lake campground and on the trail. I tried to put them in some sort of order and it didn't work. Oh well.

This is Cyprus Lake at sunset. As peaceful and calm as it looks. On the second day, the wind around the lake was furiously whipping the cedars around, but when we got to Georgian Bay, it was calm, clear and warm. Such a small body of water, and it seems to have it's own weather system.

I love this lake. I could sit by the shore alone for hours (and I have, but not this time, as I was alone with two kids). You can hear the loons best in early evening, and in the morning just before dawn.
There is a trail that goes all the way around the lake. The trail is also the campground access to the Bruce. The cedars are small here, but bent and twisted by the wind into odd shapes, bowed and bent with the forces of the elements. We have a special tree, that we call "the sitting tree" where we have all - now including both my girls - have had our pictures taken at one time or another.






My little one, getting as far into the icy waters of Georgian Bay as she dared. It is usually cold. The day we hiked out it was freezing.

She's almost five years old, and a little trooper. She hiked almost six kilometers that day, over two boulder beaches, and up a few cliffs.






A wildflower meadow on the Horse Lake trail.













Walking the trail. It was not very warm that day.














A wild lily of some kind, close to Cyprus Lake. We did not see any yellow lady slippers (endangered plant that can be found in the park). Nor did we see any Massasauga rattlers (thank goodness!)










View from the first boulder beach we traversed, near Halfway Rock.













This is the second boulder beach that we walked. E and my nephew stopped and tried to make inukshuks, but we were chased away by blackflies.












The Grotto. It's been a few years since I've climbed down there. Water levels have dropped in recent years, but there used to be quite a few divers who would travel under the rock and make their way inside. Three years ago I swam around the outside of the grotto and sat in the cave. The water was much warmer on that trip. By the end of August, it's usually tolerable.



And now I'm home. I was busy - two kids and no other adult makes for a trip with very little alone time. But I did get the opportunity to sort through a few things, through late night campfires and early morning journalling. I know what I have to do. It won't be easy, but I think that in the end, everything will be okay.