{"id":970,"date":"2014-06-06T17:50:35","date_gmt":"2014-06-06T23:50:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/permissiontolive\/?p=970"},"modified":"2015-03-21T08:29:30","modified_gmt":"2015-03-21T14:29:30","slug":"brave-new-life-part-4-an-overcast-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/permissiontolive\/2014\/06\/brave-new-life-part-4-an-overcast-summer.html","title":{"rendered":"Brave New Life: Part 4: An Overcast Summer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

This post is part of a series, click here to start with the introduction.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The grapevine raged and the news was spreading fast. Random people who hadn\u2019t been in touch over the last 7 years suddenly sent us long involved email lectures on how wrong we were, and how much they cared about us, and how could we do this to people who cared about us? At first we tried to respond to them, answering their questions, and explaining as best we could. But when it became clear that most of them had no actual interest in our experience, but just wanted to be a spokesperson for their idea of god, we got better at discerning which confrontations to engage with.<\/p>\n

We heard that Haley\u2019s parents had told the extended family that I was a longtime atheist lesbian who had married Haley in order to \"\"<\/a>convince her to become a woman to satisfy my immoral desires. Meanwhile my parents were telling people that Haley was manipulating me into staying in our marriage, because how could I possibly want to stay? Sometimes it felt like no one really cared enough to hear what we actually thought or felt, they were too busy coming up with their own explanations to try and save face. At one point a non-affirming relative pointed out that if we persisted in this, pretty soon everyone was going to know! We explained that we were fine with that, as that was kind of the point of coming out.<\/p>\n

Emotional exhaustion set in that summer.<\/a> We had people who loved and supported us no matter what, and that was life-giving. But sometimes the sheer number of negative perceptions\u00a0 made me feel like I was getting nailed to the ground in the hot sun, and left there, alone.<\/p>\n

We had to re-build, form a new community with people who didn\u2019t judge us or eliminate us based on personal differences. But sometimes, I didn\u2019t even know where to start.\u00a0 So I tried to focus on home base. I got up, took care of my kids, went to the park, made meals, went to work, curled up to watch movies with my wife and tried not to listen too hard to the reactions and rumors surrounding our coming out.<\/p>\n

To the kids, Haley\u2019s transition was fairly old news, and they were used to it. Months ago our then 4 year old Ms Action had declared loudly in the store where we were shopping \u201cLook! Look! Wouldn\u2019t this skirt look fabulous on Daddy?\u201d (much to the surprise of the middle aged lady perusing the next rack.) They\u2019d been calling Haley a mix of \u201cDaddy\u201d, \u201cDee\u201d and \u201cHaley\u201d for a while, and now it seemed to be more and more consistently \u201cMama Haley\u201d than anything else. \u00a0In those early months of Haley living as herself full time, they would tell the story in conversation. \u201cOur mom used to be a boy, but she was a girl on the inside, so she stopped acting like she was a boy and she is a girl now.\u201d They felt no need to hide or avoid the truth. It was the same to them as relating their mom\u2019s hair color or favorite music.<\/p>\n

Later that year when we met with Ms Action\u2019s Kindergarten teacher before school started, we came out to her as well, and explained that while Haley identified as and interacted with Ms Action as her mom, she was also her biological father, so that if Ms action talked about having either 2 moms or a mom and a dad, both were technically correct. Her teacher was a compassionate and sweet and completely cool catholic lady, who went on to rave about how wonderful our daughter was every time we saw her after that.<\/p>\n

About two months of silence after the incident with my mom, she started calling my phone again. The first time it happened I almost dropped the phone when I saw her name on the screen and couldn\u2019t bring myself to answer.\u00a0 She left a message about wanting updates about the kids, as though nothing had ever happened. I thought about it a lot, and decided that I did not feel ready to engage yet. I figured as long as I was feeling physically shook up at the thought of taking her phone call, I just shouldn\u2019t answer the phone yet.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>At one point that summer,\u00a0 4 year old Ms Drama asked about when we would be visiting grandma again, I didn\u2019t really know what to say. I hadn\u2019t told the kids anything that was going on with my parents, and since they really only had personal experience with accepting people so far, I hated to introduce them to bigotry with their grandparents as the example. I stuck with an ambiguous \u201cI\u2019m not sure honey, grandma and grandpa don\u2019t really want us to visit right now.\u201d She thought for a minute, and then asked \u201cIs it because Mama Haley isn\u2019t a boy anymore?\u201d I sighed, and admitted that yes, that was why. She looked at me and said seriously \u201cMom, you should tell them that is not very nice, and that it would hurt Mama Haley\u2019s feelings, because she is happy being a girl.\u201d\u00a0 I felt speechless again. She was four years old, and her emotional intelligence just stunned me sometimes. I told her that I had tried to tell grandma and grandpa that very thing, and that we would just have to see what happened.\u00a0 She seemed to accept that.<\/p>\n

The summer slipped by. I started going to counseling again<\/a> after finding a new counselor in our new city. When I was relating what had happened with my parents, I laughed. She asked me why I laughed, when obviously this had been a very hurtful experience. I could only say that if I did not laugh at the complete insanity of it all, I would cry. And I had cried enough tears over them.<\/p>\n

Something inside me changed that summer. I felt like the last shreds of hope I\u2019d had for having parents I could count on to believe in me, and be there for me, had died a violent death.<\/p>\n

Part 5<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is part of a series, click here to start with the introduction. The grapevine raged and the news was spreading fast. Random people who hadn\u2019t been in touch over the last 7 years suddenly sent us long involved email lectures on how wrong we were, and how much they cared about us, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1145,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,14,26],"tags":[12,63],"class_list":["post-970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-depression","category-lgbtq","category-series","tag-children","tag-realizations"],"yoast_head":"\nBrave New Life: Part 4: An Overcast Summer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This post is part of a series, click here to start with the introduction. The grapevine raged and the news was spreading fast. 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