Unprejudice.

I had an interesting experience today. I think this is the first day that I have actually felt that we are a real family. My partner and I have only been together for a few months now even though we’ve been friends for much, much longer. Today we took our oldest son to his school’s open house and to register him for the beauty that is first grade. It was a learning experience all around.

The school that Tyler is going to is the old stomping grounds of my partner, Robin and her older brother. They went to this school their entire life. Pre-k through graduation. So of course, everyone knew her. I’m not used to knowing practically no one. And it’s still mind-boggling to me that someone can stay in one place long enough to go to the same school for their entire life! Even with everyone know Robin, I was very surprised how many of the teachers looked at Tyler like he was Robin’s biological son. I guess seeing them day in and day out, I miss all the similarities they really do have.

When Robin would turn and introduce me as her partner and Tyler’s mom, a rare few seemed shocked by the first part of that statement. They couldn’t believe I was his mother. It didn’t offend me at all. On the contrary I found it humorous. I mean, in reality, the children I carried for nine months really do look more like my partner than they do me. They all four have the same fair skin and fine, straight, blond hair. Robin and our two youngest all have the same blue eyes, where Tyler has my gray-green. I am a complete contrast from the rest of them. Dark, thick, curly hair. Smaller gray-green eyes. I am still carrying a tan from all my years living in the Florida heat.

The other thing that surprised me was everyone’s openness to our relationship. When I moved from a large, and rather open minded, big city to this small little town I was literally introduced to small town thinking with a set of flying fist. Still I refuse to hide my relationship away under a rock. Robin and I hold hands, kiss each other good-bye and say I love you in front of who ever is nosey enough to listen on. Yet, I was still a little nervous about walking into my son’s school with my partner for the very first time. Expecially knowing that this is her domain. We did recieve our share of looks, but we took it in stride. And those who did actually take the time to talk to us where very polite, very friendly. I can actually say I was plesantly surprised. I can only hope that the acceptance that the teachers at his school has shown carries on through there teaching and we can have an up and coming generation of kids who don’t disriminate, don’t hate, don’t hold prejudice against someone because of the color of their skin, the religion they choice, or who they happen to fall in love with.

Life

It’s not always easy is it? Ok, so maybe when I was younger I actually believed that everything would work out perfectly. The fairy tale dream. I’m a little more jaded and a lot wiser than I was even five years ago. You’d be surprised how much life can be lived in five years.

Now, I know the truth. I know that life isn’t easy. Some days its hard to just put one foot in front of the other. Today is an average day. Not great (I have been sicker than a dog) yet not horrible (my love and I aren’t in an argument yet.) Just average. That’s the thing that they don’t tell you in fairy tales. That there will be good days and bad days. Days that you love and days that you wish you would have stayed in bed.

I know I don’t have it horrible but there are days that I tend to forget that. Its those days that the kids are into everything. I now have a beautiful new crayon drawing on my living room wall. The house should be declared a disaster zone.  I have twenty appointments to get to this week- half of which I will be late to. School work is piling up on my overflowing desk. My love and I are arguing over something that is COMPLETELY stupid- as most of our fights are. My physical therapist is trying to KILL me! I don’t have money for this bill this week and I’m praying my electric/heat/phone/internet (oh dear god, not my internet) doesn’t get shut off. I haven’t had time to sit and write and my head feels like it’s going to  explode. I have no clean underwear because I haven’t had time to do the laundry. I can’t get a hold of any of my friends to just vent to (a.k.a bitch about everything thats NOT going right!) Everything seems out of control! And I am a HUGE control freak. Being out of control is a big deal.

Those are the days that I wonder… Does it get easier? Somewhere along the lines? I am serious. Why does life have to be so hard? I wonder some days if I am the only one struggling day in and day out like this. I know I am not. I am not completely disillusioned. I know that there are people out there that have ten fold the troubles I do. Because even through all the day to day junk that piles up in my life, I know that I am truly blessed in many ways.

I have three beautiful kids- who for the most part are very well behaved. They make me smile when they aren’t making me want to pull my hair out.

I have a woman at home that loves me and would do what ever she could for me. She’s the one person I could tell anything to. My best friend, my lover, my confidant. I would be lost without her.

I have a family that- even though we don’t see eye to eye on things- I know still cares for me. we may be miles apart but I know that we still share a love that even distance can’t come between.

I may only have a handful of friends, but they are the friends that I will keep through out my lifetime. They are the ones that I can call at 2 a.m. to tell some crazy dream I’ve had and they will sit an actually listen.

I have clothes on my back, food in my tummy, and a roof over my head. My kids are taking care of and have what they need to live healthy, productive lives.

I guess everyone has days where they feel like they are up against a wall and nothing is going right. Sometimes, it’s just good to get stuff off of our chest… to just release some anger, tension, weight. It’s just as good for us to remember all the good stuff we really do have in our lives.

SO… I have a project for those of you reading. It’s a two parter so stick with me here. The first part is… I want you to vent. Let it all go! Release your fears, let me know what’s bugging you today or stuff that has in the past. Yell, scream, shout. LET IT OUT!

Then I want you to take a deep breath and think for a moment. After your heart has stopped racing (you know venting gets your heart pumping) tell me how YOU are blessed. What is good and happy about your life? What is it that you cherish the most? Lay it on me.

Please, please, please…. don’t let me be the only one out here feeling like I am drowning instead of treading water. Let me know your good and your bad.

Prejudice

What is with bigotry and prejudice? I am sorry. It is lost on me. I don’t understand judging someone by the color of their skin, the clothes that they wear, their religion, age, sex, or sexual orientation. It has never been something that I’ve gotten or agreed with. That I can ever remember. Growing up I had friends of every age, race, and sex. My mother was one of the least prejudice people that I had ever met.

Until I came out.

For years I tried to fit into the mold that my family had set for me. I was the one that was always expected to do great things from the time that I was little. The fact that my IQ was borderline genius probably contributed to that. So I tried. I soared through school without batting an eye. I passed classes that I never attended… only to fail for not attending. I found the ‘cute,’ ‘normal’ guy that I knew my family would love and convinced myself that I could love him. And for a while I actually think I did. Yet no matter how many times I tried, my marriage failed…

And not in the parting as friends way. It failed miserably.

I have three beautiful- and often annoying, children to show for it. That I love dearly. I finally figured out that I couldn’t go on living a lie. My husband and I parted ways and I slowly began making many friends, both at home and far away, in the lesbian community. I was tired of lying to myself, but wasn’t yet ready to come out to my family. I found a best friend in the woman who would eventually become my life partner. I would tell her about everything.

After hours on the phone with a women who I wasn’t destined to have a relationship with, my mother confronted me about my sexuality. I could have denied it, come up with some elaborate lie, but what what the point? I knew who I was and I was tired of hiding it to protect my family and how they felt. She was my mother. She was supposed to love me regardless… or so my naive mind assumed.

My mother lost it. Completely. She blamed herself, asked what it was that she had done wrong. (I could think of a whole list but none of it had ‘made me gay.’ Nothing ‘made me gay’ mom, that’s the way I was born.) She said what I was doing was a sin. I laughed in her face and called her a hypocrite.

Rude, I know. Looking back it was probably not the best way to handle the situation, but how could she poison her body and mind for years with alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes, on a daily basis, yet say that I am the one doomed to hell because I want a relationship with someone of the same sex?

Doesn’t the Bible say in 1 Corinthians that our body is God’s temple and we are not to destroy it? When I pointed that out to her, she slapped me in the face. She called me selfish. Asked how I could do this to her and to our family? How I could do this to my kids? She refused to talk to me. I don’t think we spoke for two months.

That was nice compared to my sister. Things slowly got better but not by much. It didn’t help that a year later, I told my family that I had fallen for a beautiful woman and that I was taking my kids and moving across the country to where she is from.

Prejudice always hurts. It hurts more when it is from family members. Thankfully, my partner and her family where much more accepting of us. A few of them hesitated upon hearing of our relationship, and the fact that I have three kids, but for the most part, me and my kids have been embraced by Robin’s family.

I got to see first hand the feeling of unbiased hatred and the feeling of being part of a family that has none. If you have read any of my previous blogs, you will know that my partner and I moved across the country with our three kids to where her family lives. It’s a small, farming community town. I expected lots of problems with our relationship here but for the first few months saw none. In mid-July, I had the pleasure of experiencing the local town fair that was capped off with a street dance at the end of each night.

The first night my love and I attended, we did get a few looks, but everyone that I met, including tons and tons of ‘old family friends’ welcomed me graciously into their community and extended families. The second night went pretty much the same. That was until Robin leaned in to give me a light kiss on my lips. A girl that no one had saw before proceeded to harass us, telling us to go home.

Now… I’m not one that likes to be told what to do. My elementary school principle told my parents I had a problem with authority. I was in kindergarten. So when some little punk wanna be with too much attitude tries to tell me what to do I am going to do the exact opposite. Tell me to stop kissing? Come ‘er love. Plant one on me. Go home you say? Ha! When you can drag my ass out. Call me a cunt?!? I’ll tell you to take a flying leap.

Now, granted I was already on my way to being nicely drunk… and I had had a few molars and the such pulled only a week before. So my wasn’t the clearest. When she called me a cunt (for the second time mind you) and told me not to spit in her face… I did just that.

Okay, now if I was this girl I probably would have taken a swing on at this point too. I just would have had the courtesy to have done so when the person was actually FACING me! So here I am, in a crowd of people, most of who I either don’t know or have just met, and this girl who must have issues with her own sexuality seeing as she can’t keep her nose out of mine, waits until my partner is trying to pull me away (she didn’t want me to get arrested for fighting. Anyone who fights at the street dance gets arrested) and hits me. Then runs when she hears that we are getting the cops.

Now, granted, after spitting in someone’s face, I probably had it coming. If she hadn’t been in mine, it would have never happened. So, not one of my most shining moments. I still don’t get the prejudice. The funny part (or not so funny part) the girl who hit me was the same one that was being separated from her boyfriend for practically having sex in the middle of the street, not less than half an hour before. I could have done the same thing, told her to go home, no one wanted to see that. Sorry I don’t want to see you and your dude humping in the middle of the street dance. I was polite enough to turn my head and walk away. Yeah, I turned to my partner and some friends and snickered, but I minded my own business.

I will say that I have been very impressed with everyone that I have met since that point. Every single person that I have talked to since then could not believe that someone would actually do something like that. Many were absolutely appalled.

Our society has came a long, long way, but there are still those who cling to the backwards thinking that the only ones who should exist are the ones that fit into the cookie cutter mold that they have made. I am glad to say…

I do not now, nor will I ever, fit the mold.

I am me…

So I have just started the newest chapter in my life so I am thinking that I will start to devote this blog to just that. My newest chapter. See just a few months ago I moved across country. Not a big deal you say? You haven’t heard the whole story. I don’t think I will go into the whole story tonight, but I will give you this brief back ground.

Eight years ago, I was that girl next door. The one who graduates high school, gets married, starts a family. Only it was all just pretend. It was never the life I wanted for me but the one I knew they would find acceptable. They being society. They being everyone around me. They being my family.

See that’s the big one right there. My family. I am the oldest of four children, brought up in a very dysfunctional, broken, “Christian” home. I use the word Christianity loosely. Their definition of what being a Christian is and mine greatly vast in contrast. That is another discussion for another time.

My mother left my father for alcohol. My father left his sanity and beat us. Thankfully, it seems that both only lasted until we had children of our own. My father no longer yells, screams, and hits; and my mother stopped drinking when my oldest was only five months old. I think I resent them both for that.

Yet, even with all the problems my family has, for the most part we are very close. For some strange, and yes, often stupid, reason, I love them and tend to rely on their opinions more than my own. Definitely more than I should. I now realize this. For years I didn’t. Which is part of the reason that I hid my sexuality from everyone and tried hiding it from myself. Needless to say…

IT DIDN’T WORK!

Why didn’t it work? What was it about the life I was living was a lie? The thing is… for as long as I can remember I have been attracted to women. What? Women? Aren’t you a woman yourself? I’ll be nice and not keep you in the dark for as long as I did my ‘family’ Yes, I am attracted to women. Yes, I am a woman. Finally, yes, that does make me a lesbian.*gasp* Oh no! Run for the hills… It’s a butch, it’s a dyke… it’s a lesbian. OH NO!!!!

(God I hate sterotypes.)

So here I am, 1500 miles from home… with three kids, a beautiful partner, living. No more hiding. No more lying. To myself. To my kids. To my family. To anyone.

This is me. Open. Raw. You don’t like it? Start walking. From now on… I am me. This is my blog….

Memories

I was walking down the road last night. Beautiful, clear, quiet night, not unlike most the nights in this small town. The stars were out in the thousands and there was a slight breeze blowing that sent goose bumps up my arm. I am not sure if it was the coolness that the air brought or the fragrance that hung on it the caused the hairs on my arms to rise. It was a smell that brought back childhood memories. A smell that I would know anywhere. The smell of freshly plowed dirt, sap from the pine trees that lined the road, the smell of things growing, of oil and gas mixed in a way that can only be associated with a large piece of machinery. It was the unmistakable smell of a farm. A smell that I would always associate with my great-grandparents farm.

What is the one taste or smell that you will never forget? I have a whole list, as I am sure anyone would. The smell of Christmas dinner cooking, the smell of a pine tree, the taste of a good spice cake. Each one of these holds a special meaning to me. How is it that a certain fragrance on the wind or the taste of something familiar can transport us to another time, another place? It is an amazing thing the human mind; how it works in so many mysterious ways.

Blog?

So I’ve written stories. I’ve wrote in journals. But blogging? Why? So random people can hear my even more random thoughts. Why not? I mean what can it hurt, but what do I write about. Do I write poems and stories, like I usually do? I guess I could. Do I tell you about my not so normal life? Thats a better possibility. I mean, how many times in your life do you get to hear someone bitch and moan about what’s going on in their lives. Oh, you do that often… well… hmmm…. I could just sit here.

Sit.

Sit.

Sit.

Shit.

Ship.

Hip.

Hop.

Rabbit.

Carrot.

Orange.

God I want some orange juice.

Now I’m thirsty.

Hey… a CreamSicle. In a drink.

Hmmm… pretty good.

Mom was right. I think this thing is going to kick my ass.

My heads a little spinny. What was I talking about again? Oh… yeah. Blogging. Sorry, my soon to be mother-in-law just sat this drink down in front of me and Robin and told us to drink. She said we both looked like we needed a drink and swore it tasted just like those old orange creamsicles. She was right. And I got the orange juice that I wanted. I guess I didn’t sit too well. I never could.

Anyway, now that I am done rambling… welcome to my blog. I am not sure from one day to the next what exactly I will post but keep your eyes open, you can never be sure what I am going to post next.

Until next time,

Amanda