a radical conversation with my mom

Yesterday my mom and I went to run errands/go shopping, which we have been doing every day since I arrived in NC on Monday. Though I was reluctant and grudging because I wanted to have a quiet morning on my own terms, my mom is a force of nature and before I knew it I found myself braving the Xmas crowd at Trader Joe's. 

We stopped at a local NY bagel and deli place before heading over to Harris Teeter, and I was happily digging into my bagel with bacon, egg, and cheese when my mom decided to suddenly talk to me about my sexuality. Mom doesn't tend to preface her thoughts or questions; most of the time she is operating in entirely her own semi-manic world and jumps from subject to subject, zigzagging and doubling back wildly. Her narrative arcs never go in a straight line, but I'm used to it.


Mom mentioned that my dad was doing better about me coming out. I came out to him about a week before Thanksgiving, and although he was stunned, he was also supportive and said my happiness was the most important thing. But I knew had also been struggling. I asked my mom if she had talked to him recently, and this unleashed a very long and intense conversation that I was not anticipating having in the middle of a small and crowded deli, but ended up being vitally important to practicing self-love and being my authentic self. 


Since I don't really remember the exact flow of the conversation (and even if I did, it still wouldn't make sense because of what I said about my mom earlier), I'd like to distill it to the following points: 


-Much of my struggle with my feelings of worthlessness come from childhood and my family dynamics. Though I love and respect my parents deeply, and know that they love me deeply in return, they have never been good about talking about feelings, doing emotion work, or giving praise. They follow the Chinese cultural code of "if I didn't say you screwed up, then you're doing fine." So most of the feedback I got from my parents growing up came in the form of criticism. Though I have gotten older and cope better with this now, there's still one thing about me that has been relentlessly critiqued and I have not been able to escape:

-My clothes. They have never been "right" and therefore I never felt like my body, or  myself was "right" in their minds. Always too short, too small, too long, too tight, too sloppy, wrinkled, or messy. I've had many ugly fights with my parents about my clothes throughout my life, especially after my adolescence when I stopped wearing traditionally feminine clothes. I started dressing in a more masculine fashion because the clothes felt more comfortable, fit better, fit the "lesbian image" better, and because I thought the more conservative masculine cuts would mean I'd finally stopped being critiqued by my parents. Clothing has become so contentious and anxiety-inducing for me that I pick a specific wardrobe for when I go to my parents' home so that I can avoid confrontation about it. Inevitably they still find fault with something. 


At the NY bagel store, my mom decided to nitpick me about an outfit that I thought was perfectly fine, and all the years of frustration, sadness, and anger about my parents' attitudes towards my clothes boiled out. I told them that no one had ever asked me to changed the way I dress, none of my bosses, professors, teachers, or trusted friends, and that I thought the way I dressed was perfectly fine. I told her it was her own bias and not actual reality that made her think there was something wrong with me. I told her that I had never seen her or my dad police my brothers' clothes in the same way that they had always policed mine. That her criticizing my clothes was infantalizing. That I didn't know what she wanted for me and it wasn't fair for her to keep telling me what was wrong without clearly saying what she wanted or expected. 

By this point I had teared up and was visibly upset, and my mom looked at me, taken aback. She said, "Oh. I see. You just want to accept you the way you are."


She has never said anything like this before, and I was both stunned and thrilled. "Yes!" I said. "And I'm pretty awesome!"


She laughed and said she knew I was, but that was not the end of the conversation. 

-The second thing she revealed was that when she was talking to my dad soon after my coming out, he actually teared up because he was so upset. I have only seen my dad cry once in my life. My mom actually started tearing up when she started talking about it, which made me realize just how raw the moment must have been for her too. She said that he was upset about how I am his daughter and his little girl, but how did I turn out looking and being so much like him? Why am I like one of his sons? And that's when it really sunk in that for my parents being gay or lesbian = wanting to be the "opposite gender". What is hardest for them to accept isn't that I am attracted to women or am in a relationship with a woman, but that I have a masculine gender presentation, that I am not a "traditional" woman or daughter.

-Eventually, she connected her preconceptions and beliefs about gender to her feelings around my clothes. She admitted that she did not nag my brothers about the way they dress and has always been more critical of me. Mom realized that this whole time it wasn't that the clothes I was wearing were actually sloppy, poor quality, or ill-fitting, but that I was wearing clothes that she didn't think her daughter should wear, that I dressed more like a man. And it wasn't that the clothes weren't fitting, it was that I wasn't fitting her gendered expectations. She even talked about how if I were her son she'd think I was very handsome and good-looking. 


-Another thing I told her was to let go of her worries that my sexual orientation is a cause of suffering, pain, and hurt in my life. I told her that it has been a positive part of my identity, that I have a community, friends, and partner because of it, and that it has never prevented me from getting work or living the life I imagined. In fact my life has been enriched by my queer identity.


We ended the conversation in a good place, thanking each other for being honest. She said that she is relieved that she didn't have to worry about me so much anymore. I told her to not worry about things that don't reflect reality (hmm, seems like this is a family habit) 

Thinking about our conversation now, there is so much to process, but also so much to be grateful for:


-Being able to speak honestly with my mother and together get to the truth behind matters. I now know for sure that it's not that my parents don't like the way I look or think that I'm tasteless, but that they have been adjusting to me and my way of being in the world. And sometimes that is hard, but at least now we are talking about the same thing and know it is about gender. 


-That I am able to hold onto a strong and positive sense of self in the face of someone who has the ability to pierce it and make me feel small (however unintentional it may be). I was able to draw hard boundaries in terms of what I will not accept from my mom in how she treats me, and told her firmly that I was not going to change the way I dress and move in the world. 


-That I could get her to realize that all I want is for her to accept me the way I am, and that the way I am is more than enough. 


These affirmations are mixed in with the sadness of the realization that my father sees me being like him as a problem, but I know too that he is making his own journey. He is grieving the daughter he imagined but never had. His most respectful and filial child, the one most invested in having a strong relationship with him and his wife, is not one of his sons. I think that time, conversations with my mom, and adjusting to the complicated but full and vivid reality of who I am will help him find peace. 


This conversation showed me that I know who I am and that speaking from a place of wholeness and truth is an act of kindness and self-love. And it feels pretty damn good!