Pride Stickers

While commuting this morning, I noticed the car in front of me sporting a rainbow colored peace sign. My first instinct when I see a pride sticker on a person's car is to peer through the window and make my assessment on who in the car is gay, who might or might not be their partner and wonder if the kids in the back were conceived through IVF or are just visiting relatives. My gaydar kicks on and I make sure to stay within a certain distance until I am sure I have sized up the situation and pacified my curiosity.

Passing judgment because I can relate is still passing judgment. I had no idea what the orientations of the occupants of the car were, I assumed. I assumed because they advertised a reason for me to assume. I was guilty of seeing something that registered as homosexual and ran with it, guilty of what I so strongly oppose in others. I told myself I just wanted to feel the connection. Belonging to a small community, it makes sense to try to recognize those similar to you. That's where it should have ended; happy to see an openly gay person driving to work like I was. Instead I tried to sort out their personal life, something that is none of my business; something that I cannot accurately do without personally knowing these people.

The rest of my commute was spent in thought. Advertising who we are enables the world to see just how infiltrated we are with everyone else. However, it also opens the door for judging and hate to find an easier target. Some days I feel I should be loud and proud, other days I have the attitude that if I want to be treated like the rest of society I need to just act like the rest of society; that drawing attention to my differences keeps me at arms length. I suppose there are arguments for both thought processes.

I don't have a sticker on my car. I did once, but my daughter asked me to take it off. I drove her to school each morning. She had no fear of being picked on for having two moms, she just didn't understand why I had to advertise. I recall her saying "Mom, you don't see straight stickers on people's cars, you are no different." She was more concerned that the sticker would give people a reason to judge me without knowing me.

Smart kid.

Bucket List

A while back a friend was talking about her bucket list. During that time I wasn't feeling particularly well and couldn't put much thought other than feeling well into what my bucket list would consist of. Today I saw the mention of a bucket list in someone's post and it reminded me I wanted to revisit the idea of creating my own.

I was quite surprised at how difficult it seemed to make this list. I started wondering if I had become so dull that coming up with the thought of experiencing something new and exciting was too far of a reach. I wondered if I was subconsciously keeping myself from wanting more than I deserved. I told myself that a bucket list was supposed to be selfish, and that it was OK to desire things, especially those you have sacrificed for a greater good like marriage and family. I reminded myself that selfish doesn't always mean self centered. That selfish also pertains to the feel good we experience when doing something good for someone else.

Taking all that into consideration here is the far from complete list.

Publish my book
Get a breast reduction
Travel out of the country
Get married, for real
Buy someone a car
Learn French
Have a session with Ellen Fisher Turk
Go ballroom dancing
Learn how to play the guitar and piano
Save someone from themselves
Feel comfortable in public with my spouse
Visit Victoria Falls
Have someone famous record my song lyrics
Own a dungeon
Spend a weekend completely alone in the middle of no where
See the Northern Lights
Throw a huge party
Walk at least one of my children down the aisle
Have a closet just for boots
Feel well for one entire day

To be continued......

Newlywed Game

I glanced at the television as I walked by the other day and noticed the Newlywed Game was on. I often like to answer the question silently in my head and even throw them out aloud to my better half to see how she would answer them. One particular question I couldn't seem to find an answer to was "what about your partner would you like smaller, and what would you like larger?" The physical answers the contestants came up with primarily pertained to "boobs". The non physical ones were also fairly non specific "smaller mess, smaller anger" basically anything that wouldn't result in a war back in the hotel room after the show.

Typically I would have turned to my wife and asked her to answer the questions. I did not however. The realization that I would learn that she wasn't happy with parts of me was more than I could handle. I took a quick inventory of my body parts and wondered what she would pick. Most likely, had I asked the question, she would have chosen her answers carefully and diplomatically knowing my sensitivities. For that I love her. But truth be told, I wouldn't have believed they were the honest answers. My inventory included everything that doesn't seem to fit proportionately. I think about the curvy, fit women I am not. I think about the androgynous genderless person I feel but again, am not. I think about the masculine dyke, again, no. I don't fit anything, and surely she sees that. She may not love me less, but she has to recognize all the parts don't fit the package. A bag of mixed parts. She must have a preference, and I am probably not it.

I took a minute to think, if I asked for her answers, she might reciprocate and ask me for mine. What would I answer? My inventory taking turned to her body. I came up blank. I wouldn't want anything bigger. She is already taller than me and bigger than me. Some days I hate that I am so small. I thought about what I would want smaller. She is a big girl. But would I want her smaller? I really don't care. I want her to be however she is comfortable being. So no, I wouldn't want her smaller if she didn't want herself smaller. I pictured all the parts of her bigger and smaller, morphing her in my mind. No picture made me want or love her any more or differently than I do now.

I wonder why it is so difficult to believe someone else could feel that way about me?

On The Inside

Looking into the mirror this morning, I realized it was a day when I don't look on the outside how I feel on the inside. I got thinking about the gazillion times I have heard people say, "Its who you are on the inside that matters". While I agree with that statement, I felt a little resentful that the phrase doesn't pertain to me. Who I am on the inside is the basis for everything people judge me for. Who I am on the outside is pretty typical and unnoticeable. The inside is where my identity, my sexual orientation and my past lies. The very things that have the ability to make me ugly and unworthy to a great majority of ignorant closed minded people. And while I recognize the fact that they mean nothing to me, it is those same hypocritical people that make the "its who you are on the inside that matters" statement when they or their loved ones are being cruelly judged.

When I have to face the stranger in the mirror I don't see who I am, I pick apart everything that is not what it is supposed to be. I look to my maturity and knowledge for comfort. I tell myself I know who I am and I am comfortable with that. I try to convince myself that others don't matter, but in reality, they do. Today I wondered, as the years slip by, will there ever come a time when I step in front of that mirror and see myself, not someone else using my insides as a way for their outsides to get around.

"It's who you are on the inside that matters". If that is so, then why do so few people bother to look there?

Straight Women

The book I am reading touches on an intimate relationship between two women,one lesbian and one straight. The story takes me back to a time in my life when I preferred to court straight women. I always loved a good game of cat and mouse. I loved the chase and the conquest. I loved the attention. Although being the token lesbian in the group gets tiring, I never exhausted of straight women needing to know that if they wanted to, I would say yes to them. Now that I am older, and a whole lot wiser, I know their attention had little to do with me, a lot to do with their own ego.

As I am reading I am reminded that I struggle daily with the thoughts of "When will she remember what she liked about men and return to them?". Even after fourteen years of being together, it has never left my head. In days past I didn't care. Men were not a threat to me, they still aren't. However that is my perception of them, and I cant possibly know what anyone else truly feels. I worry endlessly that the sex is not enough, that although I can connect in ways no man can, I cannot do what they do. Not really. Will there come a time when she misses that more than she enjoys me?

I love straight women. I always have. There is something innocent yet fiery about them. Those first moments are indescribable. To feel the unbridled passion and freedom pour from them is exhilarating. Unfortunately as soon as she catches her breath, reality typically rears its ugly head. The truths of what it means to be in a same sex relationship surface. The sudden need to hide who they are. The realization that they now have to endure what comes with being a minority. The fact that indeed, the world is very different from this place. For some its worth the effort, for most, it is not.

I have always preferred straight women. I lived for the once in a life time experiences I knew they could never find with their male partners. A long time ago I was happy to forsake an honest relationship for those moments. Today I am a different person. I have not changed, I have evolved. I do not need the conquests and obsessions like I did then. I do not need the attention and the validation. However,as much as those needs have diminished, the need to feel safe has not.

I am hoping for a happily ever after for my book couple's relationship, and for my own.

When Family Counts

I am a fairly patient person. OK, no I am not. But I do understand that change takes time. I also recognize that evolution is a slow process. So I get it that gay rights are progressing at a snail's space, but they are progressing none-the-less. I don't consider myself oppressed, as I feel that places a very negative value on who I am. I consider myself unfortunate to share the world with bigots, unwarranted hatred and a whole lot of ignorant people. The point at which my patience truly stops and my understanding goes out the window is when my children come under attack simply for being my children, and my family is not recognized as such.

I am well aware of the lack of rights I have in regard to marriage. I realize I have no claim on my wife's estate or her on mine. I know we are not afforded the same benefits through the government as our heterosexual counterparts. That being said,I should at least have the right to dictate who I choose to call family. My children do not legally belong to my wife who is the head of household according to the Census. That in essence denies any of us in the household to state we are a family, including me and my biological children.

According to the 2010 Census, I am a single person and there are two children living in the house. My wife is just a single person in the house. With no sexuality questions on the form, and the Census' lack of recognition of same sex marriage and relationships, the counts are skewed beyond belief. The purpose of the census is to acquire population data. That data is used to allocate funding, provide adequate social and health policy, and determine economic policies.

How can the gay and lesbian community be counted and taken seriously if on paper they don't even exist? How can policy makers take a look at the benefits or lack there of for providing services, marriage equality etc to the community when it doesn't accurately know who the community consists of? Most of all, how can they make the determination that my children are not part of a family because I am not the head of the household?

I may not have the peace of mind knowing that my wife will get my social security benefits or even that my same sex relationship is recognized by the government, but I thought I had the right to claim my own children as my family. If I lived alone they would be my family but since I am committed to a partner and our family as a whole, somehow it has diminished all meaning on paper.