Not my Real Name

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

chainsaws at 7am

I don't want to feel like this. I'm tired. I'm full of dread. I hate Mom. I hate my borther. I won't actually post that part, but it's true. On the walk to work today all I did was think about a bunch of shit I wish I could say to my mom. About how terrible my brother is, or how much help he needs, or how I'm a lesbian and that's not changing. She refuses to accept me, but pretends that she does. It's just that the "parts" about me she doesn't accept she just looks at as childish and a rebellion. The problem is that those "parts" are the only parts I'm being honest about. All the shit she accepts is the character I play for her. Shakespeare wasn't kidding when he said "all the world's a stage, and we are merely players" (or something like that, come on, it's close); he was talking about being around his family. Which very well could be true because he had his family back in Stratford-upon-Avon, and his lovers—dudes and dudettes—with him in London. So he was playing along as well.

And I'm not talking about the parts we play just to be ourselves and get by in the world. Because of course I also play a part when I'm around friends or with Jessa or at work, but I'm not someone else. I'm not pretending to be an entirely different character. When I'm around the family, I pretend to be someone that I'm just not. I pretend to be a quiet and reserved proper lady, who just happens to have an odd haircut. But the truth of the matter is I'm an angry, radical feminist with a purposeful and hot gender queer haircut. I perform a slightly masculine (meaning non-femme) gender identity, rock my girlfriend's world 3 to 4 times a week, perform drag, work subversively, educate and advocate for social justice in everything I do, and have made a life for myself where I am happy, loved, respected, and successful.

Why is that so terrible to my mother? I know the whole anti-makeup, not-what-she's-used-to haircut might be a little tough, but I don't wear ties when I go home and I'm not out to my grandparents about whom I love and when I say what I do, I sugarcoat it so the small talk doesn't turn political.

Oh my god. I'm going to lose it.

Grampa died. He died one week ago today. I'm going to the funeral. It's next Saturday. I have to see the family. I'm going, but most of the time I really don't want to.

Do I need to cut off the family? What about the love I have for my grandmother? What about what it feels like inside of me when I can hear that she genuinely is happy and proud of me? I don't want to give that up. I don't.

And I'm working so fucking hard to be friends with Dad. I mean, I'm pissed at him—and rightfully so—for a lot of things that happened and should not have, but I'm trying to be his friend. I don't want him to be sad. I want to hug him when he's crying for his own father if it'll make him feel better. I love the idea that I could actually have an impact, and a positive one at that, on my father.

I assume most of the cousins will be there. They don't know me. It'd be cool if they did, but I'm happy to be the quiet and off-in-the-corner cousin who looks a little punky and is going back to Missouri the next day. I don't need these people. I don't want these people. The amount of pain that they could cause me is just far too great of a risk. I'd rather not know my cousins than get to know them and not like them and have them not like me. I know there's all the self-help books and "love is letting go of fear", but there's something intelligent about knowing myself well enough to know that it's far too great of a gamble.

I just want it to be over. I'm haunted by the overwhelmingly daunting weekend ahead of me. I hate this.

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