Friday, June 5, 2009

Family Planning

As many of you who read this blog know...Well the two of you who regularly read this blog know...I have not always had the gotten along with my family. It is not that I don't love them, care for them or even worry about them. It is really that I don't like them very much. It is like I guess the Americans and the French. We are both in NATO, have shared interest abroad, we periodically fight wars together, trade goods, and intelligence. But, in reality we would rather just not have to deal with each other on a day to day basis. I guess it comes down to style.

I was home for the first time in four years a few weeks ago. I bit my tongue the entire time. I should not have. In not speaking up I did not only a disservice to everything that I stand for, I did a disservice to my family. Even though my family has know I was a BIG Ol' HOMO since I was fourteen...I spent nearly the entire trip and most of the past decade in sort of a mental 1984 in regards to them. Weighing my words, cutting out large portions of my life, not speaking about my friends because they are gay. I have never had a real conversation about my ex-partner, my friends, or my activism with my family. I have never felt like I was good enough for them. I have always felt like I am an embarrassment to them.

I will be twenty-five in less than a month and it has taken me twenty-two years to come to the conclusion that I will probably never get what I need out of my family. That every action that I choose to take in my life will be seen as some sort of act of subversion. I have also learned that I have to love the family, but this does not mean I must walk lock step with them. That I do not have to feel guilty for challenging them on their prejudices. That I must live my life with radical and uncompromising fervor in the world especially with my family.


I want to have my own family in the near future. I want children, a wife, a mortgage, my own small business. I want everything that is assumed my younger siblings will have at about my age. But, in order to do this I must start being honest and more open with the family that I was raised in. I have to break my own self imposed censorship. I can not fear them anymore. I can not think about starting a family of my own until I can manage the fear of the one that I have.

BF

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