Mercury Poisoning Part 8

     
    If you know anything about me by this time, I mean, if you've been kind and gracious enough to read

the sometimes strange ramblings I put out here, then I hope you have come away with the belief that I am

an accepting, open-minded, non- judgemental type. I am, right?  I mean, I volunteer at a clinic teaching

people about safer sex and condoms and administering HIV tests and just basically try my best to spread

some love and caring in the world in my own, albeit kind of small, way. I am and always will be a staunch

supporter of gay rights, a women's right to choose, the repeal of the military's DADT policy...basically all

the usual suspects the hipster doofuses get excited over. So if all this is true, and it is, it truly is: then why

did I spend the day of my own daughter's coming out in tears? 

         
        It didn't exactly come as a huge shock to me. I think I've always suspected. I have even asked her

on a couple occasions if she thought it might be a possibility. She said no, it wasn't, and I always let the

subject drop. But I guess it's one thing to suspect and quite another to hear it out loud. I wasn't upset at

all by the mere fact that she is gay and that is the gospel truth. Hand to God. She is gorgeous and smart

and kind and exactly what God, or Buddha, or Allah or whatever that mystical being "officially" answers

to created her to be. She is exactly what she was intended to be, no wiring defects here. But I do think

part of me had to admit that I was crying because it was a kind of loss. I had to let go of the idea that

her life would unfold a certain way- a man would be met and most likely married and then, kids might

come and they would live happily ever after. This took me about two minutes to get over, by the way.

The wheels quickly spinning in my head realized that hey!, she's got a uterus so having childen will

be relatively easy if and when she decides she wants any, unlike gay men who often times have to

jump through hoops to become fathers, bless their hearts. And anyway, most marriages end in up in

divorce, right? Heterosexuality ain't no guarantee of happiness, that's for damn sure. No, that wasn't

the main reason for the waterworks. That came to me the next night.


          Just by sheer coincidence ( or maybe not so coincidentally, if you want to look at it that way),

I was meeting an old friend for a drink or two after work. After a couple wonderfully strong Jack and

Diet Cokes I filled him in on the news. He is the smartest person I know, which truthfully doesn't mean

that much, considering my world is pretty small, but I truly think he'd still be the smartest person I know

even by non-hermit standards. He's just so intelligent and witty, with a dry and rather camp sense of

humor not too unlike my own, and although I usually don't care for too much closeness I find myself

feeling like I'd make an exception for him. And by this I mean an emotional type of closeness, not a

sexual kind. Funnily enough, he keeps people at arms' length as well, so I have accepted the fact that

"close" may not be the right word for our friendship. We are most definitely cut from the same cloth,

that's for sure! And oh yeah, he's gay. But I really didn't need to clarify that, did I?


          So after I tell him he just smiles and tells me he's touched that I shared this with him and I can

tell he means it. And as I' m looking at him it dawns on me: there are people in this world who think my

kind friend here, and my sweet daughter, my beautiful little girl, and every other GLBT human being out

there are defective. Sinful. Something to be looked down upon or, almost worse in my book, something

to be pitied. And I have to accept the fact that I can't protect her from these knuckle dragging, horrific

excuses for humans. AND IT'S KILLING ME. I tell my friend I fear I may have to kill somebody if they

fuck with my baby. How dare they? I'm already fighting imaginary villains in my head. So he tells me

to take a deep breath, calm down. She is going to be fine. We are going to be fine. He tells me he

hasn't spoken to his own father for many years, and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure

out why. He tells me the important thing is, she came to you and told you. She knew she could come

to you. That's amazing. And I am not an educated woman here, and I certainly don't lay any claim to

being a perfect mother, but you know what? I can tell you without a single doubt in my mind that I

handled this moment in time in just the right manner. I told my daughter this right after she told me:

"This changes nothing. You are the exact same person that were two minutes ago. My love for you

is unending. There is nothing to be ashamed of, or to apologize for. You have done nothing wrong.

You are exactly who you are supposed to be. And I could not be prouder of you."  This, my friends,

is THE only right answer. This I know. And even if you yourself are one of those knuckle draggers

mentioned above, and your child comes out and you don't believe any of it to be true, you still need

to say it. And keep saying it until you believe it. Because it's the truth.

 
          Two nights later, I am at a gay bar's annual street festival passing out condoms and safer sex

brochures on behalf of the clinic with a friend from work, my daughter, and her girlfriend, a rather

sheltered Italian girl with braces and a very sweet disposition. We get lots of hugs and thank yous

from the men there and I get my fill of aging queens in leather short- shorts and after downing a

couple vodka shots, I very politely ask a gorgeous guy in a low cut shirt if he'd be kind enough to

let an old crow cop a feel of his perfectly lovely, super- duper hairy chest. He graciously obliges,

my daughter is a tad horrifed and all in all, I can think of a lot worse ways in which to spend an

evening! One cowboy politely declines the condoms, explaining that he's been monogamous with

his husband for twenty years now. "Bareback all the way!" he declares, and this makes me smile.

Music to my ears. I introduce my daughter and her pal as "partners" to, oddly enough, the lone

straight guy who seems to have wandered into the festivities as if by accident. "Oh my God", she

says. "I'm nineteen! We're not partners! We're just going out. "Partners" sounds so creepy and

weird and old." I tell her to cut me some slack. Call it what you will, the bottom line is, it's all about

love. And that's a beautiful thing.