on if it's not one thing, it's your mother
Sometimes it’s hard to remember, but it’s not always a bad thing when someone tells me I’m like my mother. From the time I was little, it was always a negative thing to be told you’re just like your mother. Being raised in Maryland, I grew up with Dad’s family surrounding me and Mom’s a safe distance away in Florida. Mom was overweight, overly emotional, chronically late to everything, listened to Journey, and was just overall uncool. Given, I spent a lot of time with my father and they went through a divorce when I was quite young, so a lot of the animosity between them as ex-spouses was thrown in with some of the truth.
In reality, my mother is a little on the unstable side. She constantly seeks approval from others and just wants to be loved, like someone who is perennially in middle school. A time period where my mom was traumatized by the 1960’s and just never seemed to grow out of. She had an absent father (whom she loved dearly) and a bed-ridden mother (who, to this day, is a major hypochondriac). My mother picked up some bad habits and got attention in life the only way she was taught how: hospitalization. My mom has been in and out of the hospital with illnesses both real and in her head throughout my entire childhood and adult life. This is why my father received primary custody of us in the mid-nineties, a time when the mother was usually granted custody. Especially over a single gay man. The custody arrangement between my parents really was revolutionary.
From my birth until Dad married Jim, he and I created a bond that even ten years of living with a mentally abusive step-parent couldn’t break. While I hold my dad accountable for many horrible things I was subjected to as a teenager, I still love him and the man he is today is completely different. No longer is he the scared newly out gay man seeking approval from society and God telling him he’s not doomed to a life in Hell. I think this is something he struggles with to this day. As a result, his fire and brimstone vision of God has been spared from Katie and me because he was always so terrified of God’s consequences for him being a homo. So, where did my sense of morality and understanding of God come from?
While I like to think a lot of it came from my own mind and conclusions, I must say my mother had more of an impact on me than I thought possible. What I’ve come to realize about my mother is that while she was always seen as the weaker and lamer parent, there are so many things about her that people tend to overlook as ‘weak’ and ‘lame’ that really make her a beautiful human being. While I’ll be the first to tell you that my mother is crazy and drives me nuts and I can’t stand to spend more than a couple days at a time with her, the following statement about my mother is how I wholeheartedly and undeniably feel about her.
If you read my LJ enough, you know that I don’t have a dislike of religion nor do I consider myself to not believe in God, but I have a hard time dealing with Christians. As a whole, they seem quite contradictory. God loves all, god forgives everything, but oh, you as a homosexual are going to hell, end of story. The judgement and condemnation from these so-called Christians makes it hard to believe that they follow God’s message in its truest sense. There has been one woman I’ve met in my entire life who has held herself to the same standards she’s held others and never wavered. That woman is my mother. Mom is the only person I’ve ever met (including MCC preachers) who has proven to me that God really doesn’t take issue with gays. Her point of view? I’ve probably said it before on LJ, but to recap: God is love. Therefore, where there is love there is God, and who are you to deny that? Translation - if there is love between two men, God must be there. Pretty simple when you get down to it.
But back to my mother. I’ve never heard my mother utter a racist word, a homophobic slur, or a socio-economic insult about anyone. Ever. Well, except my father. And that’s different because he’s her ex-husband. My mother treats every person she meets as her equal and does not judge. As crazy as she makes me, she really is the most warm and accepting human-being on the planet. I have yet to meet her equal when it comes to walking the walk and talking the talk. She really does live her life according to how she thinks God would want her to. And while I may not share all of her religious views, I certainly respect her lack of hypocrisy. She makes Christianity not seem as scary and threatening as most of its followers. She makes it seem very inviting. And while I would never in a million years admit it to her, if it weren't for her, I don't think I would ever have come to terms with my own homosexuality and have been able to accept it without having the same conflicting issues my father has dealt with his entire life. My mother has given me the message and tools necessary to honestly and truly accept myself and know that there is absolutely nothing wrong with or immoral about me. That's right, my mother made me okay with being gay as a religious 16 year old and NOT my father.
There has never been a moment in my life where I have doubted that my mother loves me. While she may be suffocating most times, it really is only because, like the middle school girl, she wants to be included and involved in my life. While I love my dad and really feel like I share more personality traits with him than my mother, there are some traits that he and I share that I wish we didn’t. That being, I know I can be a bit judgemental with people and have a short fuse with those that annoy me. Meaning, I need to be more accepting of my mother and treat her well as opposed to shut her out when she annoys me. She really does only have good intentions.
My adult life has only shown me that my parents are flawed in their respective ways but overall just want Katie and me to be healthy and happy adults. They’ve tried to hide the aspects of themselves they’re ashamed of or self-conscious about (in fact, these only become prevalent now that I’m old enough to recognize them) and want my sister and me to learn from their mistakes. Katie and I are aware of these aspects of our parents that we don’t want to be and are doing our best to make sure that we can create ourselves with that in mind. Even so, while I do have some issues with both of my parents and see many traits in my family that I hope I don’t retain, I still need to remember that it’s not always a bad thing when someone says I’m like my mother.
In reality, my mother is a little on the unstable side. She constantly seeks approval from others and just wants to be loved, like someone who is perennially in middle school. A time period where my mom was traumatized by the 1960’s and just never seemed to grow out of. She had an absent father (whom she loved dearly) and a bed-ridden mother (who, to this day, is a major hypochondriac). My mother picked up some bad habits and got attention in life the only way she was taught how: hospitalization. My mom has been in and out of the hospital with illnesses both real and in her head throughout my entire childhood and adult life. This is why my father received primary custody of us in the mid-nineties, a time when the mother was usually granted custody. Especially over a single gay man. The custody arrangement between my parents really was revolutionary.
From my birth until Dad married Jim, he and I created a bond that even ten years of living with a mentally abusive step-parent couldn’t break. While I hold my dad accountable for many horrible things I was subjected to as a teenager, I still love him and the man he is today is completely different. No longer is he the scared newly out gay man seeking approval from society and God telling him he’s not doomed to a life in Hell. I think this is something he struggles with to this day. As a result, his fire and brimstone vision of God has been spared from Katie and me because he was always so terrified of God’s consequences for him being a homo. So, where did my sense of morality and understanding of God come from?
While I like to think a lot of it came from my own mind and conclusions, I must say my mother had more of an impact on me than I thought possible. What I’ve come to realize about my mother is that while she was always seen as the weaker and lamer parent, there are so many things about her that people tend to overlook as ‘weak’ and ‘lame’ that really make her a beautiful human being. While I’ll be the first to tell you that my mother is crazy and drives me nuts and I can’t stand to spend more than a couple days at a time with her, the following statement about my mother is how I wholeheartedly and undeniably feel about her.
If you read my LJ enough, you know that I don’t have a dislike of religion nor do I consider myself to not believe in God, but I have a hard time dealing with Christians. As a whole, they seem quite contradictory. God loves all, god forgives everything, but oh, you as a homosexual are going to hell, end of story. The judgement and condemnation from these so-called Christians makes it hard to believe that they follow God’s message in its truest sense. There has been one woman I’ve met in my entire life who has held herself to the same standards she’s held others and never wavered. That woman is my mother. Mom is the only person I’ve ever met (including MCC preachers) who has proven to me that God really doesn’t take issue with gays. Her point of view? I’ve probably said it before on LJ, but to recap: God is love. Therefore, where there is love there is God, and who are you to deny that? Translation - if there is love between two men, God must be there. Pretty simple when you get down to it.
But back to my mother. I’ve never heard my mother utter a racist word, a homophobic slur, or a socio-economic insult about anyone. Ever. Well, except my father. And that’s different because he’s her ex-husband. My mother treats every person she meets as her equal and does not judge. As crazy as she makes me, she really is the most warm and accepting human-being on the planet. I have yet to meet her equal when it comes to walking the walk and talking the talk. She really does live her life according to how she thinks God would want her to. And while I may not share all of her religious views, I certainly respect her lack of hypocrisy. She makes Christianity not seem as scary and threatening as most of its followers. She makes it seem very inviting. And while I would never in a million years admit it to her, if it weren't for her, I don't think I would ever have come to terms with my own homosexuality and have been able to accept it without having the same conflicting issues my father has dealt with his entire life. My mother has given me the message and tools necessary to honestly and truly accept myself and know that there is absolutely nothing wrong with or immoral about me. That's right, my mother made me okay with being gay as a religious 16 year old and NOT my father.
There has never been a moment in my life where I have doubted that my mother loves me. While she may be suffocating most times, it really is only because, like the middle school girl, she wants to be included and involved in my life. While I love my dad and really feel like I share more personality traits with him than my mother, there are some traits that he and I share that I wish we didn’t. That being, I know I can be a bit judgemental with people and have a short fuse with those that annoy me. Meaning, I need to be more accepting of my mother and treat her well as opposed to shut her out when she annoys me. She really does only have good intentions.
My adult life has only shown me that my parents are flawed in their respective ways but overall just want Katie and me to be healthy and happy adults. They’ve tried to hide the aspects of themselves they’re ashamed of or self-conscious about (in fact, these only become prevalent now that I’m old enough to recognize them) and want my sister and me to learn from their mistakes. Katie and I are aware of these aspects of our parents that we don’t want to be and are doing our best to make sure that we can create ourselves with that in mind. Even so, while I do have some issues with both of my parents and see many traits in my family that I hope I don’t retain, I still need to remember that it’s not always a bad thing when someone says I’m like my mother.