a woman

so i have this mom who likes girls. now, she's never admitted to liking girls but she did once pursue my brother's semi-ex girlfriend who was obsessed with him and was a psychotic compulsive liar. it was the "jerry springer" time in my life that hasn't quite petered out yet....

so, i have this mom who likes girls. it came as no surprise to well, anyone. i think it was this thing we all had thought. sadly, she kind of fits some of those stereotypes that us conscious people often want to think aren't real. but, i mean, they can be.

alma was a tomboy from jump. sports, sweat and all things un-girly ruled her world. in college she hoped to be a p.e. teacher. she played softball for the better portion of my childhood. makeup was this foreign concept except for some occasional lipstick. clothes or that fashion stuff held her attention just long enough to be rejected.

but the biggest signal was this weird obsessive relationship with her college roommate who also gives off the 'i like girls' vibe even while meandering through various relationships and marriages to the opposite sex. it was this weird thing since back in the day, according to my pops. but they lost touch then reconnected when i was in jr. high and then began the push and pull of their 'i love you. i hate you. i need you.' relationship that continues to this day. everyone down to my relatives who live in a rural town that i think has banished gay people suspect that there has always been more to this particular relationship than an innocuous friendship.

alma's sexuality is this weird thing that only exists in a parallel universe as far as i'm concerned. it isn't because it is a thing i don't want to deal with or because it makes me uncomfortable. my girl-liking-mom is the one who has relegated this vital part of anyone's life to the land of the untouchable. she has never confirmed that she is gay. she has never confirmed that she had a thing for the obsessed semi-ex of my brother. she had never confirmed that her relationship with the college roomie has ever reached beyond the platonic. but she lets all these facts simmer. it's like she thinks we don't notice. must be difficult to be a middle aged woman attempting to come to terms with her sexuality. maybe this is why she acts out in such inappropriate ways with inappropriate people.

so i have this mom who likes girls and i think she wanted to have a daughter that liked girls so that she could live vicariously through her. when i was a young, impressionable teen she took me to this movie about lesbians. i think my dad was opposed. not because of the theme but because it was pretty sexual and he wasn't clear on the purpose or intent of taking his daughter to such a flick. at any rate, we went. it was this awkward thing to say the least. and she and the college roomie spent a good deal of time instilling the 'fact' that men are these mean controlling people. all this while my mom was still married to my dad and the roomie was dating/ fucking any dude that would give her a second glance. and my girl-liking-mom would put all this pressure on me to not have sex with my high school boyfriend. it wasn't like my parents were conservative or that we were religious. i genuinely think it was a bit of a psychological tactic to keep me away from boys in case i liked sex with men. after all, how could she live her desires to be gay through me if it turned out i wasn't gay? alma would make my suiters feel uncomfortable if they were over for dinner but welcomed with open arms my brother's girlfriends. maybe she had crushes on these young lasses too. hard to say.

so i have this mom who likes girls and is too afraid to admit it to anyone or, in my opinion, herself even. instead she cowers in fear of living life for herself and has become a rather bitter old woman before reaching the age of old. it serves as a brilliant reminder to take risks and give a damn about what anyone thinks. but still, i find my self feeling rather sad and melancholy on behalf of my girl-liking-mom who is so out of touch with herself that she doesn't even know herself. alma exists in fear and pursues the unattainable. it is one of those realizations we have that demonstrates that our parents are, after all, just people too complete with bad behavior and poor decision making process. but my greatest hope for alma is that she connect with herself and grow to be a woman worth knowing, a woman worth loving, a woman in her own right.