I'm standing here on the eve of my new life. One day, less than twenty-four hours, and I will be on my way to... not a new me, but the real me. I wish I was excited. I wish you were here, holding my hand.
Where are you?
Oh. Right. You are not on the other end of the phone, or the other side of a computer screen, even. Not interested in holding my hand, or even smiling at me. Because I hurt your feelings. In a moment that was supposed to be mine. In a moment that you are selfishly interpreting as being in any way about you.
How dare you think that this is in ANY way about you?
Let me back track. Allow me to clarify. I made a video. A coming out video. It was about me. About being different as a child. About exploring my sexual identity as a young (woman? I guess at the time I was, or thought I was). About still not feeling right. And about finding the right thing for me. I'm a man. Or a boy. And its time for the world to know. It was hard to say. But I got on that camera, and I let the words speak for themselves. It was powerful. It felt good. I got a lot of support.
Except from you. Because I dared to tell a dirty family secret: My parents are drunks. I told. I told about how you, Mom confronted me while drunk. And how you asked me if I was gay or straight, or what. How you were hurtful.
Its the truth. My parents are drunks. In truth, the moment was severely downplayed. In truth, I spent my childhood watching my parents fight. Physically. Verbally. And sometimes you turned on me. Physically. Verbally.
But I didn't put that in the video. It wasn't about that. You are not monsters, and I have learned a lot from watching you. But the moment I talked about was real. And it was how I ended up coming out to you. And I feel like that was a loss for me. And for us. So I put it into the video so you would understand how that moment effects this one. Where I come out on MY terms, not anybody else's.
But it was too much for your fragile ego. I shattered the lie you have told the world and the lie that I now understand you have been telling yourselves. Drunk. Mean.
And so you made my moment about you. And it isn't about you. This isn't about you.
Maybe you're confused and hurt that the person you thought was your daughter turns out to have been your son all along. Maybe you need to pin that pain on something, and blame me for it. I am trying to understand. And to be okay with that. But to have you turn away from me in this moment is too painful to understand. And each day that goes by where I don't hear from you only causes the pain to multiply. Every time I hear from someone who is supportive, I can only think of how you aren't there, doing the same.
Shame on you.
Its the eve of my new life. And I'm going to live it, with or without you. But I wish it wasn't this way. I wish you were here.
-Bear
