-
Posted by wendy larsen
April 18, 2009
Filed in Society Girl's Personal Blogs
1,511 views
The rural mid-west is a different world, with different values and a different way of life. Slower, less sophisticated, less pressured but with much more focus on the people around you, the community, the individuals and therefore more intrusive. People do not forget....EVER. If you are Out in the mid-west, you are really Out. Social pressure can be very strong. Much of community is focused around a variety of Christian churches and around schools. Local sports teams are the focus for excitement. A celebrity may be Orville Redenbacker. Some neighbors may drive a horse-and-buggy. Yet in winter, after a blizzard, a posse of neighbors may show up on snowmobiles to see if outlying neighbors are safe and need anything. Friends and Enemies may last a lifetime. Everybody knows your business.
I approached my mother on the morning of the second day. I was rested and ready to take the step that could blow up on me and cost me my family. I had already seen the change that years there had made on one of my once free-thinking family members. Their stand on same-sex marriage shocked me. I never thought I'd hear such from their mouth. The community had changed them. Now the pressure was really on. The price, if I was wrong about my mother, was high. Had she changed in the long years of isolation in this social structure? Was I about to get a Christian, verbal whipping? I was "alone", no internet connection to seek last-minute counsel and support from my friends at TW. I thought about Lucy Diamond, what she would say and what I needed to do. I also knew that my mother deserved to know the truth about her child, even this late. It was a step I had to take for her and for me and for those people who would, one day, come to me for counsel, no matter the results. If things went very bad, I could take an earlier train to Chicago. If not, I had a few days to spend with mom, provide support and education, and give us a chance to get acquainted as we never had before. Mother and daughter. If it must be done, 'twer best done quickly.
And so it was. I prefaced the news with "You may think that what I am about to tell you is a bad thing but I want you to know it is not. I am happier than I have ever been in my life because of it and I would not change it for anything." Then I dropped "the bomb". "I am transgendered. I was born part girl." Etc. It was over fairly fast. Mum survived the Blitz in London. Mom accepted it right off, showed no distress, reassured me that she did not care and she loved me without any difference. It seems that, still a devout Christian, she regularly laid into the more fundamentalist crowd over the topic of GLBT persons and True Christianity. She's a friend of our Community. She had no significant questions, and I asked and offered. She sent me off with a stack of ladies tops from her wardrobe. I took that opportunity to apologize, with a shy smile, for borrowing her things when I was child. She also gave me the name she had decided on for a daughter. Jeanette (Zyah-net). Nobody could ask for a better Mom. Lucy was right again, MOST people will accept you. It was wonderful talking to her with a lifetime of pressure gone. I was Wendy Jeanette, my mother's daughter. The next day I readily asked her for one of her nail buffers to repair my nails and dipped into some of her skin care items. She loves lavender, as I do. We sat across from each other in the dining room, in front of the bay window, with farms stretching into the distance, and talked as we never had before for I was really Me and not some creation to fit a male role. I was so, so happy. Yes, waterworks.
I passed on telling the other family member. Time enough for that later, if needed. I chose to glow in the wonder of being Me with mum. I must go back again soon.
NEXT: U-BOAT HUNTING IN DOWNTOWN CHICAGO.
[I apologize for any "a" errors but my key died during this post. The keyboard needs a cut and shampoo or replacing.]
