thelesbianlifestyle.com

My version of family has always consisted of love. To me, your family should be there to help you bend before you break. They are your support, your confidants, and often times end up being your best friends. It doesn’t always happen that way, but even when our blood relatives fail us we still search for “family” in one form or another. This search is most evident in the gay community. Although I don’t think our hearts ever do mend from the wounds of the loss of a family member no matter the circumstances.

One of the largest rolls family can play happens in our elder years. I know I will take care of my parents until it is impossible for me to do so. And even then I will visit them and be there for them as much as I can. Knowing that as a single lesbian quickly approaching her thirties, I wonder then, who will take care of me? I haven’t ruled out having children of my own yet, but when thinking about the future one must make all sorts of assumptions. So what will happen to me when I’m 80, what will happen to you? This is a question most put off until it’s simply too late.

My brother and his fiancee just had a baby girl on March 24th. When she is in her forties, and if I am still alive, I hate to think that the burden of me would fall on her. However when I look at her, and knowing my brother they way I do, I know that should I need her at that time she will be there. Laughing all the while she wipes this old dyke’s ass. Remembering what a great aunt I was, and tearing up a little knowing that at that point in life I probably won’t know my mouth from my ass.

If ever I come into money I would love to erect (no pun intended) a brilliant gay nursing home. I would have disco nights for the boys, mechanics for the ladies, and wig making for the queens. It would be a place full of extravagance mixed with the homey feel that it seems we are always in search of. That would be my gift to myself and to everyone else who’s scared shitless of aging. We could go out with a fucking bang just like we do at the parades, clubs, and rallies, that we have now. Cause to think about dying alone is nothing any of us want to face. If I built the best gay nursing home in the world we would all die with our family by our side.