thelesbianlifestyle.com

Reflecting on the first question, I thought of what I gave my partner last year - a snowboard. Seems entirely unromantic and over the top, but there is a little background. Before we got together, I was competitive, and pretty good at it. We’ve been together for four years, and I’d never bugged her to do it with me - she wasn’t into it. But she started making noise about learning, so I got her one with the promise that I’d teach her (with uncharacteristic patience). As with the best gifts, I think it meant as much to me as it did to her. We had a good number of fun, active days outside in the cold, some more successful than others. All ended with a beer or a glass of wine and some laughs over the day’s events. There were more wins than losses, and it’s now a passion that I get to share. But that’s not what I ultimately decided to write about.’Tis almost the season. To me, partner, and countless others in the GBLT2QQ community, tis almost the season for emotional turmoil and revisiting the dreaded closet. We migrate from the various parts of the region, province (state), country and world to visit our families. The lucky ones, anyways, who are still welcome. And most of us are still in the closet to some degree.

I’m out with my amazingly supportive immediate family of Irish Catholics. No small feat, I assure you - but they made it seem like one. Extended family, of which we have little, is another story. (I’m well aware of the irony of an Irish Catholic with a small extended family. Ever heard of a potato famine?) We all sort of came to the consensus that it was not worth telling the grandparents - they’re entirely clueless, despite the fact that partner spends many holidays with us.

When I go to partner’s family, who are less supportive, her remaining grandmother knows, but visitors to the house are constantly perplexed by me and their inability to figure out why partner and I share a dog. Slowly, things get better. But man, that closet is dark.

And then come the ‘friends’. Any people we find to be worth remaining in touch with know. But hitting a pub in the old neighborhood guarantees encounters with acquaintences from high school or before, who don’t need to know. And then comes the well-meaning question…

Them: “So, do you, like, have a boyfriend and stuff?” (I went to a school full of the Canadian version of valley girls - they talk a little slower and say “eh?” more.)

Then comes the internal struggle - make my life easier by telling them, and put my parents in the centre of the gossip circle? No, that’s not really too nice. They probably wouldn’t mind, but it’s still a concern.

Me: “Uuhhhhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmm….. I’ve been seeing someone, yeah.”

Them: “Omigahd, like, that’s so cool, what does he, like, do?” (Theoretically, I could be rid of them by being semi-honest and telling them that ‘he’ is a high school teacher. I can see their eyes glazing over due to the lack of a 6 figure income. They taught us some really solid values during chapel every morning at our school.)

Me: “You know what, my drink is empty, stay here, I’ll go refill….”

And so it goes. Perhaps I should just get on with it and say screw whoever doesn’t want me to tell or who doesn’t want to know…

Maybe I’ll just tattoo a rainbow to my head and get it over with. Or I’ll stop going to the bar. There are solutions to this problem. But being decked out with tinsel and lights doesn’t make the holiday closet any more pleasant.

Jen
outnproud.com