Drop the rope

When I was a kid, my dad taught me that if someone wants to pick a fight with me, just don't show up to the fight. It's kind of like when people play tug of war with you and you don't want the war to continue, you drop the proverbial rope.

A few years ago, I went off script and started conducting my own existence, rather than letting society or my elders determine my path.  I did this with the greatest ethical concern that I could muster at the time. I had extensive conversations with my spouse, and we agreed together that we could define our relationship however we wanted to.  No one else gets to define our marriage.  Society doesn't get to dictate how we relate.  Society defines marriage as between a man and a woman -- two people are legally bound to each other and are expected to have children, own property together, live together, sleep together, have sex with each other exclusively, and so on.

I'm 48 years old, and I came out as a lesbian a couple of years ago.  With my husbands knowledge and blessing, I'd started a relationship with a woman. She and I are still in that relationship today.  I am remaining married to my husband of now 25 years, and we are committed to parenting our two

teenage daughters.  Is this confusing?  Maybe it confounds those who want to put me in a patriarchal, heteronormative box.  Those people expect certain behaviors of women, in marriage, or of humans in general.  Those expectations have nothing to do with morality or ethics.  They are social constructs.  Those boxes, those confines, those expectations have been harming my very humanity all of my life.

Straight folks as well as LGBTQ folks might say that I should've never gotten married and had kids, and brought other humans into this confusing situation. I say keep on walking in your own shoes.  Mine don't fit you.

There is no road map for my life.  There are no self-help books. There is only me in this big world, trying to navigate around a bunch of rules that deny my identity, shame and condemn me.  I contend that if you aren't happy with me now, you wouldn't have been happy with me 30 years ago when I "should have" come out.  Those who shame and condemn the LGBTQ community will always find a reason to do so. That is their Modus Operandi. We can't expect them to change.  What I have to do is learn not to let them hurt me, and to be my authentic self regardless of the pushback.  I can't express to you how unfair that feels.  I have to tolerate them, even though they can't affirm and accept me.  I've been told, "I love you, but I can't participate in your lifestyle choices."  I have to accept that they do not understand love the same way I do, and that is their character flaw, not mine.

I am choosing to grow and change into my own ever-renewing and beautiful skin.  I am looking out for the people in the same boat with me, and I am banding together with them, if not in person, in spirit.  I will seek out those who I know have been harmed by the same people and actions that have harmed me, and I will not participate in condemnation or exclusion.  I will invite them to dinner with my girlfriend, and we will be in community together, if they choose. I will tell those who offer to love me how much gratitude I have for their loving acceptance.  I have friends whose well-loved children are in the LGBTQ community and I will tell them that I appreciate their parenting of their own children and of those they adopt as children in situ.

We can't live together if we are defining each other's paths. Nobody wants that for themselves. I acknowledge and accept you for who you choose to be, whatever side of the fence you're on.  I'm nearly a half-century old and some people think its their right to wag fingers at me for my "choices."  I'm not even going to tell them to get over themselves.  That's their work. I am dropping that rope. I've got my hands full, working on healing myself and being the best me I can be.