My I wrote about being weird all my life, but not really realizing it for several decades. You can read part one here. The realization did not hit all at once, but it came in drips and drabs over time.
I came out publicly during an acting class. The two leaders were queer Asian women, and I thought, “What the hell.” They told me later that they looked at each other and were like, “Is she coming out?” Which, I was, indeed. I naively thought that telling my mother would be if not positive, then at least neutral because she’s a therapist and because she had just listened to my cousin come out as gay and was very supportive.
I wish I could have told the younger me to not come out. At least even then, I knew that I should not bring it up in front of my father. I’m not even sure he knows about it now–that I’m not straight, I mean. At the time, I reluctantly called myself bisexual, though I was never completely comfortable with it. I couldn’t find a descriptor that I actually like, so it was more default than anything else.
When I was in my twenties, I declared I didn’t want to be in a relationship, which was a lie. I wanted it desperately. What I didn’t want, however, was to get married. That realization really hit me in my thirties and that started me really questioning the whole romance bullshit. In our society, it’s still considered the normal trajectory to get married in your late twenties/early thirties and then to squeeze out children soon thereafter. I’m really discouraged that this hasn’t changed much at all. In fact, when queers fought for marriage equality, I wasn’t enthused about it because it was still upholding a rigid traditional institution that I did not believe in. I really wish the first push had been for workplace equality, but that’s neither here nor there.
So I don’t care about marriage at all. It seems more misery than pleasure, but I will fully admit that’s my bias. It’s partly because I read advice columns and they are never letters about happy marriages. It’s also because of my parents’ marriage, which is fifty-plus years in the making, which is a sticking point with my mother. I know she thinks that I’ve repudiated her entire life–and she’s not wrong, but she’s not right, either.
Side Note: My parents are really traditional. And you might say it’s because they’re older, having been born in 1939 and 1942 AND living in Taiwan. Here’s the thing, though. All the old fogies who were born in early last century, they LIVED THROUGH THE REST OF THAT CENTURY AND THE BEGINNING OF THIS ONE. It’s not like they were cryogenically frozen for sixty years and then thawed to exist now. They lived through the sixties, the nineties, and the teens of this century. They have experienced the world as it changed; it’s not as if they could miss what was going on around them. So the fact that they are stuck in the last century is on them. Taiwan has evolved over time–they just haven’t.
Have I rejected my mother’s way of life? Yes. Is it specifically because of HER? That’s more complicated. It’s not done out of spite, I can tell you that much. That’s the part that I don’t think she understands–in part because she’s a narcissist. Everything has to be a reflection of her–even when it’s not. My brother is going through something big right now, and she’s more focused on her own feelings/reaction to it. Which, I mean, valid. Everyone is allowed to have their own reaction to a major event. Except, she made it about her when it was about him. And that’s her M.O. for everything. If I tell her how I’m doing after she asks (and only when she asks), she’ll quickly say that she also is tired, has a cough, whatever. She says she doesn’t know how to talk to me with the intent of making me feel guilty. Except, any time I bring up anything important to me, it’s blank stares and silence from her. It’s her fantasy that we are close or have ever been close. We have not and will not ever be close as long as she constantly puts my father first at the expense of everything else.
Is her marriage to my father the major reason I do not want to get married? Yes. But not because it’s traditional. Because their marriage is a toxic stew of dueling (and dual) narcissism, enabling behavior, and exclusion of everyone/everything else. Not to mention outdated thinking about gender roles and the institution of marriage itself.
Is she the reason I did not want children? No. I didn’t want them because I didn’t want them. The thought of having children nauseated me, quite frankly, and felt as if someone was choking me to death. That’s not a popular thing to say, believe you me, and I would never say it in the gen pop, but it’s true. There are 132 things I’d rather do than have children, and having another cardiac arrest is on that list.
But is the fact that I didn’t want to expose any children to my parents at least one of the reasons I didn’t want kids? Yes. The first reason was that I didn’t want them. Two through ten were also that reason. Then, the next reason was that I did not want to have my hypothetical children to have any kind of relationship with my parents, and I knew I wouldn’t be strong enough to cut them off. Again, though, that wasn’t not in my top ten reasons for not having kids.
Not being religious was because of the huge and continuous lie that fundamentalist Christianity pushed upon a young me–that sex would send me to hell. Once I realize that wasn’t true (or rather, how great sex is), I stopped even trying to find faith. I cannot tell you how much this was pushed on me while I was in church. My impression was that it was the worst sin you could commit–above murder. When i had sex for the first time (and it was terrific, by the way), the smoke and mirrors about how evil sex was vanished. As I mentioned in the last post, once the light is aimed at the bogeyman and he disappears in a puff of smoke, it’s really fucking hard to have any kind of faith again.
Mind you, my mother didn’t help. Her religion is very important to her, and she couldn’t stand it that it wasn’t to me. One time, the youth group from the LA (main) branch of the Taiwanese church she belongs to came to visit. Apparently, she cried to them about me leaving the church. They surrounded me and asked if they could pray for me. They also asked if they could lay their fucking hands on me. Fortunately, I had my wits about me enough to say no to the latter, but not to the former. They put their hands near my body without quite touching me and started speaking in tongues. Not all of them, but enough of them to freak me the hell out. Did it do anything to make me want to go back to the church? HELL NO.
My mom sent me a video of an American who had a near-death experience. He was an atheist before the experience, but became religious afterwards (guess why she sent it to me?). He said that while he was unconscious, a beautiful brunette woman appeared to him in a halo of light. She gestured to him to come forward and hugged him or some such shit. He said that because of this, he was convinced there was a god. He went on to say that many people who had near-death experiences said the same thing.
Cool story, bro. But if we’re comparing near-death anecdotes, I have one as well. You know what I saw when I was unconscious? Nothing. One minute I wasn’t, and the next minute, I was. It’s more akin to being asleep and then waking up. There was no angel or warm, glowing light. There was nothing. And if this doctor wants to say without any citation that most people who experience death have some kind of god experience, I can say the opposite with abandon as well.
It’s nearly my 51st birthday. By all rights, I should be dead. I am going to celebrate my bonus days and continue to marvel that I beat death. Twice.