Posted on by palmtreemomma

The Loneliness of the Closet

A week after my husband came out to me, I was sitting alone in the Chang Mai airport. The pink glow slowly turned to sunrise over the mountains as I sipped a cup of black Thai coffee. My brain barely registered the beauty around me as I waited in the quiet terminal for my flight home. I had never felt so alone in my life. Not only was I physically alone, I was getting my first glimpse into the loneliness of the closet.

Austin decided to stay on for an extra week of counseling but I needed to get back to the boys. The week had done nothing to bring healing to my weary soul. Instead, I was returning home alone, lost in the deepest darkest grief I had ever experienced. The worst part was needing to keep it a secret. The pain was staggering and the effort to wear a mask was like wrestling a wolf into a lambs costume. Somehow I managed to hold it together while I picked up the boys. I squeezed them tight and explained to them that their dad was coming home a week later.

Keeping it together for the kids


Each morning I put on my brave face and made breakfast for them and got them out the door and onto the school van. The minute they were gone, however, I crumpled and cried my weight in tears. The shock turned to a mix of anger and overwhelming sadness. It felt as if all the years of building a life together, of traveling the world and raising our babies was all for nothing. I was angry that I had not had a chance to know any of this before I said “yes” to spending my life with him. It felt like I had given him everything but he had held something back from me.

I sat in my quiet empty apartment and I cried. I wrote in my journal, Islept, I prayed, I researched online and I cried some more.


Afternoon would come and I would wipe away the tears. After I put on my “mommy’s okay” face, I would set out a snack and hug my boys. It took all I had to keep it together until they were out the door again the next morning. I wanted desperately to keep their lives as normal and happy as possible.

Life continued like this after Austin returned. We would talk and cry together after the boys were in bed, trying to figure out how to take the next step forward. There was one counselor in the city that we knew of at the time but I struggled to connect with him, so Austin went by himself. While it was good for him, it only deepened my feeling of being alone.

Unexpected Safety

One day a friend and I were talking at the American Club, while the boys splashed and played in the pool. It was a hot spring day and the breeze that pushed through the palm trees was warm enough to melt butter in the shade. My friend suddenly blurted out that she had been married at one time but her husband turned out to be gay. She said she didn’t know why she was telling me this. Something just unplugged inside of me and I was an instant hot mess. It was a sacred moment, the holy surprise of finding a place where I could be real and vulnerable. She pulled me in her arms as the sun glittered and bounced off the water filled with laughing children. She just held me, let me cry and told me I was not alone.

Self-care in the grief

If you are carrying the weight of grief alone in order to protect another, treat yourself with utmost kindness and gentleness.


We were not meant to bear the weight of grief on our own. When grief comes because of a story that is not ours to tell, the grief is twice as heavy. Honoring yourself and your pain can seem impossible when you feel you must protect another person. It’s like using your body as a shield to keep someone you love from being shredded by a giant fan. Yet you feel your own grip loosening and wonder if you are the one that will be shredded first.

If you are carrying the weight of grief alone in order to protect another, treat yourself with utmost kindness and gentleness. Take time daily to care for yourself. Find at least one person you can trust or an online group where you can be anonymous yet can speak. Find a therapist to make sure you are not in over your head and to keep you on a healthy track emotionally. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of this. The idea that you have to do this completely on your own is bullshit. I understand if you can’t tell your story to the world just yet, but neither do you have to do it alone.

The loneliness of the closet

I just can’t end here. As hard as this time and place was, it wasn’t I who had spent my life in the closet. Just thinking about it makes the air feel heavy and hard to push through my lungs. People are in the closet because that small, dark, suffocating, lonely place is their safest place. Think about that for a minute.

People are in the closet because that small, dark, suffocating, lonely place is their safest place.

Right now I don’t care what your background is or what your beliefs are. All of that is arbitrary in the face of another human being. We have forgotten to see each other as human first. To my straight friends I ask, what kind of humans are we if other humans feel safer in a closet than sitting beside us, telling us their story? It’s as if the story books and childish nightmares had it wrong all along. The monsters were not the ones in the closet, hiding to scare us. Perhaps the monsters have been the ones outside, forcing others to remain where they are.

Being safe instead of right

I grew up in an extremely conservative home where things like being gay were seen as nonnegotiable, black and white wrong. So I had a heck of a lot of questions. Yet there was one thing I was certain of. Being a safe person was more important than being “right.” My husband’s honesty put a very real face to something I always thought was “out there”. It was now up close, in my life, every day. As the two of us walked through the daily nitty gritty and became more honest with each other regarding all the emotions we were feeling, the need for safety became nonnegotiable.

So please, as one who has had an inside view, forget about trying to figure out what is right or wrong for another person. Being safe is more important than being right.


Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.

Posted on by palmtreemomma

In the Muck

After my husband’s revelation, I somehow picked myself off the riverbank. The rest of the week is a blur. Each morning we spent time at the counseling center before walking the city and and eating fiery Thai curry and gulping iced coffee. We took a Songtaew up the mountain and hiked deep into the woods. One day, as we entered the park near our hotel, we saw an elderly Thai couple enter the park ahead of us. Austin turned to me and told me that he wants to grow old with me. I couldn’t speak; it just hurt too much.


Emotionally I was a hot mess and could not stop crying. This had unsettled something deep inside of me and I felt a grief I had never known before.


Despite the fact that much of that week is a blur, it soon became crystal clear that Austin did not see this as the end of our marriage. In fact, he kept telling me that he still loved me. He was attracted to men, but he was also attracted to me. Austin wasn’t leaving me, he was right here, just speaking his truth.

What my shame told me


But here is thing, his deepest shame nudged up against my deepest shame and the result was a grenade blast to my inner being. It left me feeling like I was being shredded into tiny unrecognizable, worthless pieces.


Here was my deepest shame, which I believed was my truth –
I never had what it took to attract a normal, straight guy.

I carried this with me and wrapped it around me like a scarf until it became part of my identity.

My shame told me that I must be deeply flawed. I was never one of the cool, pretty girls when I was young; the guys I liked never liked me back. When I was in junior high, I was publicly humiliated and called disgusting. I carried this with me and wrapped it around me like a scarf until it became part of my identity. My experience told me I was disgusting and it was easy to believe because guys didn’t look at me twice. The first date I ever had was with Austin and I was 24 years old. I was sure something was wrong with me.


Austin’s love was so powerful and healing, and he had spoken so much truth into my soul. He helped me believe I was worthy and beautiful and he was a genuine agent of healing for me. But on that fateful day, it felt as if everything else was wiped away.

I had no bandwidth to process this and the questions kept forming inside of me. Was he gay? Could he be “healed” from this? Was this the beginning of the end of our marriage? How the heck was I supposed to go home and pretend that everything was normal?

Each day seemed to stir up more questions than answers. I longed to fly away from it all, like the butterfly in my dream. The reality was that I felt the mud and the muck seep into the deepening holes of my heart and wondered if I would ever fly again.

When clarity surprises you


Here is the thing – I lived smack dab in the middle of LGBTQness pretty much my whole life. It shaped me, even when I didn’t know about it. And when you know, you can’t un-know, so the shaping began in earnest nearly a decade ago. If you feel uncomfortable around LGBTQ+ humans, instead of justifying your discomfort, I challenge you to dig inside of yourself and find the source of your discomfort. Perhaps it has more to do with deeply buried personal shame than you care to admit.

For me, my husband’s shame quickly revealed my own deep shame. I figured out that the root of my pain had more to do with my own self loathing and insecurity than about my husband’s attraction to men.


For me, my husband’s shame quickly revealed my own deep shame. I figured out that the root of my pain had more to do with my own self loathing and insecurity than about my husband’s attraction to men.

So I sat in the muck for a while, with my questions and my tears. Once again I felt disgusting, sure that something was wrong with me and that I never was, and never would be, enough.

Hope in the grief

Guttural grief is like a grenade and when your soul is decimated by shrapnel seemingly beyond repair, just sit and breath in that space. It is not the end. The ribbons of your former self can be remade into something stronger and even more beautiful than before, if you surrender yourself to the process and unflinchingly face the shredding. You have an incredible journey ahead if you look for your truest self and choose life.


Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.

Photo courtesy of Adrienne Gerber Photography.

Posted on by palmtreemomma

Torn Wings

The Dream

“Sister, teach us something,” they said. But I was worn out and had nothing to give but exhausted love.

Beautiful women, wrapped in brightly colored cotton saris, reached out their hands to me in my dream and I began to walk with them. As we walked the glittery sand that hugs the land, the waves ebbed and flowed constantly around us. Giant stingrays of the brightest blue began to swim in the water beside us.

These huge creatures, which had frightened me as a child, were moving enchantingly in sync with the waves and the women. We danced the ebb and flow of life in a tangible way that loosened my fear and pulled me closer.

As the waves and the rays would pull close to kiss the shore, we would lean towards the land to give space. It was all a dance of dignity and grace and I only had to follow.

These tender but strong women, I learned, had recently escaped a life of pain in the red light district. Once victims of unspeakable violence, they were finding healing and hope. Every time I saw them, their faces were more relaxed and their eyes shone with dignity restored.

We walked together for some time, ankles dipping in and out of the water, in gentle harmony with the waves and the rays. Suddenly the voice of one of my sons called to me from further up the shore and I hurried to see what he had found. There, further inland where the tide had pooled and turned to mud, a butterfly, as dark as the mud itself, was struggling to rise.

The ground here was dark and murky, a sharp contrast to the bright, glittering sand at the shore. In utter astonishment, I watched as the largest butterfly I had ever seen struggled to pull herself out of the mud. Her wingspan was large enough to lay in, but those wings were ravaged with holes so large the sun and the sky showed through. I could feel her struggle as she fought to pull herself out of the muck. Finally pushing, pulling and tugging with all she had, her torn and wounded wings carried her out across the waters.

The image of the butterfly pulling herself out of the muck resonated deeply with me. I longed to walk with purpose and confidence, like the women in my dream but felt more like the wounded butterfly, struggling in a muck that threatened to suffocate me.

Waking Up

I woke from my dream with the powerful thrum of beating wings in my ears and looked around the dark room, trying to separate my dream from reality. My husband of 11 years was snoring peacefully beside me . Our three sons slept in the next room. Outside, the streets of Dhaka which swelled with constant noise during the day, lay still. While the city and its creatures slept, I lay awake, held tightly in the clutches of my dream.

The image of the butterfly pulling herself out of the muck resonated deeply with me. I longed to walk with purpose and confidence, like the women in my dream but felt more like the wounded butterfly, struggling in a muck that threatened to suffocate me.

My artistic husband had his dream job, working for an international development agency, as part of a job creation program. Our three sons spent their days at an international school and loved every minute of it. My guys were all thriving and happy, but I was not.

This introverted girl, who refuels by barefoot walks in the grass, digging in the dirt, picking flowers, reading a book under the trees or simply sitting alone and in silence, was struggling to survive the concrete jungle of Dhaka city and its extremely extroverted populous.

By the time the dream found me, I had spent about seven years in Bangladesh. And, while I love the country and its warm and friendly people, I struggled to find my own niche and ways to recharge. Anytime I ventured out to one of the city’s green spaces, I would immediately be surrounded by a crowd of friendly and very curious people. Most days I would shut myself in my apartment and turn on the air conditioner to block out the constant noise of horns, beggars and hawkers from the street.

It wasn’t that I hated my life there, for there was so much I loved. Cooking is my thing and I would throw down a home cooked meal and game night every Friday night. Our apartment would fill up with so much laughter that our neighbors below would call up and ask us to quiet down so their son could study.

I busied myself making things like burritos, quesadillas and mini pizzas, chocolate chip cookies and sweet gooey cinnamon rolls, all from scratch. Then I would stock the freezer of the team guest house so that the expatriate staff could have a break from rice and curry when they came into town.

I also started a blog and discovered how much I loved weaving words together. Despite all of this, I felt like a fish out of water and struggled to find my niche. Depression pulled me into its toxic embrace and I felt more and more alone. Austin, my husband, was moving away emotionally and I knew something wasn’t right but couldn’t put my finger on it.

The Beginning of a Dark Night

Determined not to blow through the country’s entire supply of tissues by myself, I reached out for help. The agency we worked for was very supportive and had us fly to Thailand for a week of counseling at a lovely retreat center. We dropped our boys at my in-laws and gladly left the noise and chaos of Dhaka behind.

The next morning, we caught a Songtaew, the local transport, from our hotel to the counseling center. My nerves were immediately calmed by the gentle water fountain in the middle of the entry and the quiet green that surrounded the place. I was ready to face my shit and work through it. We soon settled ourselves into a big yellow sofa, ready to get started. But before we delved into my stuff, my husband had something he wanted to say to me.

I looked into the Austin’s eyes and saw an earth-shattering pain that clattered silently in the space between us. We hung in that space for a moment before he told me that he was attracted to men, and had been for as long as he could remember.

I looked into the Austin’s eyes and saw an earth-shattering pain that clattered silently in the space between us. We hung in that space for a moment before he told me that he was attracted to men, and had been for as long as he could remember.

In an instant, my tiny world crumbled at my feet. We had an hour session and this had taken about a minute. That’s all it takes, just a short minute, to sweep away everything you thought you knew and had built your life upon. Just one minute to take a woman who is struggling to survive to being sure that she never will. I have no idea what we did for the next 59 minutes, if we talked or just sat in silence. I have no idea. The next thing I remember is sitting beside a river, bare feet by the water, gentle city noises around us but no other human in sight. We were just a liquid ribbon of water and a broken couple on the grass, trying to make sense out of this.

I was crushed. Broken. Wounded. Sobbing bits of my soul until I felt like a giant piece of snot. Austin, who had just braved his heart and told me his most vulnerable truth, sat with me and tried to understand the depth of my despair.

Nothing had prepared me for this. We had been happily married, or so I thought, and my brain struggled to register the fact that my husband had just come out to me.

In that place of deepest loss, where there are no words, I sat. There was just a guttural grief that washes over everything and takes even the strongest spark of life and snuffs it out. I felt like the butterfly in my dream, curled up on the river bank, wings torn, muddied, the ocean not big enough to contain my tears.

Want to hear more?


Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.

Photo courtesy of Adrienne Gerber Photography.