Posted on by palmtreemomma

Assumptions

When Austin came out publicly last spring, we expected questions and criticism, with a smattering of support. What we didn’t expect was uninformed gossip and automatic assumptions that could not be further from the truth.

Let me just say it as I see it. Straight people are preoccupied with sexuality. The minute my husband came out as bi, a whole lot of straight people around us suddenly started thinking he was having sex with other men or bringing men home to have threesomes in our bedroom. We know this because friends heard it through the grapevine and approached us about it.

I can’t even wrap my mind around this. No human being should be objectified in this way.

For all the talk from straight Christians especially, who assume the moral high-ground, I can’t wrap my head around it. As soon as a person from the LGBTQ+ community comes out, their minds seem to go immediately to sexual acts.

Adolescent minds

Let’s be clear. For some people, straight or queer, life revolves around sex. For most of us, however, straight or queer, sex is one part of the bigger picture. Queer people have the same desire the rest of us have – to have a relationship with someone who gets us. We all want to be known and loved for who we are. To laugh deep belly laughs or walk laps at the park. Someone to help raise kids and turn house into home. They, like us, want someone to share life with and to grow old with.

Coming out as LGBTQ+ should never turn someone into a sexual object. Yet, that is what the straight community has done over and over. We have stopped seeing them as fellow humans and have put them into a box that is objectifying and harmful.

It’s extremely adolescent of us. I once had 3 teenage boys. Now I have 2. Soon it will only be 1. The point is, I know the mind of adolescent males. And I see many grown-ups acting in a very similar fashion.

Imagine introducing the person you love and realizing that your friends can’t really see the person you love because all they can think about is something they have no business thinking about.

So, seriously, stop thinking about sex. Stop trying to figure out how it is done. Imagine others thinking about you in that way. Instead, see them as fellow human beings who have more in common with you than not. No human being should be objectified in this way.

And, for the love of all that is good and kind, stop spreading gossip. The biggest lies and most hurtful gossip have drifted our way from one of the most conservative Christian communities in our state. This makes the idea of moral high ground disappear rather quickly if you ask me.

Understanding Orientation

I find it helpful to remember that L, G, B, & Q are about orientation. GLAAD Media gives this definition –

Sexual Orientation – The scientifically accurate term for an individual’s enduring physical, romantic and/ or emotional attraction to members of the same and/or opposite sex, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and heterosexual (straight) orientations. Avoid the offensive term “sexual preference,” which is used to suggest that being gay, lesbian, or bisexual is voluntary and therefore “curable.” People need not have had specific sexual experiences to know their own sexual orientation; in fact, they need not have had any sexual experience at all.

For some, it may be primarily a physical attraction, for some, it’s more about a romantic attraction. Still others feel an emotional attraction.

We are all complex human beings and we have enough going on in our own hearts and heads that we really don’t have time to be the moral police for others.

And please remember that orientation is about attractions that may or may not indicate actions. There is great danger in jumping to conclusions. No human being should be objectified in this way.

Helpful tips

If you have someone queer in your life and aren’t sure how to respond, here are some ideas.

Start by seeing them as humans first, who have more in common with you than not.

Become familiar with LGBTQ+ terms and definitions. Here is a good place to start.

Avoid using the term lifestyle. It is offensive and assumes you think they are living in a morally reprehensible way. This is both outdated and inaccurate.

Turn in your moral police badge. It’s not your job to judge another human being. But it is your job to judge your own level of kindness.

Treat them the same way you would want to be treated. Welcome their partner, if they have one, in the same way you would want your partner to be welcomed.

Just be a friend. It can be extremely lonely for queer people on this side of the closet door. Many have lost family and friends. They’ve been misunderstood, judged and cast out. The silence from those who don’t know what to say is overwhelmingly loud. No human being deserves to be objectified in this way, so be the person who breaks the silence. Who welcomes and sees them as another human on the journey.


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

Feeling Small

Facepaint, Unicorn, Pride

“I’m never going to let anyone make me feel that small again.”

Her words come to mind this morning, as the winter sun taps me on the shoulder. Echos of the warm summer day when I bumped into her and she shared her story. She had just left her partner, a lesbian, who had given her a very hard time for being bi and told her she wasn’t gay enough.

She was done, and rightly so. Love does not question the validity of the other person. It does not put them in a box and make them feel not enough. Love, like summer sunshine, call us to life. It grows us, rather than shrinks us. Love does not make another feel small.

Bi erasure

This is a very common experience for bi folks. Though they make up more than 50% of the LGBTQ+ community, they are often misunderstood. Gays feel they aren’t gay enough. Straights feel they should pass as straight. Both sides question their validity, making them feel small. Like an eraser rubbing back and forth on a blackboard, they receive a lot of pressure and resistance, known as bisexual erasure or bi shaming.

Kyli Rodriguez-Cayro wrote a great article in which she shares 5 myths about bisexuality that she believes contribute to bi erasure.

Myth #1 – Bisexual+ people face less harmful stigma than lesbian or gay people.

Myth #2. Bisexual people are transphobic.

Myth #3. Bi men don’t exist, and are probably just gay.

Myth #4. Bisexual people magically become straight when they’re in a relationship with a heterosexual partner.

Myth #5. Bisexual people are polyamorous.

I’m not going to refute these myths, as she does a fantastic job of doing that in her article. I’m putting these out because I believe she is right. These are myths, yet many people believe they are true. Austin and I have bumped up against many of these personally in relating with people since he came out publicly and it has been painful.

When myths are believed as truths

“Many straight folks don’t get why I had to “come out” if I’m in a straight relationship. They would rather that my orientation not exist in their view of the world. They often can’t reconcile that the Austin they always knew was always Bi.”

“Many religious folks have the same argument except it threatens their view of sexuality and morality. They would prefer that a bisexual would be an immoral person so they could condemn them.”

“When I have come out to gay men a significant number of them have straight up told me that the being bi was a stage for them “too”, implying that there is no such thing. I kind of expected this from older gay men but not from younger gay men.“

“Because I am in a hetero marriage I am most often read as hetero which is why it is important to me to enter queer spaces where I am seen.
Often the term gay is used to name groups or events that encompass bi, lesbian, pan and more. I feel a low key erasure when that happens understanding that the term gay like  queer has been used by the whole community. “

~ Austin

Can you see the erasure that happens when this type of pressure comes from all sides? Love does not make another feel small, it believes the best about others. But when myths are believed as truths, the results are painful discrimination.

The effects of bi erasure

Because of this discrimination, bisexuals are some of the most invisible people in the LGBTQ+ community. Unlike gays and lesbians who come out of the closet and are taken at face value, bisexuals have to repeatedly come out, explaining their identity again and again to disbelievers or “myth-believers”. This leaves them at greater risk physically, emotionally and mentally. A greater percentage of them struggle with depression and anxiety. Suicide rates are also higher. Many live in poverty and face alarming health disparities. They are also at greater risk of being victims of sexual violence.

Unlike gays and lesbians who come out of the closet and are taken at face value, bisexuals have to repeatedly come out, explaining their identity again and again to disbelievers or “myth-believers”.

As a whole, our culture has done a lot to erase bisexuals. Whether it is the larger straight community shaming and pressuring them to pass as straight, or the smaller LGBTQ+ community telling them they are not gay enough, we have been a collective weight to shrink them down. We have made them feel small, invisible and unwelcome. That is not okay. Love does not make another feel small. It opens doors to a collective womb that nurtures and grows. Love dismantles myths and embraces truth. Love does not erase.


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

Longing for Light

Sunrise from Mt. Batur, Indonesia

Lets talk about self care and mental health for a minute. We are in the heart of winter and many of us live in places which are cold and have long periods of darkness. We are earthlings, all of us, designed to be nourished by the earth, to quench our thirst from its waters. Nature calms and refreshes us. Sunshine gives light, feeds plants and even our own skin by infusing us with needed vitamins. When we don’t receive these life-giving elements, our bodies, like plants placed in a cold basement corner, begin to droop and wither. This is why is is so important to pay attention and listen to your body.

I’ve struggled with depression on and off for a number of years. I know I am not alone. An estimated 15% of the adult population will probably experience depression at some point. 5% of the U. S. population experiences Seasonal Depression, also known as SAD. If this time of year typically finds you feeling sad, lethargic and irritable, you are not alone.

Listen to your body

About a year ago, I hit bottom fast and hard. One minute I was fine and the next I was flat on the floor, wanting nothing more than to die. The ferocity of my depression scared me and I immediately made an appointment with my doctor. I went on medication for the first time in my life and increased my visits with my therapist. I spilled it all to my closest circle of women so that I wouldn’t be doing it alone.

Our bodies are incredibly wise and have much to tell us if we learn to listen to them. The trouble is, we have to learn the language of the body first because it is easy to misunderstand. A craving for a donut does not mean your body needs a donut to be happy again. A longing to sleep all day does not mean your body needs to sleep all day and then it will feel better. Learn to listen to your body, to the cry beneath the craving. It might just be saying, “pay attention to me and show me value.”

It’s taken me a long time to sort out what my body was telling me on that day. I’m sure I still don’t have it all figured out but it’s easier to see the big picture when we back up a few steps and sit still.

SAD was certainly a part of things. It was right around winter solstice, when we experience the shortest days and the longest nights. My mood changes with the sunlight. The sun gives the warmth and food needed to cloak the outdoors in green. Flowers and trees, green leaves and grass, all bring so much life to my senses. My body and the world outside my window was very light deprived that day. But it was more than that. Death was beautiful to me that day because I had lost hope.

Losing Hope

We were in that particularly rough period before Austin came out of the closet. There were several times that year I was convinced our marriage was not going to make it intact. Our business had taken some huge blows and our livelihood was threatened. One of our boys had just been diagnosed with ADHD and it took pretty much all of our energy to navigate things. While the diagnosis helped us understand him, it did nothing to change the reality of what we had been experiencing for a long time.

My anxiety was through the roof. And like a house of cards, I collapsed without so much as a wind to knock me over. There was no one thing that happened that day to send me down. I just went down. Because it is hope that keeps us standing and my body knew before my brain registered it, that I had lost mine.

Year after year, after year, I had muddled through. Hoping for change in my marriage. I had worked tirelessly to build a small business with global impact. Raising sons to be lovers of peace and kindness. Everything I had poured my big, soft, endless heart into seemed only to break my heart instead of being transformed by it. Honestly, my life felt more than a little wasted and I was more than a little exhausted.

More than a year later, it’s very difficult for me to write about this. I feel a sadness creeping in the edges, dancing on the peripheral. But I’m trying to stay with the story and listen to what that sadness is telling me.

Listening to the sadness

I’m sad that a 45 year old woman felt like a life of love given was lived in vain. She is the one I need to listen to, care for and nurture. Here is what I think she was trying to tell me that day.

I’m so tired. My load is too heavy and I have to lay it down for a bit. I need you to give me as much value as you are giving away to everyone else. An endless supply of energy is not what I have to offer; I have limits. Please fill me back up again. Treat me gently because I am you.

When your partner is distant and you wonder what is going through his head, your value remains. The things your child yells in a fit of rage are not about you so it’s okay to move out of the way. I wish I could offer you financial stability but this way you identify with a larger portion of humanity. The top is not all it is cracked up to be.

Sit for a minute and let light fall into the cracks opened up by your sorrow. Hold still and see me. If you learn to love me well, it will never be in vain. I know your limitations. I hold your gifts and all the light and goodness you have to offer the world. Value me because I am holding you.

Tips for self care

I’ve always felt the weight of the world on my shoulders, needs that seemed bigger or more important than my own. It felt selfish to do something for me when the world was going to hell in a handbag around me. I had a wake up call this year when a friend died of a stress-induced heart attack. She was only 30 years old. It helped me realize that taking care of myself is actually a huge gift to the people around me.

So listen to your body and do what you need to do to take care of yourself. Ask for help. Be honest with your doctor and consider medication. Your kids will thank you later. Find a therapist. Reach out to a friend you can trust. We were not made to navigate this on our own.

Exercise daily for it boosts your serotonin levels. Find what works for you. My husband is a people person and takes classes at the local YMCA. I am an introvert and that doesn’t work for me. I find that doing yoga at home has been the only thing I want to keep coming back to. Something about the stretches speak to me about navigating the painful stretches of life.

Take Vitamin D in the winter. Our body produces it when exposed to sunshine and, in places like Ohio, we rarely get enough of it. While a deficiency is not likely to cause depression, many who take it notice a difference in their mood within a couple of weeks. I usually start taking it in the fall so it kicks in by the time the days are really dark. Read more here.

Be honest with yourself. Sometimes depression is because of the season. Sometimes it’s because of hormones. But sometimes it hits us because we have not been kind to ourselves. Maybe we have carried too much for too long. Perhaps self-hatred has caught up with us and does not want to be ignored any longer. Take a moment and listen to what your body is trying to tell you.


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

Surviving the Desert

New Year’s Eve usually finds me home alone while the husband and kids go to a party. I sit in comfy pajamas, soaking in the quiet of an empty house. Just me and my thoughts. I think about the year gone by and dream for the year to come. Small miracles of hope whispered by pen on lines of paper, as I make a list of things we need. I love to look back over the lists from previous years, marveling at all the check marks that are there. So many small miracles came to me during the year gone by. I sit and pray, a myriad of longings, hopes and desperation swirling like rainbows of color.

This year I found myself at home with the family. It was another night in a blur of time as the fabric of our family is stretched across the loom, new threads being woven in. Our oldest came down with a bad case of the flu right before Christmas and we all hunkered down at home.

Today he is moving all his stuff back into our house, and I feel the walls stretching and expanding outward with each load he brings from his apartment. Boxes line my dining room, ready for him to sift through and repack before catching a plane to take him across country for his final semester of college.

catching moments

So much craziness happening around me. The 5 of us on top of each other in a tiny space. Not much room for me to hear myself think. I’ve been trying to catch moments here and there. Sometimes that is all a mom can do. A moment to catch my breath at the list of miracles from last year. Moments to laugh with the kids as they remind me of escapades of the past year. A moment to get away with my man, to remember who we are together.

I feel a little out of sorts without being able to experience my full tradition, yet I am piecing it together bit by bit. Journal open beside me, I see the list of things I hoped for in 2019. A whole page full. 12 check marks to celebrate needs met. 9 blank spots, empty places still waiting for answers. Some of those spots have been blank for 5 years now.

Sometimes I get stuck on those blank spots, honing in on all that isn’t there instead of marveling in what is there. And, while the empty spaces and losses we feel are important to acknowledge, for they have much to teach us, they should not define us. I know I will always have empty spaces waiting to be filled. But I also always, even in the leanest of years, have much to marvel about.

surviving the desert

A few years ago, Austin and I had an encounter with a very wise person. Without knowing a thing about us or our story, he told us that we had been walking in a desert for a very long time. He went on to say that we were not doing it alone, because water was following us through the desert.

What if the biggest miracles are the ones right in front of us?

At the time, Austin was still mostly in the closet. The two of us were still muddling through what his bisexuality meant for him and for our marriage. I was tired, so tired. I wanted nothing more than for all the pain and struggle to just go away. What I really wanted, was to be rescued from the desert. But what I got instead was assurance that I could make it through the desert.

What if the biggest miracles are the ones right in front of us? All of us hit desert-like stretches of life and want nothing more than to find our way out. But which is the true miracle? Being rescued from the desert and returning to the life we think we should have? Or surviving the desert for year after year after year?

Surviving the desert has none of the glamour of being rescued. It is gritty and exhausting, confusing and utterly draining. It shows our humanity and changes us at our core, for better or worse. But, like any journey, it is an invitation to the beginning of something new. Waking up in the desert is the beginning of a miracle. How it ends is up to you.

Where the sun beats without mercy

She wakes, bewildered, in the unfamiliar
the terrain unlike anything she knows.
Terror replaces sleep and she stumbles
in this wild barren place
where the sun beats without mercy.
For days she sits and does nothing
but weep in abandonment
until the night moon hovers above
and she howls with a despair
that emanates from her bones.


She waits for rescue but none comes.


So she rises and walks in circles at first
round and round this place where
the sun beats without mercy.
As the unfamiliar becomes familiar
and the circles become wider
she sets her gaze on the horizon
and pulls herself towards the mountain.
Though the sand shifts daily
and it takes all she has to take the next step
she moves on while the sun beats without mercy.

She waits for rescue but none comes.

Days turn to years as she walks while
certainty and grace begin to fill the cracks
in her soles and her heart and
each day she finds just enough to sustain.
In the place where the mountain embraces the earth
she finds a spot as soft as her heart.
Tenderly scooping she moves the earth
until there is a space enough for her whole self.
She carves out a home and decorates it
with splashes of dignity and colors it with grace.

She no longer waits for rescue.

She is fully alive in this place where
the sun beats without mercy.
No longer wandering in circles
she has crafted her home and created her shade
where she rests when she is weary
drinks when she is thirsty
dances when she is restless.
She leans into the music of this place
once thought to be wild and barren.
She is surviving the desert.


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