I'm From Driftwood

by Justin Hart

I remember this day so clearly: My oldest daughter, Isabelle, begged Trevor and I to allow her to have her friends over for dinner and sleep over to celebrate the end of her basketball season. Traditionally, we disallowed visitors from Isabelle’s conservative catholic school for fear that Isabelle and her twin brother would be “outed” and therefore teased or tormented. But if she was ready to come clean to her class mates, who were we to tell her “No”?

The team arrived to our home, sleeping bags in tow. We greeted each parent and introduced ourselves… actually introduced ourselves. We were not brothers, friends, or roommates. We were Isabelle’s Dads. Four of the seven mothers decided not to allow their children to stay in our home. The remaining teammates ran through the house and eventually gathered in the kitchen awaiting the arrival of the evasive pizza delivery man. I have never been so proud of what happened next.

“Isabelle, are both of those guys your dads?” One little girl started in…I rushed from the next room toward the kitchen to diffuse the situation, but Trevor stopped me. He urged me to listen closely, but allow our daughter, who we raised, who we taught, who we loved, to handle the situation in whatever way she thought best.

“That’s disgusting.” One girl commented, “That’s a sin.” said another.

Isabelle responded in a matter-of-fact tone saying, “Some boys kiss boys, and some girls kiss girls…deal with it.”

The conversation was over and no one ever mentioned it as a problem again. Today Isabelle, Garrit, Elsie and Julia are all out and proud children of two gay dads.

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by Jacqueline Hudak

What I was about to say to my children would, I knew, change our relationships irrevocably – there would be no un-doing. Having this conversation went against all that I endeavored to be – and was told I should be – as their “mommy.” Mommies are supposed to provide constancy, predictability and be selfless.

But this mommy had a self.

I took in the scene of this temporary home I had pieced together for the kids and me, this odd mix of the familiar and the new. Anchored by my parent’s dark ornate dining set that I have lived with always, the light and spacious room looked deceptively homey. One could not detect the impermanence. A massive, old tiger oak desk was center stage in the living room. At a glance, it looked as if I was immersed in reading a dozen books at once. They spilled from the tall bookcases onto the floor around the desk, painting a picture of perpetual interruption. I swallowed the prohibitive monthly rent of this stop-on-my-way because it was around the block from the home we occupied with my children’s father; I hoped the proximity would lessen the terrible fracture of our recent separation.

For all of their lives my children, who I’ll call Lily, 12, and John, 9, had known me as a heterosexual woman. Now I must tell them: “I have fallen in love with a woman.” I had fallen in love so shockingly, unexpectedly, joyously, that it took my breath away. That I was changing my life – make that our lives – to be with her.

I had found no self-help books on this subject. There were no scripts on TV or in the movies, not even a “Coming out to your pre-teen kids for Dummies” guide. I was clearly on my own. So, one Friday night, while folding laundry, I began the conversation with Lily.

“So, I have some news, sweetie. I’m in a relationship with someone and I wanted to tell you about it. I think I’ve really fallen in love.”
“That’s great, Mom.”
“Well, I wanted to tell you about it, and as a matter of fact you know this person that I’m in love with. It’s Sallie.”

My little girl looked at me in shock. She said nothing and turned away. She had the oddest, blank look on her face as she just stared ahead seemingly at nothing. Her anger and upset filled the air between us.

“Are you trying to ruin my life?” Lily asked.
“Well, actually, no honey, I’m not.”
“I want to leave. I want to go over Kate’s house,” she said
“OK, honey, but let’s just try to talk about this a bit.”
“I want to be left alone.”

Lily got up and went down the hall into her room.

I sat there with the laundry.

So last year I was on the baseball field for my kids’ games a heterosexual and this year I was a lesbian. Same crowd, different me. But this “difference” was not the result of something on the inside – I felt very much the same person. No, the difference was in how the world now defined me because I loved a woman. The perception was that my marriage to their father was somehow “untrue” – and in falling in love with Sallie, I had found my “true” self. None of that felt like my reality.

I loved their father deeply when I married and possessed all the hopes and earnest longings of a new bride. When I would tell people about my relationship with Sallie, the common response was “Did you always know?”
“No,” I would answer. “I was completely shocked.”

I needed to get back to Lily. I couldn’t bear this chasm between us – we had never had this kind of disconnection. It was all that I had feared, and more.

“Please,” I begged at her door, “come talk to Mommy.” She was crying now. So was I. I walked away and then back to her room. I stood outside the door, completely lost for what to do next. Finally, I settled in the oversized leather chair in our living room. I was blank, emotionally spent. Time passed. I tried to wait, feeling like I wanted to jump out of my own skin. What had I done?

“Please honey,” I said as she finally walked past me, “We have to work this out.”
Then, like a little child, Lily collapsed into my lap. We held onto each other as if for dear life. Then I said, “Lily, you are my one and only daughter, and nothing would ever change my love for you.” After we exchanged “I love you’s” I confessed to her my fear that I thought she could hate me. I still vividly recall the sound of her “No, Mom, of course not.”

John had been playing alone in his room all this time, and I knew he could tell there was one intense conversation going on. “I’ll be right back,” I said to Lily, and joined my son. Emotionally spent from the conversation with Lily, I tried to lighten it up a bit.

“Mommy has something to tell you honey.”
“OK!”
“You know my friend, Sallie, right? Well, I just wanted you to know that I love her a lot, a real lot, and she’s my girlfriend.”
“I know, Mommy, you’re gay!”
“And I don’t mean that it the bad way, I mean that in the good way.”
I was speechless. Luckily, John continued the conversation:
“Does Daddy know?”
“Yes, he does.”
“Does Aunt Annie know?’
“Aunt Annie knows.”
“OK, good. So, Mommy, can Sallie teach me how to play tennis now?”
“Yes, honey.”
I grabbed my boy and held him tight as we rocked together on the floor. Lily came to join us.
“So, Mom, what’s it like?” Lily asked.
“It’s pretty wonderful. It’s a wonderful relationship. I’m very happy.”
“My friends and I talk about it, about what it might be like.”
”That’s great, honey.”
”I want to call Katie and tell her. But just her, OK?”
“Sure. But I’ll probably talk to her mom too.”

I had had a bit of practice in this “telling” that I was in relationship with a woman. That fall and spring I was teaching graduate students in Family Therapy and began to think about how to introduce myself. I wanted to tell them who I was, but still felt that saying I was a lesbian was, in some sense, not saying enough. I anticipated that students could assume I had been a lesbian far longer than my ten minutes. Perhaps that language could also obliterate my years of marriage; it just did not capture my history. I found that this single word – lesbian – could communicate much that was untrue about me, and, at the same time, much that was true. There is no “transitional narrative” in our culture from which to borrow. I wasn’t coming up with any succinct, catchy words or phrases. So I played with some ideas, and settled on this: “I live in a post-divorce, bi-nuclear family. My partner Sallie and I co-parent my two children, ages 9 and 12, and share residential custody with their father.” This use of language captured who I was in time. I was beginning to find a way to tell my story that held all the threads, the totality of my lived experiences, neither silencing nor privileging any one.

That February night Lily risked her own first “telling,” and I could see clearly that this was a family process. In the coming months and years we would all be engaged in this process of telling, and retelling, and wondering: should I tell? For now that I was in a relationship that was deemed “other” I was compelled to engage in this “telling” or as some would say “coming out.”

Lily’s conversation went like this:
“Katie, what do you think of gay people?”
Katie replies, “I think they’re really cool. Look at Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O’Donnell. Why, are you gay?”
“No, but my Mom is.”
“Oh, that’s really cool.”
And so there it was: Coming out to your kids, and their friends, and their friend’s parents…
“Now”, I thought, “I am out”.
There was something about telling the children that propelled me into this new place.

Sometimes, when folding laundry, I think back to that February night in our temporary home when I had that very difficult, but necessary conversation with my children. Years have passed, and we face together new issues: college applications, driving.

In a Mother’s Day card this year, John wrote to my partner Sallie:
“Thank you for all the things you do for our family and for making my Mom so happy.”

This is a love story. Complicated, messy, and joyous. It is about the love between women, and between a mother and her children. It is about the abiding love of family. And it is being written every day.

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by Roger

I was raised in the Mormon church all of my life, 6-7 generations deep. I was married at 21 and immediately started having kids. After all, for all of my life I was playing the “Mormon Game of Life” spinning the wheel, and moving to the next space, doing exactly as I was “supposed” to be doing.

From the age of 17 I had fleeting glimpses of being gay, but lived such a disconnected life it never really seemed to be a big deal for me. Over the years, it came and went in waves, some stronger than others.

I did love my wife. I loved her for the woman she was. Eventually after 12 years of marriage, I realized however that I didn’t love her the way that a husband should love his wife; the way she deserved to be loved. I went into reparative therapy, trying very hard to not be gay.

I spent three years working really hard. I became very involved in the movement, and even started seeing clients in my own therapy practice and working with them to “get fixed” and not be gay any more.

After three years, I came to a realization. I was spending 24/7 focused on my wounds, my issues, and my brokenness. Instead I chose to focus on my greatness… the me that God created. I eventually left the church, got divorced, and came out, literally all within a few short months of each other.

I am so grateful to my time in Reparative Therapy. Though I still agree that many parts of that type of therapy are harmful and wrong, it helped me to become the man that I am. It helped me to finally come out in a way that was healthy and safe for me. We all need to do it in our own time in our own way.

Well, I suddenly found myself with very few of my former friends still wanting to be in my life. At first it was hard, but it’s become a real gift. At 37 years old, I was able to create my life. The friends I wanted, the people I wanted, the relationship with my kids I wanted, etc. It’s been a beautiful and happy time.

I have worked hard at maintaining a solid relationship with my kids. They know me. They know my heart, and the biggest key for us is authentic communication. Nothing is taboo in our discussions. They know they can talk to me about anything.

I’m dating an amazing man now, who though initially scared to death about the prospect of a man with 5 kids, he’s still here and willing to face that fear and give it a shot.

I’m finding myself becoming more and more interested in becoming involved in LGBT family advocacy. I proudly put my HRC sticker on my Durango, and can’t wait to put the little family stickers on the back window with the five kids, cat, dog, and two dads!

Many of the people from my past have accused me of being selfish in my actions. To them I say this: My kids now have an example of what it means to stand up for yourself and who you are at any cost. Selfish would have been staying with a woman who would have never been loved the way she deserves. Now she is free to find that man who will treat her like the queen that she is. It would have been easy to stay there, going through the motions, and neither of us would have been fulfilled. It was a hard choice, and a choice I’m very happy I made. I know the day will come when my ex-wife and my kids will see the gift that I gave them. It’s now my job to do it right, and become the man they will be proud of.

I’m happier, healthier, and more alive today than ever. And I’m really grateful for the 36 years I spent in the struggle that taught me who I am that brought amazing gifts into my life, the greatest of which is 5 amazing kids who love me more than life.

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by Mari S.

When you’re a kid no says when I grow up I want to be a mom, especially a single lesbian mother of two. You see in my household homosexuality was not uncommon. I had 2 gay uncles, and another who was bisexual, my mother’s best friend was a MTF transsexual. It only became an issue when I tried to come out and being an only child made it a bit harder. To make a long story short and not go through the history of my adolescence and half of my adult years; to make my mother happy I ended up living a double life. Two daughters later I decided that I could no longer live this lie and although I came out to everyone else in my family I finally came out to my mother and mentally sent myself free.

I thought then that telling my mother about my sexuality would be the hardest thing I have ever done but that was not the case. Being a mother of two made dating a complete headache and emotional roller-coaster. You see with lesbians there are no grey areas when it comes to children. It’s either black or white, my kids were either a deterrent to some while for others an excuse to hold on to me. I’ve dated quite a few women over the years but the one that affected me the most because my kids became a big factor in our relationship/breakup, it would have to be with my ex-girlfriend from 2007-08. We were together for 8 months and there were little things that I noticed about her behavior towards my kids. She was very standoffish and tried to spend the least amount of time with them as possible and it bothered my kids especially my oldest who always asked why was my ex so boring and she never wants to do anything with us like this person did. When I would ask she would give excuses and say she was tired but it was all a bunch of bullsh**. In the time we were together she had never once mentioned to her family mainly her mother that she was seeing someone with kids, all she mentioned was that she was seeing someone. It made things difficult for us. That along with the fact that she listened to what everyone else had to say about her being with a woman with kids, and could not make an adult decision for herself. The last weekend we spent together I knew something wasn’t right and the day she left to go back to her perfect suburban life she tells me, “We need a break. I just really need time to find myself and what I really want.” Although broken-hearted I let her go. Months go by and my friends are like, “Mari, c’mon, you really didn’t believe she needed to find herself right?” More like she needed to find someone who didn’t have kids. Not too long after I found out she did when she showed up without my knowledge to my birthday party with a date. My friends were right and although it hurt I had moved on and was with someone that accepted the fact that I had children and things eventually fell into place for everyone.

My point is, my story is that my children are a blessing to me and I have had some great relationships and dating experiences but I have also had some bad ones. I never let a few bad apples ruin it for the whole tree. Quite honestly it is in those relationships that have made me more grateful to be a mother because I achieved something most never will. Plus the fact that my daughters rock and I would rather spend my weekend with them than on a date, because we all know that lesbian drama makes baby Jesus cry…

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