In two days I am going on vacation with my family for a week. My very sweet, very Mormon family. My parents and sister and hubby all know I've left the church, but I haven't told my brother. And it's been like a year and a half. The thing is, I don't really think he'll take it that badly, I just think it will be a surprise. I can't quite explain why I haven't been able to make myself tell him. I rarely see him, and though we talk on the phone every few weeks, he usually seems quite busy with his family and life, and my life really never enters the conversation. Maybe because I'm single, it's hard to know what to say to me. This used to bother me more, but I have come to accept that if I want to have a relationship with him, it will be mostly on his terms.
But it has gotten ridiculous, because in 2 days we will be all staying in the same beach house. I will not be wearing garments, or likely even wearing things that would cover them up, because hopefully it will be warm weather. The second day is a Sunday, and my family will want to go to Sac. meeting, and I'm not going with them. So I KNOW that I need to say something, and am quite tired of pretending...but grrr...it's so hard. I know I'm not going to go a week without coffee, or alcohol, and I don't want to be reduced to drinking it out of a flask from my suitcase. And sure, I could just not say anything and have my bro and sis in law wonder, but I just feel like I can't be myself if I do that. My family has this status quo thing that is really strong. It is sometimes nice, as a lovely time seems to always be had by all, but makes it really difficult to bring up anything out of the ordinary. Conflict is rare, which means that when it happens it feels like such a big deal. So pretty much, I have to say something today. I am kicking myself for waiting for so long, but pretty much it's now or a really awkward family vacae. Which it may be anyway.
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3 comments:
Yep, been there. well... I am still sort of there. And family vacations are the worst for me for just this reason. I hope it will eventually lose it's uncomfortable power over me. and I hope that it will for you too. Good luck coming out to your bro. Hope everything goes smoothly all over the place.
Thanks G.
Yeah, so I finally talked to my brother tonight. It went okay I guess. I'm not sure what I was wanting or expecting. Because I didn't really get much of a reaction at all. He sounded distracted and busy on the phone, like he always does. I said I didn't know if he had noticed anything, but I haven't been going to church, so he may notice on vacation I am not wearing garments, drink different things, etc. He said they (he and my sister in law) had kind of noticed. I didn't give a lot of details, just said that it wasn't cause I was lazy, I had put a lot of time and effort into thinking about it and felt like it isn't right for me, and that I was fine talking about it, or not, but that I wanted to be open about who I am, blah blah blah. He just said, okay, that's cool. Nothing else. Like I said, not sure what I expected, and thankfully there were no condemnations, but there wasn't any support either. When I told my sister, she said it was also okay if I was a lesbian. I thought that was kind of funny, but that also was kind of a nice way of saying, I still accept you. From my brother I get a "that's cool." Which is fine, whatever, but I am now dreading our family vacation even more. Between being single and not Mormon, I just feel so out of place and alone with them. I have to censor myself the whole time, and they don't really know me, or seem to want to. They just like everything to be pleasant and talk about their commonalities. My life is too scary to talk about. Ugh. Oh well. Maybe I will leave early.
Good luck! They probably want a pleasant, harmonious family vacation as well, so it will probably go fine.
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