Where do I begin

Where do I begin to get all of these things out of my mind? So much is in there. The trip to Ohio. The seeing my daughter after six months of waiting. Losing my grandmother. Contacting an attorney to get visitation rights spelled out. Reconnecting with lost family. Thanking my mom of choice in a deeply open hearted way for all the love and support she has given me. Starting a new medication to help with the severe ADHD that I had denied for years. That med allowing me to drop a few more of my emotional walls.

All of this was just in this past week.

Where do I begin to empty my head a bit so I can sleep better?

Stream of consciousness seems to be the key. Not thinking and just typing. Whatever comes to mind in whatever form.

This week, I thanked my mom (of choice) for all that she is to me. I put it in the form of all that she has done for me but that is not what I meant. Nice thing is, she knew that.

I have to add the descriptor after her “title” so to speak because I am interacting more with my Biomom as I am calling her. That would be my mother of origin, birth mother would be another term. She is…

ohhhh. I think I hit close to why I am not sleeping.

My biomom (short for biological mom) is in large part the reason I did not see my father’s family for 10 years. (See the July 16th entry in this blog) I am very angry with her right now. She separated me from half of my family and instead gave me her family as the only option. This family consistently treated me as less than because I asked questions, couldn’t sit still, wasn’t the pretty little girl in a cute dress and didn’t play with dolls. A family that looked good from the outside but were not what they tried to present themselves as. A family that, to me, is more interested in “winning souls for JESUS” than they are with talking to/with people and getting to know who they are trying to “save”. The family that when I came out as gay, chose to believe what they heard in church from their pastors rather than read the bible and turned me away. My Aunt even went as far as to tell me that “satan has written his lies all over your face”, after I had opened myself up to her and told her my story. My story of knowing in my deepest being I was born gay and my years of struggle to stifle and kill that part of me. Imagine being that vulnerable, just months after coming out to yourself, only to be met with being told by someone you loved that it was a lie. (I have been trying for years to forgive her that. I just can’t seem to let it go.)

My mother had good reason to limit my contact with my grandfather (Fathers father). He had problems that I don’t want to get into here. Perhaps another time. I understand her wanting to protect me.


But, I don’t understand her wanting to protect me.

This is the same woman who told me that she hates me. This was not when I was an adult that she did this. All through growing up I heard this. I got chills one time when I did the math about Roe v. Wade and my birthday. Had I been a little bit later I probably wouldn’t be here. This woman that I owe my birth to… it is a shame. I try sometimes to be compassionate toward her. Not tonight. Tonight I am pissed. Shit, not just tonight. I have been this way an entire week since I was in Ohio and realized that the stories that she told me about my father’s family were only one sided. They were told to me to accentuate the negative about them. They were told to me to control me.

ooooooooh…. another moment of understanding.

Is this what I am angry about? Am I angry that my birth mother still had this control over me 10 years after I started to remove myself from her suffocating grasp?

Or am I angry that I allowed her to manipulate me like that for so long. That for so long after I became “an adult” that I still let her run my thoughts and actions and beliefs. And that this “training” had continued even after I thought I was done letting her.

Or, is it just the fact that I am angry at missing the last 10 years of my grandmothers life. That, when I sat across the hospital bed from my Aunt, I had to ask my aunt questions about my grandmother that I should have known. I didn’t know what her birthday was till I read it on the hospital wrist band… last week… a few days before she died. Her birthday was in the same month as mine. I never knew that before last week. I didn’t know that she has two brothers living that she didn’t have any sisters. I learned last week that the Cherokee heritage comes down through her. I learned more but I don’t want to put it here yet.

I got the chance to tell her that I am doing well. That I am studying to become a Shamanic Practitioner. When she asked me what that was I told her that I was studying to become an Indian Medicine Woman. I was floored when her eyes got really big and she got a huge smile and said “that’s good”. She was proud of me. It was wonderful seeing that look, even though it was behind an oxygen mask.

I was accepted and loved for who I am. No hiding what I thought or felt or who I am. I was just loved.

I helped care for her for a bit before I had to tear myself away to return home to go back to work. I wasn’t afraid to touch this frail woman. In fact, it was hard not to keep stroking her hair, even when she was sleeping. I held her hand for as long as I could when I visited her.

Then, too soon I had to come back home. I knew I would not see her again in this life. I was right. She dropped the robe this past Monday.

My biological mother let me know of Grandma’s passing via a text message to my cellphone.

Yeah, my biomom really is that heartless.

I am sleepy again. Perhaps this was what needed to come out of my head. More tomorrow after I buy some tissues. I thought I had some around here but I don’t. So, I have to make due with fast food napkins that I scrounged up. Not too soft those…