LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
Weekend Beach Bum: Some Thoughts for My Mother (and Me) |
by Eric Morrison |
When I told my mother I was gay, I felt overwhelming relief and joy. She cried...and cried. Angrily and foolishly, I dismissed her tears as a testament to selfishness, her dreams of wedding bells, grandchildren, and a beautiful daughter-in-law dashed against the finality of my revelation. Through her tears, she managed to sob, "Life will be so much harder for you." Her world-wise prediction fell on naive, deaf ears. It was spring break of my freshman year at the University of Delaware Honors Program. The early 90's fire of political correctness, multi-culturalism, and gender studies was burning at its peak temperature. My university campus, perhaps equally famous for its fraternities and its engineering program, seemed an unlikely place for a hotbed of gay grassroots activism and a surge of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender student politics. But after eighteen years of swallowing my feelings and choking back tears, I was ready for a revolution. I joined the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Student Union and, although the cheery camaraderie was new and invigorating, I longed for activism and a voice. I reorganized the University's chapter of Queer Campus, which had been defunct for several years. We were loud and radical, staging "kiss-ins" at Parent's Day, chanting frantically at new student orientations, plastering campus bulletin boards with charming slogans like, "Fags and Dykes Are Really GroovyTake One Home or to a Movie." Although she knew of my Queer Campus presidency, I spared my mother the scintillating details. I remained active in campus and local gay politics throughout my four years of undergraduate study. We met with the president of the University, demanding a gay student union building tantamount to that of the Black Student Union. I penned a fiery weekly column for the school's award-winning newspaper. My student enrollment was almost revoked due to frequent sidewalk chalking. Although Housing and Residence Life colored the concrete without admonishment, National Coming Out Day of 1994 spawned a university-wide ban on sidewalk chalk. My friend Mollie knighted me with the title of "Mr. Gay," and she wasn't far from the mark. Closeted students and faculty contacted me several times per semester, seeking solace and guidance. During dorm presentations, when asked when I "became homosexual," I began snapping back, "I didn't get hit by the Gay Truck one day." Frustrated and exhausted, in my senior year, I kept the gay faith but funneled my energies into the theater, directing Harvey Fierstein's queer classic Torch Song Trilogy. My mother came to see the play and said she liked it. Upon entering the working world after graduation, my gay bubble burst. Although an audacious "I'm Eric and I'm gay" never accompanied my firm handshake, I still made it a point to be adamantly out. The problem was, no one seemed to care anymore. Aside from a few frightening threats, ignorant epithets, and annoying Biblical rebukes, family, co-workers, and new acquaintances seemed more concerned with keeping a job, paying the bills, and settling down than my sexuality. The foundation of my identity was rocked by a confusing earthquake of apathy. Or was it tacit tolerance, spurred by the demands of the real world? Either way, my mother diagnosed the situation deftly. "Your pride is wounded," she told me. "You're used to being a big fish in a little pond." I loathed her simplistic maxim, but I knew she was right. For the next several years, I floundered in a sea of resentment and disillusionment. My miserable table waiting vocation segued into a sad career in retail management. Even with a Bachelor's degree in English, with a concentration in ethnic and cultural studies and a minor in history, people no longer beat down my door to share their coming out stories or ask my opinion on the latest gay issues. I was just another worker bee buzzing through the hive of the everyday. Aside from some diligent but virtually fruitless writing and theatrical endeavors, and a hot and cold love life, I had no idea how to be gay anymore. My mother's words began to tick in my head like the hands of a clock. Maybe my life didn't have to be so hard. I was wasting precious time. Aside from being gay, who was I? What made me happy? I decided to return to my first loveeducation. One day, I walked out of retail management (and out of my store). I accepted a tutoring position with a growing private educational facility, and today I work in its administration. I have begun freelance writing in earnest, and I happily continue my work in the theatre. My love life isn't much better, but single twentysomething heterosexual friends blithely assure me that has nothing to do with sexual orientation. Don't get me wrong. I hate the heterosexist billboards, movie screens, and television images that often make me feel small and invisible. My blood boils every time I read about an unsuccessfully proposed gay rights law. I sobbed tears of sadness and frustration when I learned of Matthew Sheppard's senseless murder. I will not be as free and happy as those gay people who come after me, but I am better off than those who came before me. Thankfully, I do not live in the world in which my mother came of age. I am happiest when I fight for gay rights while remembering myself, refusing the equally ponderous monikers of victim and martyr, remembering that I am Eric and not "Mr. Gay." My life isn't so hard after all, Mom. Recently, Eric pulled out his psychological shovel and has really been digging into his gay experience up until this point. You can reach him at eric.a.morrison@verizon.net. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 12, No. 04, May 3, 2002. |