Howdy friends. I hope you’re all doing splendidly and looking forward to the weekend ahead. Perhaps you have started looking for some type of media that has a good representation of your identity after last week’s post. I’ll have more suggestions about my current favorites in the weeks to come, but today’s post is going to be a little more personal and serious, and I think many people (especially college students) in the LGBTQIA+ community will be able to relate.
As a reminder, I’m not “officially” out to any of my family members even though I don’t try very hard to hide anything about my queerness or genderqueerness. Heck, I even have they/he/she pronouns in my Instagram bio that my mom and all of my five siblings can see. Was this a little dumb? Maybe. Do I regret it? No. I don’t know if they have noticed or not, or if they are waiting for me to say something, but they still only ever refer to me with she/her pronouns. My plan was to finally come out to them over winter break, but that didn’t end up happening. I was too scared I guess, and worried about how my parents would refer to me around others after they knew the truth, with the risk of judgment and the perceived muddying of our perfect (and Roman Catholic) family image.
Because of this, it feels like my life is divided in two, with a distinct separation between the me that exists at college (where I now spend the majority of my time) and the me that exists when I go back home, particularly when I’m with my family. The me that exists at college is clearly the more authentic version, but it’s so strange and conflicting to have that other identity that exists. Even though I stopped going to church in the summer before college (I was raised going to mass every single weekend), I have found myself reverting back to an even older version of me when I go back home, as I started going to church again. It seems that the more I embrace the queer and genderqueer parts of me at school, the more the me at home retaliates by stepping even further away from authenticity, and the chasm between my two lives grows wider.
Virtually every time I talk to my mom or another family member on the phone, I hang up feeling more angry and frustrated than before, probably because I don’t feel understood. Every time I’m she/her-ed is a metaphorical punch to the gut that leaves me feeling sick with the realization that my parents don’t see me the same way I see myself, and I don’t know if they ever will. It’s a slap to the face that snaps me back to the reality of the me that my family has always known.
You can see why it’s becoming ever more mentally taxing to be at home. After a certain length of time (shorter than winter break) at home, I even come to accept the me that exists at home as me. I start to see myself in the way that my family does, and I lose some of the connection I’ve built with the authentic me since being away on my own.
Despite all of this, I still find myself hesitant to tell them about the real me (the me that exists at college), even though I have no problem telling you all of this through my writing. I suppose that’s just the way things are for now, and I know that telling my family about the real me will probably relieve most of these issues given some time, but that fear that has accumulated over my eighteen years of existence is so darn hard to overcome.
While this was quite cathartic to put into words, I don’t know if you can relate to any of it. If you can, I hope you found solace in the fact that there are others like you struggling with the same problem of balancing two separate selves. If you can’t, I hope you’ve at least come away from this post with some new insight about what this struggle of identity can feel like. Maybe try to be more understanding of your own family. Maybe try a little harder to get your friends’ pronouns right. Just be the best supporter you can be, without necessarily requiring a lot of your time or energy to do so.
As always, I love you and I’m proud of the person you are, especially the version you feel is most authentic. I’ll see you again next week.
With love,
PJ
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