Long time coming

The Wifey and I decided to go on vacation to Minnesota since we weren't able to get tickets for Thanksgiving (over $600 per ticket? No fucking way) and since taking off time during the "real" holiday time would be damn near impossible. So, we took the first week of December (before it got too cold) to fly to our home state. I'm going to go on a tangent here and say it's great to live far away sometimes — you can pick where you want to live and once you make the big move, it's much easier to move to other places. You can start over if you want, be who you really are or who you really aren't. I love to visit friends and (some) family, but I really enjoy coming back to D.C. Moving on.

So, in a brave move, I decided to visit my parents up north. I hadn't seen them for over a year and a half and felt that it would be a healing move. It was an even harder decision to go by myself while Wifey visited with her family. I made a pact with myself that this visit would be solo — to show my parents that I indeed was alive and well but to establish the line. I drove up and tried to conjure emotion — any emotion — but I couldn't. Save for the ever-growing feeling of numbness. I drank my last sip of gas station coffee and unlocked the trunk to get my suitcase out. Slowly, I walked up the driveway, making snowy prints and knocked on the door. My dad greeted me with a hug and immediately started crying (he's a cryer and probably where I get it from). My mom was smiling really big and when my dad finally let go, she hugged me. I smiled, but it felt fake. Like the smile you smile after you've been crying really hard and someone tries to make you feel better or laugh? That kind.

It was good to see them, but for the first time, I felt like an outsider. Because my mom and I would argue every time we spoke over the phone, the last four months we had communicated strictly through e-mail. Which was probably a good thing, and saved a lot of tears, but left it really easy for one party to ignore the other parties words. I would mention Wifey in almost every e-mail to her because she is a big part of my life and truthfully, there isn't much I do without her that's worth mentioning. My mom would reply, and ignore any girlfriend references. So fine, I get that. And I'll put up with it for awhile. But she was doing this in person too — I'd say anything with the girlfriend mention and my mom would start talking about something else or ignore it. But, again, I'll put up with it. For awhile.

Thing is, I wasn't sure there was ever the right time for the "So, the next time you see me, it will be the both of us or no me at all" conversation. And, consequently, I never got around to it. So, here I am. Weeks later and I haven't talked or e-mailed my mom. I just don't know what to say, where to start or what to do. There seriously needs to be a guide put out for this shit. Welcome to Gay World! Here's your map and guide and rainbow sticker for your car and list of gay-friendly places and places you should never go at night and good gay bars and good (mostly only OK) gay movies, etc. Someone's gay agenda should be to put something like that out there. For the rest of us. Who are winging it every day.

So, that's why the blogging has been a bit on the low side this past month. I've got a lot on my mind and was semi-depressed for a week or so after coming home because of my parents. I just felt alone while there and I missed my girlfriend and I just couldn't relax. It made me sad that this is what the relationship with my parents is reduced to. One day at a time. Or something shitty like that.