May | 2009 | Artificially Sweetened

Proud to be a family

May 31, 2009 at 11:44 pm | Posted in We are Family | 9 Comments

Ironically, I am writing this post for the (4th annual!) Blogging for LGBT families day as my own family is 3,000 miles away from me on the other side of the country visiting Pili’s family. P’ito is being Very Two, and poor Pili is ready to come home and turn him over to me for a month few days.

Last year, this cross-country excursion coincided with our local pride fest, and I was seriously bummed out. All of these years cheering on the families and their cute kids, even walking with our friends and their cute kids… I had this image in my mind of the two of us and our rainbow be-decked offspring marching proudly along. And now, finally, we had a kid – and he wasn’t there.

This year, we will be there. Rain or shine, I will pull out P’ito’s rainbow tie-dye t-shirt that last year was big on him and now is getting snug, and we will pack up the stroller and several hundred different snack options, and we will be there. Naptime be damned.

So often, in my interactions with the world, it’s just me and P’ito and I inadvertantly pass. There’s nothing about me, trying to keep P’ito from grabbing candy off the rack at the supermarket or chasing him down the sidewalk, that screams LESBIAN at you. There’s nothing about the ring on my finger that says, “I’m married to a woman.”

And so, this year, I can’t wait to walk there, to show the world that it’s possible for love to make a family as beautiful as ours. To perhaps inspire some young woman like me to think: I can do that. I can be who I am – and be a mom.

And I hope that this will be the year that New York State realizes what Vermont, Mass, Connecticut, Vermont, Maine and IOWA have already realized – that the world doesn’t fall apart when our families have the same right to make a commitment to each other as straight people do.

Crawling out from under my rock

May 28, 2009 at 11:00 pm | Posted in Bringing Home the Bacon, M'ijo, The Other D (Better Living Through Chemistry) | 16 Comments

I keep meaning to post. But there are so many things in my head, and so many of them are unbloggable. I work at a small non-profit, and we are just barely surviving this economy and may very well not make it. Which would be stressful enough without the partner of one of my colleagues suddenly learning (as in four days later he was having brain surgery) that he has stage 4 glioblastoma. Which means that she is barely present at work and when she is, she isn’t. Her family is her first priority, I truly believe that, but at the same time, it puts even more pressure on the rest of us.

So the past two months I’ve been dealing with this, and trying to fight off the demons in my head that threaten to suffocate me in anxiety and depression that paralyzes me and makes the smallest decision agonizing. And then of course, I think, I need to work, I need to get stuff done, and it is even worse because I cannot. I’ve gone back to therapy (good) and gotten some new head meds (also good, although the first ones my doctor put me on caused me to eat insatiably and I don’t know how I’m going to get rid of those ten pounds on top of all the other stress eating ones…) and in general am Hanging In There, You Go Girl and all that jazz.

So that’s where I’ve been.

That and trying to keep up with this whirlwind, whose smile puts it all in perspective for me.

He’s 2 1/2 and so full of ideas, opinions, and questions. “Cause why, Mama? Cause why?” His head spins around on his neck whenever anything wheeled goes by. He is polite (for a toddler) – melting hearts with his spontaneous thank-yous. He is incredibly physical – last weekend he climbed up a steep and rocky trail described as “not suitable for young children” – and he loves nothing more than to play endless games of chase, catch me! catch me!

And as long as that continues, everything else is ultimately gravy (but don’t tell me that when I’m pulling my hair out at work…)