Making Your Way to Phoenix
The bird, not the city in Arizona.
“15 years? That’s a long time,” she said.
My new acquaintance was seated behind me in the car so I couldn’t see her face, but her comment threw me.
“15 years? Maybe it was 12 years that I was married. Let me count,” I heard myself saying, even though I knew exactly how long my woman-loving self had been married to a man.
There was no judgment in this (heterosexual) woman’s tone, yet a hint of incredulity sat in the middle of her words.
And I suddenly felt the hot breath of guilt on my neck.
We were in a car, crossing an overpass into downtown Seattle, but I felt like I was a passenger on the Bridge to Questionable Decisions or a sudden bullet train to my youth.
I was unsettled because I didn’t come out when I was 16. (You can read about that part of my story here.)
I felt like I was 4 years old and wearing scratchy tights again. The uncomfortable frilly dress with the polyester trim. The patent leather shoes with the buckles on my feet. Things that never fit right. Hand-me-downs that I wanted to throw down for a pair of Sears Tough Skin jeans, Keds, and a striped t-shirt.
But sometimes it takes part of a lifetime to realize you can wear clothes other than the ones they told you to wear.
And part of a lifetime to say out loud what you knew long ago but were too scared to say to anyone, even yourself.
To speak about a love that was forbidden in your house, your church, your community. To risk losing belonging and family.
That’s a lot to risk — and many people will never know what it’s like to sit in that space for a day or a year or 15 years. The space where you know you don’t belong, but you don’t know how to get to where you do belong.
Until one day you do.
But in that car on the Seattle streets on Wednesday night, I mumbled something about being friends with my ex-husband and that our kids love him. And then my new acquaintance revealed that she knew a man (who had been married to a friend of hers) who came out.
Ah, she was just trying to figure it out, I thought. Intellectualize what can’t ever be explained clearly, not even by those sitting right smack dab in the experience.
It’s a hard road, this path to discovering yourself. For her, me, that man she knew, and everybody else in this world.
And discovering yourself isn’t always about sexuality or gender or any one particular thing. It’s a process and there are so many gates for all of us to pass through.
But if we are lucky, we make our way to who we are supposed to be for ourselves. Not who we are supposed to be for others.
And it takes time.
Giving Grace
That’s why I try to avoid judging many people (except you, Marco Rubio — I am judging you HARD) and I give extra grace to transgender folks.
Because it doesn’t matter when or how this tiny group of people (1% of our population) figured out that they are a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth. What matters is THAT they figured it out.
Because a lifetime is a long time to live in a skin that you don’t fit in.
Meanwhile, back in Seattle, our car pulled to the curb.
My new acquaintance got out. I wasn’t certain if I had helped her to understand anything. And I will readily admit that I don’t have the answers to everything.
But I know this: every person who is comfortable with their outside matching their inside — who truly feels at peace with their soul and being — every person who gets to this space is a miracle. No matter how long it took them to arrive.
And we should celebrate all the miracles that we can find, including you and me.
“I didn’t know I was a phoenix ‘til I learned how to speak.” — Mary Lambert, Sum of Our Parts
Bonus Musical Fadeout: this was one of my mom’s favorite songs. She used to make my cousin Jon play it on the organ. Happy early Mother’s Day, Mom. I miss you every day.
You don’t have to share all the truth in your life but when you do you create an openness and freedom. Thank you for being the teacher and artist that you are. I know your Mom is happy for you☮️