Mom stuff

My son turned 18 yesterday.

Middle-age Butch and son back in the day

It was around 11:30 p.m. that the doctor said we would be celebrating his birthday on May 16.

I wasn’t have any of that next day stuff. After a few pushes, he entered the world on May 15, a few minutes before midnight. A month and a half before his due date.

He is stubborn like his mother.

From the beginning, he was setting his own schedule and interrupting any plans I had for a normal pregnancy and delivery.

When he finally came home from the hospital, he weighed a little over 5 pounds. I kept him tucked in the crook of my arm like a football.

Do you speak sports?

I  assumed he would speak the same language that my dad, my brother and I speak: sports. He doesn’t.

He doesn’t speak books or movies or superheroes or any of my other languages.

He speaks his own, a mix of technology and disdain for everything I like.

He has always been a difficult child. Insisting on paving his own path and refusing to conform to the most basic of rules. He wears shorts in the winter. Says the sky is green. Eats soup from a plate.

I get frustrated. I use the word “normal” more than I want to and then hate myself for doing so. I often worry about what other people will think. When I step back, I can see I am recreating my own childhood.

W always tells me we are supposed to learn from our children. That we can find healing in the parent-child relationship.

I never really understood this.

I have a quote taped to the front of my printer. “Be who you needed when you were younger,” it says.

It reminds me to keep reaching out to young people to tell my story so they can be comfortable with their own.

I wonder if the answer has been there all along.

“Be who you needed when you were younger.”

Maybe I’m supposed to parent my son the way I needed to be parented. Accepting him as he is.

Maybe that’s what finally sets me free.

Dads and daughters

Growing up as a tomboy (or mini-butch), my dad taught me how to do the important things in life:

• Fish.

Keep score at a baseball game.

Throw a split finger fastball.

Shoot pool.

Tie a necktie.

Shoot a layup.

Cook breakfast.

Be loyal.

Be patient.

Never force things.

Work hard.

Keep calm (before it was even a thing).

And always listen to your wife.

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there!

* * *

What did your dad teach you?

 

It’s a glorious day to be a baseball fan

We interrupt this week’s romance-themed posts to bring you this special, two-word announcement:

Pitchers.

Catchers.

Why rejection is good

When I was in middle school, I decided to try out for the girls’ basketball team.  When the day of tryouts came, I chickened out.  Instead of reporting to the gym, I got on the bus and went home.

“Oh, I thought I was picking you up at school?” my mom asked when I got home.

“I didn’t make the team,” I said.

“They had us line up shortest to tallest, and they cut the shortest people,” I explained.  “I still had time to make the bus.”

Of course, it wasn’t true.  My school was weird but not that weird.  I had just gotten cold feet.

This girl did not go to my school.

My mom bought the story.  She didn’t know much about sports, so I guess a height-based cut for basketball players seemed logical.  She must have thought that I went to school with some freakishly tall girls because I have always been of average height.

I had wanted to play basketball but didn’t really know how.  I was a baseball kid, born and raised with a Rawlings glove on my left hand.

I played pick-up basketball with the guys down at the court at the bottom of the street.  There were usually five or six of us, and most of the time, we played half court.  We divided into two teams — shirts and skins.  Of course, I was always shirts.  I could play competitively with the guys.  It’s just that we played by pick-up rules and not official rules and that kept me from trying out for the school team.

Bring it on.

I thought about basketball tryouts last week when I received my first official rejection letter.

I had submitted two chapters from my memoir for publication.  An on-line magazine turned me down because my piece didn’t fit with the editorial focus of their upcoming issue.  At least that’s what they said.

Here’s the weird part: I felt something close to excitement upon reading the rejection letter.  It made me feel like I was in the game, that I was trying and not lying to myself about being too busy or not ready or not good enough or too tired or too short or too whatever.

Rejection.  Who knew it could feel almost good?

You had me at Beyonce

Weird.

I was just sitting here at my computer daydreaming.  About last night’s Super Bowl.

I’m sure you’re thinking that’s not so out of character for Middle-age butch.  You are, after all, a flannel-clad, masculine-leaning, sports-obsessed lesbian, you might say.  Isn’t watching football mandatory for your kind?

Why, yes, I did watch the game.

But the truth of the matter is that I really wasn’t that into it.  I’m not a fan of either team.  The match-up didn’t excite me.  And I gave up betting on sports years ago.

Yawn.

But then there was Beyonce.

Looking all Amazon warrior in that black leather outfit/lingerie.  Like the fucking queen of the Amazons.

Her long legs stretched all the way to the top of the Superdome.  I’m pretty sure that’s why the power went out.

Now, I have never been a Beyonce fan.  I’ve always preferred TLC over Destiny’s Child.  I usually like my rock stars a little more edgy (see Melissa Etheridge), and soulful (see Melissa Etheridge) and angry lesbian (see Melissa Etheridge).

But then there was Beyonce.

Shaking her perfect hips and wagging her finger.  Looking all Sasha Fierce.

The all-girl band didn’t hurt, either.  Damn.

I politely clapped after each number.

The kids kept telling me that Beyonce can’t hear me.

They are rude and impertinent.  And know nothing about sports.

Besides, it really didn’t matter.  During those 12 minutes, it was just me and Beyonce.

So, the highlight of Super Bowl XLVII?

The half-time show.

I’m pretty sure someone is going to be showing up soon to revoke my Butch Lesbian card.