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Dec. 26th, 2005 07:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
felis_ultharusI was pretty depressed yesterday, until ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jc2004, snowdaemon, and their friend, Duncan the Evil Library Assistant, showed up. Even with them around, though, and even having managed to make contact with my friends out here, I still wonder why I put myself through this every year.
I'm notoriously hard to buy for at Christmas, though some people made a valiant effort and actually succeeded (top of that list issnowdaemon and jc2004, and I can think of at least three people on my f-list who'll want to get their hands on Hanging Out With The Dream King: Conversations with Neil Gaiman and His Collaborators, which means I'll have to find some time to read it myself first).
But the reason I'm so hard to buy for is not because I have everything I want, or that I don't want anything -- it's just because the things I do want can't be sold or bought.
Top of that list, right now, I think, would not be feeling like an exile here. Which I always do. My extended family is really, really nice, but I almost can't help feel like I don't belong anymore -- maybe just because I've been in Montreal so long, maybe because our generation's values are so at odds with theirs, but I can't help but wonder if it's because I'm gay, too.
While marriage and children come up constantly -- to the point where it must annoy my cousins -- the subject is not raised in reference to me. Normally I say very little about my life. Which is hard. Most of the accomplishments I'm proud of in this world are things touching on the fact that I'm gay.
If I bring up things like helping to start Victoria's first gay and lesbian youth group, or standing up to a homophobic school counsellor, or the time I was on welfare and in a job program and they threatened to toss me out because I put my gay-related volunteer experience on a résumé -- and they could have thrown me onto the streets then because we weren't in the Human Rights Act or the Charter back then -- when I talk about the articles I've written, or marching in the Pride parade, or the four times I've taken in queer teenagers on the run from their abusive families, or about always being out on the job even though one time it probably got me fired, or the very small part I played in the fight for same-sex marriage -- when I talk about any of it, I get embarrassment from my mother, and my father just quickly changes the subject, as if he hadn't heard.
All my acomplishments, all the things I've struggled for, are embarrassments in this family. I've fought uphill to make a life for myself in spite of everything, and that means nothing here. And I ask myself why I want approval for this from them, and I can cite all the logical reasons why I shouldn't care, but the truth is, I do, and I can't lie about that.
My presence -- my mere existence here -- seems to matter very much to this family. But only if I'm devoid of content. I'm not wanted here because of who I am, and any discussion of who I am is to be kept to a minimum.
I still don't know why I do this to myself every year :(
jc2004, snowdaemon, and their friend, Duncan the Evil Library Assistant, showed up. Even with them around, though, and even having managed to make contact with my friends out here, I still wonder why I put myself through this every year.I'm notoriously hard to buy for at Christmas, though some people made a valiant effort and actually succeeded (top of that list is
snowdaemon and jc2004, and I can think of at least three people on my f-list who'll want to get their hands on Hanging Out With The Dream King: Conversations with Neil Gaiman and His Collaborators, which means I'll have to find some time to read it myself first).But the reason I'm so hard to buy for is not because I have everything I want, or that I don't want anything -- it's just because the things I do want can't be sold or bought.
Top of that list, right now, I think, would not be feeling like an exile here. Which I always do. My extended family is really, really nice, but I almost can't help feel like I don't belong anymore -- maybe just because I've been in Montreal so long, maybe because our generation's values are so at odds with theirs, but I can't help but wonder if it's because I'm gay, too.
While marriage and children come up constantly -- to the point where it must annoy my cousins -- the subject is not raised in reference to me. Normally I say very little about my life. Which is hard. Most of the accomplishments I'm proud of in this world are things touching on the fact that I'm gay.
If I bring up things like helping to start Victoria's first gay and lesbian youth group, or standing up to a homophobic school counsellor, or the time I was on welfare and in a job program and they threatened to toss me out because I put my gay-related volunteer experience on a résumé -- and they could have thrown me onto the streets then because we weren't in the Human Rights Act or the Charter back then -- when I talk about the articles I've written, or marching in the Pride parade, or the four times I've taken in queer teenagers on the run from their abusive families, or about always being out on the job even though one time it probably got me fired, or the very small part I played in the fight for same-sex marriage -- when I talk about any of it, I get embarrassment from my mother, and my father just quickly changes the subject, as if he hadn't heard.
All my acomplishments, all the things I've struggled for, are embarrassments in this family. I've fought uphill to make a life for myself in spite of everything, and that means nothing here. And I ask myself why I want approval for this from them, and I can cite all the logical reasons why I shouldn't care, but the truth is, I do, and I can't lie about that.
My presence -- my mere existence here -- seems to matter very much to this family. But only if I'm devoid of content. I'm not wanted here because of who I am, and any discussion of who I am is to be kept to a minimum.
I still don't know why I do this to myself every year :(
