Our Monkey Life

Covidmas

It wouldn’t be a fitting end to 2020 if we weren’t stuck in quarantine due to possible exposure to the plague.

No family.

No friends.

Just the 3 of us and a big old ball of stress.

Gorilla works in a retail environment. Apparently his manager decided it was important that he be in the store while waiting for his covid test results to come in. So 2 days ago he found out he had covid. Woops.

So he went home, the closed the store for 2 hours for “deep cleaning” which amounted to a sales guy with some Clorox wipes wiping down counters and registers.

Makes you feel safe shopping out there right? Wait. It gets better.

It turns out that guy who was nominated to “clean” decided to get his own test, you know, just in case.

Yup. He was positive. So the guy tasked with removing n the virus was instead spreading it all over the store.

So of course the store is closed now right? Everyone was sent home pending their own test results right?

Wrong. Not only were they open the demanded my husband come in to work.

So now I am silently freaking out. Because I am not likely to do well with covid.

I have lung issues.

I have heart issues.

I have immune system issues.

I am toast.

So enjoy your Christmas, have a happy new year. But for the love of humanity keep it small at least. Please?

I am not okay.

I am really not. I am depressed. I am in pain. I am struggling.

It is quite literally exhausting me to keep pretending to be okay. All I want to do is curl up under the blankets of my bed, take a handful of benadryl and sleep for a week.

I can’t find the joy in my life right now and it totally sucks. I can’t even bring myself to shower or brush my hair, let alone wrap presents. I can’t tell the people I love and who love me how I am feeling. They just tell me to stop. They tell me I’m being foolish. They don’t want to hear it.

So I suffer in silence hoping each day is the day I feel better. Waking up each morning knowing that day has not arrived yet.

I am not okay.

And nobody cares.

What do you know now that you wish you knew then?

I recently asked this question of some parents of other LGBTQ kids. Some of the answers were sweet and some were heartbreaking. All were absolutely invaluable for me to read and take to heart.

I hear many times people tell young LGBTQ people who are struggling that “it gets better”. And it does! Both for them and those who love them. So hang in there, do your best and forgive yourself for mistakes along the way.

Some of the answers I received below:

That my daughter (amab) wouldn’t suddenly want to wear make-up and go dress shopping! In my urgency to show my support, I started by focussing on the wrong things, and I didn’t know that gender identity and gender expression are separate things.

I wish I knew how to teach them how to deal with the cruel aspects of the world better. C. was much braver than me but did make an easy target for bullies. They were sooo sensitive. I warned, but didn’t have coping skills to teach.

They’ll change their views quickly, go with the flow, support and love them no matter what.

To set boundaries with family/friends about what I am willing to walk them through processing. My very religious sister walked through how to bring her children around “that” when they were so young and they had been taught that is wrong. She was not going to join the annual family reunion because she just couldn’t expose her boys to that. She came around maybe a week later. She prayed about it and God told her not to worry about it. That week has forever shifted my relationship with not just her, but anyone that “sided” with her. ❤️ It is not your (or your child’s) responsibility to educate, listen to, mentor, or correct other people. I also wish I would have educated myself earlier, so I could have spoken more calmly.

That we’d be surrounded with way more love and support than I had thought we would be.

I actually wish I knew two years before that depression and suicidal thoughts could be a precursors to what she was going through. I had no idea what was going on, but her coming out made a world of difference.

That keeping my mouth shut would prevent so much pain.

The dumb questions that I should not have asked them.

Future plans

Part of the reason I started this, wasn’t so much to be read as a blogger, but because I wanted a place to record our stories.

I feel like everything in my life up to now has been preparing me for this moment.

I want to write about it. I want to share my story with other families. Our struggles. Our triumphs. What I have learned along the way.

I have a 12 year old kid with neuro differences who is highly sensitive and now identifying as LGBTQ.

This is a new world of parenting. Kids never came out as gay at 12 before. Especially not to their parents. I think I am a good mom. But I know I have made mistakes. I wish there was a manual along the way. Something that I could point to and say “aha! This is what I should do.”

I react always from a place of love. I live in perpetual fear of fucking it all up. But at least if I do fuck up I did so trying to love.

Does that help? I hope it does.

Sustenance

Feeding the family has bever been tougher.

Monkey has been staunchly vegetarian for 6 months now. At first I wasn’t sure it was going to stick. He originally made his declaration with the caveat that he would still occasionally eat chicken nuggets. That exception has been since rescinded. I think he’s a lifer.

Gorilla on the other hand is reluctant to give up meat entirely. This leaves me with a handful of options that my husband will accept meatless or are easily made with meat separate so that Monkey’s meal is animal flesh free.

I am getting bored with my cooking because of this.

And because I am bored with my cooking I am ordering Doordash far more often than I should.

This is not good for either my waist or my wallet. So I am about to head out to a local little farm market to tey to score some awesome new foods to inspire me.

The best laid plans…

I had some pto to burn under the new use it or lose it policy. So decided Monkey and I would play hooky and go hiking.

Then when I woke up, it was raining.

So then I decided, ok, let’s go to the comic book store.

Drove 30 minutes only to find they were closed due to covid.

Ended up going to 5 below then going home. Drove around for over an hour for nothing.

Well….Maybe not nothing.

We chatted. We connected. We laughed together. I felt closer to him than I have for weeks.

It was a good day. And I have been missing good days so much lately.

Trust.

I remember in 5th grade our school took us on a weekend camping trip to a state forest. I was 10 I think. One of the things we did was stand on a fence and fall back into the arms of our classmates. It was an exercise in trust. I have lost so many memories over the years, but that moment I have remembered clearly as if it happened yesterday instead of 36 years ago. I was teased horribly as a child, making friends never came easily to me, and in that moment I was scared. I really didn’t know if they would catch me or let me hit the ground and laugh at my bleeding, broken body. I hesitated, but I made the choice to trust them.

As I crossed my arms over my chest and shifted my weight back I closed my eyes and let go. A lifetime of desperately trying to fit in passed before my eyes. All the jokes I didn’t get, all the social cues I missed, all the pop culture references I was clueless about ran through like a movie in my mind in the split second as I was falling through space into the arms of my tormentors.

They caught me to my relief.

It occurs to me that I have not always been willing to put that trust in a universe that has caused me so much heartbreak over the years. How could my 10 year old self been brave enough to trust the very people who made my early school years a living nightmare and not trust the one being who loves me in infinite abundance?

Do I trust God to catch me when I fall?

It is hard letting go isn’t it? They say “let go and let God” but have you ever stopped to consider what that actually means? Letting God have complete control over your life? I am a plan maker. I imagine every worst case scenario and plan how to handle it. I worry constantly about money, security, family, health, being left alone…

It is past time time I stop worrying so much about life and just start living it.

It’s time I allow myself to fall and trust that I will be caught.

Meant to be.

I’m feeling reflecty. Is that a word? Probably not but I’m going with it.

Post-pie philosophy.

I have long been one to proudly proclaim that all of the choices and decisions I have made my entire life have led me to where I am right now. And I am good with where I ended up. Truly. I wouldn’t trade my little family for anything.

But for some reason tonight, I am pensively tripping down memory lane, and wondering what might have been.

What would my life be today if I had pursued a relationship with my best college friend when he finally kissed me that night at the tressel? Would we have had an epic romance? And what would have happened if I put more effort into befriending the girl that eventually became his wife rather than hating on her for constantly breaking his heart? Would I not have eventually lost the friendship I valued so much? I’ll never know.

And what about the first real love from my 20s. I recently learned he has since been arrested several times. Always slightly emotionally messed up, after I couldn’t (wouldn’t?) put up with the ‘will he or won’t he’ any longer he apparently fell down a dark rabbit hole of addiction and crime to support the habit. I wonder if I had stuck with him if my influence would have kept him from falling into the abyss. Or would I have tumbled in with him? I can only classify our relationship as toxic in the extreme. But I did love him and part of me always will. I hope he pulls his shit together. I want him to be happy.

I wonder what I would be doing if I had stayed in Denver. Would I have eventually found a person and settled into a rocky mountain life or continued to float and flit from gig to gig while flirting with the edges of my own potential drug fueled abyss? Is the pity for my ex really just an acknowledgement of there but for the grace of God go I? Probably.

If I hadn’t moved back to my home state, if I hadn’t cut all contact with my father, if I hadn’t had the abortion, if I had chosen a different college, if I didn’t run the stop sign and total my car, if I hadn’t accepted the invite to go to the bar for happy hour that night…

If I had done just one thing differently, I never would have married my Gorilla, we wouldn’t have Monkey and I wouldn’t be where I am right now.

And like I said… I love where I am.

So here’s to being thankful for opportunities missed, seemingly nonsensical choices made and broken hearts. Because I wouldn’t have my life any other way.

Well maybe I would like to have more money, but only if I could keep everything else exactly the same too.

Error in judgment.

Apparently Monkey has reached the age where I can now embarrass him.

Recently I had words with one of his teachers who was not following his IEP. This afternoon while visiting with my mom for Thanksgiving I relayed the story.

Monkey overheard me telling her about it all and was PISSED because it embarrassed him.

So now telling stories about his life is off limits. But when so much of my identity has been wrapped up in being his mother these past 12 years, what do I have left to talk about?

I am honored that God chose me to be his mother. I’m not sure I’m ready for the distancing between us that will be coming soon, though I know it to be necessary. I feel him pulling away already, and it’s breaking me a little.

The only way I will get through the teen years is if I rediscover the me I was before. But where to start?

Gorilla parenting

Ok, so I mentioned that Monkey told us last month he thinks he is gay. Honestly, this did not come as a shock to me. I’ve know since he was 2 or 3 that this was a distinct possibility.

I am totally fine with this. It honestly doesn’t bother me at all. I mean, sure I have new worries about how the world will treat him now, but that’s about it.

Gorilla on the other hand is taking it a little harder. He is doing his best to ignore it completely. I asked him about this and he said “I don’t care that Friend is gay or that Cousin is gay, but for some reason it bothers me that it’s my child.”

Now, don’t misunderstand… he said all the right things to Monkey. He told him he loves him no matter what. That it isn’t a decision or choice, it’s just who he is. He hasn’t changed how he interacts with him AT ALL.

But I see it behind his eyes. And he expresses it when we are alone and I say something about the hypothetical future boyfriend or husband. I see him flinch when Monkey declares that he is offended if he overhears anti LGBTQ crap from people in the news. And I fear it is only a matter of time before Monkey sees it too.

And that will absolutely break his heart. They are sooo close you guys!

See about 5 months after I had Monkey, Gorilla lost his job as part of the Great Recession. So I went back to work and he was a stay at home dad for about 2 years.

When he did go back to work, we made sure his schedule would have him home 3 days during the week and my SIL watched the other 2 days so we didn’t have to worry about daycare as much. So basically Monkey had as much if not more bonding time with Dad as he did with me during those early years. So the closeness between them is really just so sweet.

Which is why I am so scared to see this is affecting my husband in this way. I know it’s a guy thing and he just needs to work through it. Just keep us in your prayers if you’re the praying type.