Telling Mother

About sometime yesterday afternoon I sent my mum a text, asking her to call me in the evening.

I've done this a couple of times, with the hope of telling her about 'me'.

I've generally not had much success. Mostly because I've been trying to wait for the 'right time'. Despite knowing that the right time was probably a concept that could never actually achieve reality.

So last night the conversation goes on for a little while and doesn't really go anywhere. I tell her a few things unrelated, and she fills me in on all the gossip and drama of the church I once was a part of. People still ask after me, one asking if I'd disappeared off into the ministry. My mum still holds out some hope I might go back to church one day, and although I am generally loathe to discount anything happening in the future, I think it's pretty much never going to happen.

And then, the conversation is ending, and I get a lump in my throat. I have to do this, it's now or never. If I don't do this now, I'm only going to make things harder for myself later.

I launch into the little mini-script I have in my head, a little preamble mentioning things from the last time I visited. It did not go well, as she'd forgotten what she'd asked me.

So I did what I always do when faced with a diversion from the plan. I abandoned the plan entirely and got straight to business.

“I've been living as a woman for the last four months”

Which would have been fine, but I got no real response, and so, I began to talk to try to explain. Which totally lost my mum because she had not heard what I'd said, she'd heard something that had an entirely different meaning. Somehow, “as a” has been transplanted with “with”. Not a big deal, but I'm losing my head, fast, very fast. I try to slow down and we have a stunted conversation about it. She's shocked, she doesn't quite know what to say. I don't blame her for it.

She asks if I'm happy. I'm very happy and tell her so.

I tell her about why I'm seeing a psychiatrist, seeing as I'd told her that I was going to be seeing one; and I told her that I'd been referred to a specialist clinic.

She asked about what my future plans were with it, and about medications. I told her I was going for them, and that it was one of the steps I was planning to take.

I didn't hold back anything. Even when she asked the (inevitable) question about sexuality. It was a little difficult, as I had to explain my bi-sexuality. I have been having a lot of interest from guys, but I am more interested in women. She was inquisitorial about the possibility of me having a male partner, probably in the vein of “will you want to bring him home?”

I wasn't completely shut down and rejected, but I don't think I got out of my mum what exactly it was that she felt. She asked often if I was happy, but my questions of how she was resulted in an “I'm fine”. I've always felt I've not got the full story on either of my parents. I could be walking into a train wreck situation and they'd still not tell me that they thought I was making a mistake. I get often a “we love you and are proud of you” from them, but I feel like it's a mask over what they really think sometimes.

I don't want to sound negative about it though. I'm in a state of shock today though, and certainly grumpy. I think things went as well as could be hoped, but there was a difficulty.

It was about changing my name. Anyone I've actually spoken to about it will know that I always thought that my mum would have a little trouble with me going from male to female, but would most likely break down over that I no longer want my boy name, but wanted to use an entirely new name. I imagined she'd be fine with a feminisation of my old name, which she'd confirmed, but abandoning the name she gave me was more of a hit to her. It was important to me though, to lose the name that to me is still linked with a lot of things that I am not linked to any more.

I can now proceed to the deed poll people now though, one of the conditions being that I talked to my mum about it first.

I've been telling people about me for a while now, and I'm not done yet. I have three friends left to tell at the moment. Hopefully that'll go well too.

That's enough for now though...