Honestly, seeing the words “I’m glad my mom died” as a book title was a big deal for me. I still struggle a year later with feeling that way let alone saying it. I don’t know if I can actually read the whole memoir even though I want to, especially knowing she talks about trauma similar to my own, but I’m thankful she spoke those words aloud.
thinking about that time almost immediately after my mom died where my dad forced me to go to church and the sermon just HAPPENED to be about gayness that day and the pastor was trying to preach a "love the sinner hate the sin" sermon and told a story about hate criming ppl and i (obviously) had such a viscerally negative reaction (bc my mom was my biggest supporter and would have stood up and said something bc when i came out she decided she'd rather love me and all other homos than hate us and push me away to the point she learned abt all lgbtq+ issues and was an avid defender of trans rights) that i literally ran to the bathroom and vomited and sobbed until the sermon was over and then got YELLED AT when we got home bc i embarrassed him and that i should feel shame bc "that was my mothers church" (she barely went by the time she died bc they were homophobic. b4 she got cancer she literally had started unfriending lifelong friends who were homophobic and transphobic) and was berated into apologizing bc "he didnt mean it that way" even though he laughed the entire time, cracked jokes about getting gay men arrested, and ended the hate crime story anecdote by sharing that now he knows better and would call the cops instead. the "perceived sin" btw was there was a pride block party and that block happened to be one route to his old church so he brought a bunch of children and other 20-30y/o men that way and tore down signs from the area and destroyed them and stole the banner they made and burned it (:
fuck, why am I crying? I'm not supposed to do that. why am I rambling about my trauma? im- I'm not supposed to talk about that. why am I exposing myself? why are the walls that I built around myself crumbling over some girl? I'm not supposed to crumble apart. I'm not supposed to feel. I'm not supposed to be a weakling. I'm not supposed to be human..