No way!

“Over 40 and Over Men?” reads a headline gracing the cover of this month’s MORE magazine.  I’m intrigued.  I look inside and read: “More and more women are living the ultimate do-over: falling for another female.  Meet the gay and grey generation.”

That’s me.

While not feeling particularly grey, my family and I have been living “the ultimate do-over.” I buy the magazine and bring it home, compelled to devour every word of this narrative – a narrative that my family and I are living out, that is just now beginning to make its way into the cultural conversation.

“A normal part of coming out as an adult is the feeling of being an adolescent on fire, caught in the body of a 40 to 50 year old,” says my friend and colleague Joanne Fleisher, author of Living Two Lives: Married to a Man and In Love with a Woman.  Ah, the memories…I was that adolescent on fire (my friends will attest!) in my mid-40’s.

AND married. Just like the women profiled in MORE.

Together with Joanne Fleisher, I have since facilitated groups and weekend workshops for heterosexually married women who are struggling with their attractions to women. The emotional agony is palpable as we sift through the consequences of these feelings – particularly as they impact husbands and children.  In my own experience I came to use the term “autobiographical rupture” – it so aptly described the abrupt tear I felt in my life story.

The fact that this story is being told in a mainstream women’s magazine is of great significance: it familiarizes the public with another narrative of sexuality, and decreases the isolation women so often feel in the process. Perhaps too, it is the harbinger of a future in which we will focus on the quality of relationship rather than the gender of the partner.

I related to the women in the MORE piece, but was keenly aware that it was ultimately not an individual process; particularly with young children, the entire family becomes engaged in the unfolding story and decision making that ensues. I didn’t feel really ‘out’ until I told my children. Come to think of it, I found the entire ‘coming out’ process rather bizarre – I didn’t have to claim my heterosexuality, after all.

While the MORE piece had a focus on sex and dating, I would have liked to have more discussion about the reactions women can anticipate – they are a window into how we think as a culture about sexuality and identity.  In my case, the reactions were (a) that my marriage somehow wasn’t ‘real’ and (b) that I must have had these feelings all along and just didn’t acknowledge them.  Neither was true.  But the rush to categorize obfuscates the real questions: Why do we need these categories in the first place? What are the consequences of being a member?

Ok, ok, so those are big questions for a small article in MORE magazine. But that article tells a big story – one that apparently, we are ready to hear. I think mostly of the woman who reads this month’s MORE magazine and does not live in or near gay friendly places, who faces this crisis alone and confused; for her, this small piece can become a lifeline.

Thank you, MORE.

I return after a most serious case of blogger’s block (yes, there is such a thing – wikipedia entry and all.) Initially, I thought it was just a post holiday digging out from all that gets put aside, but, no, I simply couldn’t sit down to write.

I now know that when this happens to me there’s something brewing personally.  My writing does tend to be reflexive – its just where I’m at these days.  Perhaps a result of turning 50.

I am on the NY thruway again, and I am crying.  I have just left my daughter, Lauren, once my very little girl, now a smart, funny, loveable young woman, to embark upon the adventures of her last semester of senior year in high school. I have had a very unusual high school experience with Lauren because she has attended a fabulous all-girl boarding school, Emma Willard, in Troy, NY. How’s this for a tag line?: “Since 1814, empowering girls who transform the world.”  Alums include Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1832), Jane Fonda (1955), and Kirsten Gillibrand (1984), (and my daughter, 2009!)

So, while other parents of teenagers have been dealing with curfews and parties, I have had the relative ease of knowing she is safe – surrounded by friends, houseparents and a faculty that have cultivated her extraordinary talents and focused her strengths.

I can no longer suspend the terrible truth. And it is just this: Next year, she’ll be a freshman in college.

Now I know what you might be thinking…….that’s what supposed to happen, isn’t it?

Yes.  And she is well prepared, mature, enthusiastic. But, I wonder, will she be safe?

My worries about what happens to young women in college are born, no doubt, from the many stories I have heard over the years in my clinical practice. Stories of tragedy and trauma, of assault, rape. I cringe just writing these words and thinking of my daughter in the same sentence.

It’s a very odd thing, this parenting.  We are responsible for every need, seemingly every breath, when they are infants; then those days of infinite closeness and safety melt away as they grow.  But if we are lucky, it is still a charmed existence:  springtime softball, autumn costumes, pure holiday magic.

Then, we’re supposed to let them go.

It sneeks up at first………..overnights with a friend, middle school dances.

Then the really big ones: driving and college. How are we supposed to just let them drive away after tucking them in every night for years upon years?

Parenting is not for the faint of heart.

So, for now I will rest easy in the knowledge that Lauren is in good care – she is safe.

And as all parenting goes, that too will change.  And I will adjust.  But that will be the hardest of transitions for this Mom. (aka now unblocked mommablogger).

PS I would recommend the following link to deal your own bloggersblock: http://www.problogger.net/battling-bloggers-block/.  One of the suggestions offered was to “Take Questions”  and I wanted to put that out to GWP readers.  Any questions about family life you might want me to address? Let me know, and we’ll start a conversation!