This isn’t what I thought I was going to write. I had gently mapped out the meandering path of these essays, winding backwards through time, coloring in the negative space after my tentative crayon outline. I certainly didn’t think I was going to write anything about Beyoncés new epic, COWBOY CARTER, because there is nothing I could say that would add anything to the discourse except queen bey so good sing much pretty.
I pressed play for the first time as I sat down to write, thinking of my torturous and cathartic and liminal journey through the underworld of the Midwest, ready to hold on and take you with me. And then came the tiny voice of bebe Bey, Rumi: Mom, can I hear the lullaby?, her Ls baby-like Ws.
Pwease?
And I will lead you down that road if you lose your way /
born to be a protector
I can feel Bey’s hand on her baby’s soft face, singing her to sleep, and suddenly I can’t swallow because I’m thinking of my mother.
My mother, who puts her fears behind my own when I get bad news. My mother, who encouraged my sojourn West, even when our family buckled with loss. My mother, so much smaller than me, who can still hold my shaking body.
I wasn’t afraid to come out to my mother—at least, not for the reasons you might think. We love each other and enjoyed being together, but I felt this invisible cellophane between us, like I’d been shrink-wrapped in a grocery store. What began many, many years ago as tiny, protective omissions of my life snowballed into something darker, more complicated. On the cusp of womanhood, the difficulties I thought were behind me had come home to roost.
I found myself frozen, wanting to tell her all about this ghosthouse I found myself in, but terrified that involving her would make it real in a “you can’t un-cook the noodles” way.
Maybe if it was just mine, I could convince myself that this wasn’t actually my life.
Maybe if it was just mine, everyone else could convince me that I was okay.
So I smiled and shoved it down, down, and tried to be the good daughter whose life was together, who didn’t bring worries to her mother’s doorstep.
Instead, I showed up at her house at 6am, because I couldn’t sleep. Instead she watched me struggle with myriad somatic maladies—chronic back spasms, interstitial cystitis, plantar fasciitis—that quietly took me off the playing board of life for years.
“I think this might be emotional,” she said, her brow knit with worry.
When the time finally came to open my mouth and loose my truth, she was the first person I wanted to tell. But 2020 had descended upon us, and with it, the coming-apart of my family. I would take a breath on our Zooms to share this frightening, shaking, beautiful truth, and… and my mother was facing down radiation. And my cousin was navigating a divorce. And my beloved aunt was experiencing strange back spasms that would soon be revealed to be terminal cancer. And suddenly the Big Thing I was excited and anxious to share felt so burdensome, so unhelpful, so selfish… surely I could wait until things calmed down?
Of course, they didn’t. My mother’s radiation became an (unrelated) hospital stay. My aunt needed to be taken apart and put back together through agonizing conditions. It was still so tricky navigating 2020, only one person could safely assist her at a time. And what I thought I would share next week quickly became next month, next season, next year, as I quietly floated on a lonely island of queerness in a pandemic.
She calls me to check on me, to connect when a piece of our shared heart is dying. When she asks me how I am doing, I don’t know what to say that isn’t I came out 10 months ago and my whole life is falling apart at the seams—so I phone in something tofu and nondescript.
“Jennifer, do you hate me?” she says. “I have been calling you for weeks and you won’t talk to me. I’ve never felt so alone.”
I hold my breath and squeeze my eyes shut. Fuck. This train has run out of track. I take a sharp inhale. I apologize with all my heart. And I tell her my truth.
She holds it, masterfully. She tells me she loves me. And she begs me to never, ever stop sharing with her out of fear of being a burden.
“I’m your mom. This is what I signed up for.”
I didn't let her hold me, protect me, for so many years, insisting on holding it alone. As I have peeled away the layers of Saran wrap holding me back, I loosed the old pains of trauma withheld, restoring intimacy, and have been practicing the tender art of trust falling into her love. Trusting that letting her hold me is a kindness. That letting her see me, in all my brokenness, is a gift.
It’s been three years today since I came out to my mother. Every conversation since has been softer, sweeter, more broken, more loving, and so very much more real. Our time together is finally, truly intimate, learning each other on a deeper level than I ever could have imagined.
I am so grateful she keeps calling my name, and I’m so grateful I keep picking up the phone.
And even though I know, someday, you're gonna shine on your own
I will be your protector / born to be a protector
xx Peanut
Oh Jen, this is beautiful! And Queen Bey? 🧨🔥👑