Lobsters

At the age of 22 I was the happiest I had ever been. I had an amazing job, an amazing boyfriend (now fiance) that I had fallen completely in love with, I had been accepted into the GIS Master's Program at the University of Maryland, and I had published my first book. Things were beyond awesome but still there was something inside of me that was weighing me down. It literally felt like one of those anvils on the roadrunner cartoons that was inside my stomach. The thing was I wasn't being myself around my family.

My friends and some family (namely my brother) all knew who I was, knew the little quirks about me, knew the real me. My parents didn't. I never went out of my way to hide it from them but instead never said those words to them. In fact my whole life I never hid it from anyone; if anyone asked about it I would tell them the truth but I  never went out of my way to tell people. That was never who I was. Finally I decided that it was time, there was no point in letting that anvil sit in my stomach weighing down on my insides.

On a warm May day on the way home from work I swallowed hard and took the exit off of the highway to my parents' house. I sat in my car outside for a while (and pretty sure they knew I was out there since my bright blue Ford Escape isn't exactly known for it's inconspicuousness) until I finally mustered up the courage to walk up the sidewalk and the front steps to knock on the door.

That was my mother's first sign that something was up - I knocked on the door. I had had keys to their house; I never knocked on the door. My mom answered, I walked inside and then I lost it. Tears gushed from the eyes like a waterfall - something that rarely ever happened for me. I barely got out the words: "Is Dad home, I need to talk to you guys about something?"

Without skipping a beat this dialouge commenced as I walked into the living room:

"Were you in a car accident?"

"No."

"Are you pregnant?"

"No!"

"Did something happen to Grant?"

"No..."

"Well then what is it? What happened?"

"Well," I took a deep breath trying to stop the tears, "There's something that I've been wanting to tell you guys for a long time but I could never find the words."

"You can tell us anything, what's up? You're scaring me..." my mom said as she placed a hand on my back and my dad looked at me concerned.

"Well I... I like girls... as much as I like guys...."

There was a pause where my mom and dad just looked at me, then each other, then started laughing as my mom pulled me into a hug, "Is that all?" she said still laughing, "That's the thing that has you so upset, that you felt that you couldn't tell us?"

"Yes..." I said sobbing and trying to get over the shock of their reaction.

"You still love Grant right... he's the one you want to spend you time with?" my dad asked still sitting in his usual arm chair.

"Well yes, I fell in love with him but that doesn't stop me from still being attracted to girls..."

"Yeah, didn't stop me either," my dad laughed.

Then cue the lobster story - this was the go to story that my mom had for the subject of homosexuality. See she had a story for every - abortion, illegal immigration, you know all the hot button topics. This one was about her good friend Steve who she worked in the Senate with. See Steve was gay, and back then it was still a pretty big deal to be gay and work in the Senate. My mom was good friends with Steve and his partner. My mom and my dad went over to their Steve's house quite often for dinner. One dinner they served lobster and my parents still rave about the lobsters.

"They were really good, even for gay lobsters," my dad joked in that way he had that sometimes was never that politically correct. He thought he was hilarious.

So I sat there, after just coming out to my parents listening to them talk about lobsters, and the anvil slowly lifted out of my stomach. It was gone, never to return. I realized that I was scared for no reason; that anvil never had a reason to be in my stomach. I realized also that I never gave my parents enough credit.