Did You Think About Me Today?

A gay son wonders if his mother misses him on his 38^th birthday.

Did you think about me today when you noticed it was June 27? Did you think then that I’d turn out like this 38 years ago when you first saw me? Did you wonder if I’d be okay? Did you want the world for me? Did you wrap me up, change my diapers, and hold my head close to you feeling the warmth of my breath against your neck and wonder what I’d be like today?

Did you raise an eyebrow when I flapped my hands funny during the terrible twos, and when I cried at my first haircut that freed me of three years of toe-headed curls? Did you squirm when I ran around the back yard with a washcloth on my head screaming, “I’m a girl! I’m a girl!”

Did you wonder when I was sissy six what kind of wife I’d marry? Could you imagine me being married when I played Wonder Woman on the second grade playground? Did you want to protect me from bullies? Break little Susi’s neck when she called me a faggot? Did you want to shoot Ryan with that NRA approved rifle when he beat me up behind the bathroom at school?

Did you listen outside my bedroom door when in the seventh grade I cried myself to sleep at night? Did you want to intervene but didn’t know how? Did you wonder why I learned to sew and make brightly colored shirts with collars that stood straight up when my friends were wearing 501s and t-shirts? Did you wonder why I looked like Duran Duran but sounded like Sandi Patty?

Did you notice my self-hatred at saccharine sixteen, even though I put on a devil-may-care front? When you slapped me in the tub, did you think that maybe I just had a different opinion? Did you make me fear hell because you knew I wanted to kill myself but that I wouldn’t if I was afraid of afterlife consequences?

Did you think there was something wrong when I dated girls after I was allowed to at 18, but couldn’t stay with any of them? Did you think about my clumsy attempts to prove myself with them? Did you think I’d be confused when I loved them deeply but got sick when I thought about them in “that way?” Were you glad when I professed my virginity, waiting until it was sanctified between a man and a woman?

Did you consider what being a virgin until twenty-seven might do to a man? That celibacy might not be everyone’s option? That god might not be testing me? That he might have created me beautifully in his own image?

When you visited me once as an adult, did you secretly peek in my bedside diary and label me crazy? Were you mortified, taken blameless, or disgusted when I came out? And when I later told you I was dating a man?

Do you know what it’s like to be rejected for simple things? Simple things that shouldn’t matter? Things you hold dear? To be in love with a man? To want children without the option?

Do you know what it’s like to lose your family, your alma mater, your best friend, and your livelihood because of who you are?

Do you wish I’d change? Or do you secretly agree with the laws that are changing?

Are you glad I might finally have a voice? Are you frightened?

Do you miss me like I miss you? Do you wish you could have frozen my childhood and kept me in your arms?

Do you wonder what I’m doing today? On my terrific thirty-eighth birthday?