Silly Bands. All the rage amongst the Tweens.
Eleven. The two little femme children at our bus stop look decided different from each other now; one is already showing substantial curves, bra straps peeking out around the edges of her tank top shoulder straps; my child, now taller though a full year younger, is all angles, sharp lines, harder jaw, bony chest, skinny legs, dirtier hair, holes in the knees of all his pants. His skirts don’t have the holes of course, though the tights under them sometimes do.
Born a boy, and a boy he will stay, for now. Either pronoun is fine, actually.
He still passes, but for how much longer? I haven’t noticed any double-takes, any dirty looks. He’s going into seventh grade; highschool year after next. Our high-school has a strong GSA, and a good community of GLB parents and a lot of kids out of the closet. But.
You try to imagine it, being your kid, and in the end, you can’t really. Cellphones, internet, cartoons on tap, youtube, x-box, handheld computers, global warming, BP spill, amber alerts, school shootings, Jack Bauer, Lady Ga Ga, Obama and Limbaugh, Lindsey and Britney gone commando.
The world you lived in, the insults we most feared, faggot, queer—Queer! Rehabilitated!— these words must lack the sting they once did. Mustn’t they? After Ellen and Will and Grace, as we await the end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Gay marriage in MA, civil unions and partner benefits…
But we know that violence against gays is up, not down (though maybe this is a reporting artifact.) we know the suicides still happen, even in supportive families, we know the fight if far from finished. The little boy girl, whose parents were really to blame, will soon be an adult, and to the homophobes and haters that means, he’s fair game.
So I’m enjoying the end of this. Oscar’s little brother has lost interest in outing him to random strangers. (I think he just liked the confused look on their faces) But his body is going to start outing him, any day now.
Doing the laundry, folding his skirts and putting them in his drawer.
I no longer flinch when thinking about the future. The past is a memory; the future a dream. The present is good.
We’re here now.
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