We all have our parental issues and I’ve probably overshared on here about my issues with my mom. In case you’ve missed it, the short version is her Jesus doesn’t so much like the fact that her womb produced homosexual offspring. Having recently been around nearly all of her family at the funeral of her mother, my amazing grandmother, I’ve even confirmed that the gay runs on her side. She also refuses to see the humor in that, believing that my “lifestyle” is somehow of my own choosing.
During our initial conversations after my coming out, she searched for answers as to how I could have arrived at the conclusion that I’m gay. She tried to blame teachers, my psychotic father, my liberal Baptist college, my semester abroad or some of my friends. After none of those quite panned out, I finally tried to convince her that it was actually Disney’s fault. Yep, that’s right; blame the mouse. Ok, not so much the mouse, but Tinkerbell. She’s the one that done it.
You see, Tinkerbell and I had an altercation once. I was on a band trip to DisneyWorld when I was 14. The trip was really fraught with disaster after calamity. Just prior to the trip I dislocated my knee cap, which left me trying to hobble around Disney and Universal on crutches. Once we landed, the first hurricane of the season blew in and once we got back home, our plane caught on fire. And while all of these things certainly helped to shape my fairly overall poor impression of Florida, I think it was my run-in with Tinkerbell that’s left the longest lasting mark.
Prior to arriving at the Magic Kingdom we were given instructions to meet beside the castle at the end of the day so we could be counted and herded back on the bus. A friend and I had spent the day together and being the good nerds we were (shout out to all the band AND academic team kids) we showed up early. However, after waiting a few minutes no one else from our group was in sight. After a few more minutes passed, the park was about to start the closing fireworks and still none of our group was anywhere to be found.
If you’ve been to DisneyWorld, you know that part of the daily closing ceremony is for a metallic, robotic Tinkerbell to fly out of the castle. She flits about the park sprinkling pixie dust and then flies back into the castle just in time for the fireworks to start. Prior to this occasion, I had never been to DisneyWorld and wasn’t familiar with my fairy friend or her usual route. So, in an attempt to find some of our group, I decided I would stand on a bench (bum knee and all) and see if I could see over the crowd to find people. It was about the time that I stood up completely and the crowd came into focus that I felt it. WHOMP!!! I felt a hard thud against the side of my head. I turned to see what had just attacked me and then felt it again. WHOMP!!! This time the impact was right in the center of my forehead. I had the good sense to duck before round three started, realizing that each impact was propelling my forward bound assailant backwards. I then looked up to see Tinkerbell flying off and realized I was covered in her sparkly pixie dust.
Yes, kids. I was attacked by a metal (cuz yes, Miss Tinkerbell packs a punch), robotic Tinkerbell as she flew on fishing wire in The Happiest Place on Earth. It’s at this moment that I like to imagine I was confirmed as a gay. Sort of a christening, if you will. As you might imagine, my mom isn’t convinced by this explanation either.
However, a couple of times in the past few months she seems to be making a new kind of peace with me. She wanted me to bring my boyfriend to the funeral and was upset with me when I didn’t. She even talked to me about wanting to spend more time with him and get to know him. Just last night, she talked to me about not wanting to upset what family we have now that the great glue that held us together has passed away.
It’s with all of this in mind that I decided to take my mom to DisneyWorld for her 60th birthday next month. She’s never flown, been to Florida or seen the ocean, so I’m packing lots of firsts into one weekend. But, I’m hoping to take a moment somewhere near the scene of the crime to grab my mom’s hand and press the reset button. Maybe we can get a little sprinkling of pixie dust, take a breath of Florida air and let the past fall away.
I don’t have any delusion that she’s going to join PFLAG, but I do hope that our weekend together will give us a chance to just be mom and son for once without all of the other baggage. Then, we can start from there. Since I didn’t sue the mouse over my head injury and emotional distress, I think he at least owes me that much.
