My Fork, My Road

I have turned off the main road and am standing on a mountain pass in the Beartooth Mountains in eastern Montana, at a spot that is almost 11, 000 feet high, called The Top of the World. The vista is breathtaking. I have flown to Montana, out of necessity, out of need. I am in love.

My friend is producing a film in a made up western town, a few miles below me. After seven years of friendship, our relationship has suddenly shifted. I’ve been a single mother for six years, dated wonderful men but nobody has touched me like this. I am hungry for more. Isn’t there a song that describes that rush of new love as being on top of the world? Then why am I not swinging with joyous emotion?

Because at forty years old, I am falling in love with a woman. Until now, I had not thought that possibility rested in my DNA and I am terrified. Standing on the mountain with the glorious world spread out before me, my prejudices are staring me in the face. I have enjoyed being heterosexual. Why would I change now? I consider myself liberal, but these kind of choices are for other people, not for me.

I take big gulps of the thin air, trying to calm my brain.
I shrink back from the word Lesbian. I am not a lesbian, I counter to myself. I am me, a unique individual, not a label. I don’t want to be labeled. But I know I will. Maybe I could stop loving her, I think. My life would be so much easier if I could do that. We worked closely in New York on two films I produced, but wanting to create a more stable life for my son as he entered the age of t-ball and soccer I have transitioned back into education and am working at a small independent school in Santa Monica. Now here we are, bicoastal friends reshaping our relationship.

But I am afraid. What about my son? I need to protect him from ridicule. My job is to keep his world safe.

I have tried breaking up with her. What is it that makes that impossible?  Her incredible sense of humor, her wild imagination, her ethical nature, our six hour dance marathons, the way we are better human beings together than apart, the music, the conversation, the adventure, the deep heart connect?

I leave Montana more confused. I need to talk to my ten-year-old son.

I sit beside his bed after we finish reading another chapter of The Education of Little Tree. I announce, “I love Brenda.”

He says, “I know that.”

I counter, “but I love her in the way I want to snuggle and kiss her and some people think only a man and a woman should snuggle and kiss.” 

He looks at me long and hard. My heart is racing.

“Mom,” he says, “don’t you think people should be able to love who they love.”

I sit beside him, speechless.

That was twenty years ago. It took two years for Brenda to move to LA. Brandon wanted his two moms to get hitched before he left us and went off to college. He walked us down the aisle at our commitment ceremony thirteen years ago and then in that tiny window of opportunity afforded us in 2008 we were married in our friend’s front yard in Los Feliz by an LA Superior Court Judge. We asked her to wear her robes. We wanted all the official symbols we could get.

I have a rich life, a rich love. I continue to work on my prejudices, opening myself to discover the essence in others, to not define them by labels or characteristics. It is a life’s work. Brenda, Brandon and I are family, and secure in that you can call me anything you want.  Turning off the main road, paid off for me.

This piece was published in the PS1 Pluralistic School Parent POP Magazine in 2013 in response to the prompt - Fork in the Road