a desi boy's mommy issues

time is a fascinating thing. the ending of a story paints the beginning in a new light. intention reveals itself after the fact. & trauma toh doesn't even know time is linear. trauma thinks time is a circle.

i came out to my mom in the middle of a fight. i was 16 & her only son. she had said something like “i know everything about you.” & i had screamed back, “no you don't! i’m gay!”

well, now she knows that too, you dumbass.

watching your mom cry because you sucked some dick changes your life quite a bit. i would have understood disgust as a reaction a little more easily. but completely falling apart, weeping, calling her own mother and saying only the two words: “he's that.” as if they had already feared this— was a horror show. a voice in the back of my head convinced me she might go Crazy from the shock, so i scrambled onto my knees in front of her, held her hands and assured her that i wasn't gay, i was just bi. “i just don't see the difference between boys & girls.”

that seemed to calm her down. she said, almost to herself, “i know. my son is very good. he doesn't see the difference between boys & girls.”

we were both lying through our teeth. we needed to save our relationship even if we couldn't save our sense of reality. the show must go on. sometimes we pull the truth out of each other before we know why. and then we wait to find out. these days, i think the pieces are falling in place.

around that time, i had started thinking that if ma went to school with me, i probably wouldn't have been friends with her. i fancied myself more like my dad, more “intellectual”. that i enjoyed questioning things, while she enjoyed explaining them. & although i had only ever made any sense of the world because of her, i felt compelled to discover my own relationship with things. & that led me straight into a ditch that i wouldn't find my way out of for many years.

but somehow, i think it has also helped me love her better. i am able to appreciate her way of doing things more. i am more curious about how she arrived at them. the distance we put between us in the last 8 years has made us more sensitive to the effect we have on each other. we are more considerate, more patient, more this-is-a-human-relationship-and-not-some-holy-bond-ordained-by-god-that-things-will-just-magically-work-out about things. & it's taken long enough, but i think we still remember how to bring out the best in each other, so we try.

my mom raised me gay. she gave me my love for a stage. she showered all her light on me for me to shine. she taught me her own queerness, translating line by line, hoping the final story would still be a safe place for her baby to rest. somewhere she could still protect me. & that's why that day when i screamed “i’m gay!”, her instinctive reaction was “i know!” before she broke down.

today, when i dropped her off at the airport and touched her feet, asking for her blessings as i applied for jobs, she nearly shrieked with joy. “are you becoming like me??” she asked, as she's the one usually asking me to touch the feet of other elders. “please become like me.” she said, smiling wide.

why did i do it? do i still keep my mother on a pedestal? will i ever completely unlearn how this country teaches its boys to see their mothers? i don't know. all i can say is i try. & i try for our own sake. but the reason i touched her feet is because i know she's worried about me. it was my way of telling her to not be worried. why must she be worried when i have her blessings?