What If They Don't Like Me?
2004-02-10, 2:18 p.m.

Thank you, everyone, who has inquired about how I’m feeling about The Big News. Don’t know what it is? Go here . Go on. We'll wait.

Frankly, I’m not sure how I feel. I had planned to avoid thinking about it entirely until 2/19, which is when my mom and step-dad are taking me out to dinner for my birthday. Dawn asked if she could invite Ben and his family and I said yes. Then, my mother foiled my plans by speaking with Ben herself and now she’s told me that he’d like me to phone him before then. PJH also thinks it’s a good idea. You know, get some of the awkwardness out of the way over the phone. I don’t even refer to him by name when I’m talking about him. It’s “him” and “he.” I have a hard time even saying his name. It’s so weird. I keep saying that but it is. It’s just weird. Surreal, even.

PJH says it’s weird for her too. Since I don’t look like my family, she’s always thought of me as her Original. Just a sweet thing she’s thought but never told me. And now there are 3 carbon copies of me out there. And that might be weird to see. Don’t get me wrong, she’s thrilled for me. She just agrees that it’s weird.

I’ve been telling people that I plan to focus on the things I can *control* like what am I gonna wear, I’d better get a long-overdue haircut and probably I’ll get my nails done. Just because I looked at my hands and they look like hell. As if they’ll care about what I look like. Other than the fact that I look so much like them. And that is, in fact, the plan. I’ll shop and get my nails done and spend some time getting ready. Then, the day of will be a whirl – a day starting out with a regularly-scheduled meeting with my boss and the Admin Manager, other activities, a CARES board meeting and then dinner. I’ll go right from the board meeting to dinner, probably rushing around feeling like I’m going to be late and then I won’t have time to think about how it’s gonna go.

After I talk to him tonight, we’ll see if I still think that.

I have the stack of pictures that Dawn gave me on my desk and every so often I look at them and think, “I can’t believe it’s him.” I’ve literally wondered about him my entire life and there he is. And them. The siblings I wondered if I had.

I can’t let myself think about it or I worry. What if they don’t like me? What if they are homophobic? What if I don’t like them? What if, what if, what if. What if they don’t like me. There are people who don’t. Being queer in Southwest Michigan is not exactly the thing that gets you invited to join the Junior League. (which, by the way, I think I’d totally dig in a weird sort of way.) What if they are racist? What if they are … Republican? I know his wife is Catholic, but I don’t know if they are practicing Catholics or not. Or even if that means that they are gonna freak out about having a lesbian for a daughter (and step-daughter.) What if they don’t like me?

Me. I never care if people like me. If you don’t, you don’t. There’s other fish in the sea. But I’ve thought about this man for my whole life. When things with my dad were at the apex of ugly, I always thought to myself that I still at least had Ben. Not that he’d rescue me or something like that, but at least my dad wasn’t the only hope I had for a father. There was someone else out there that someday might want to be a part of me.