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Carolyn, though now an out lesbian for nearly two years, regrets being closeted for most of her life, and does not always find understanding from today's generation.
"I went with friends to see the Indigo Girls. These women were younger than me. They were in their 30s and three were fresh out of college. And one of them was giving me a hard time about not coming out until I did -- "What do you mean, you couldn't come out? You either know or you don't!' And I got really angry, because it was different then, dammit! The women who were strong enough to come out made it a different place. I wasn't strong enough to be one of those people."
"I feel like I missed out," she says. "But I would not give up Eric for anything. He is the light of my heart."
Daughter
One day Michelle Morrison came home to a quiet house, empty of everyone but her mother, Phyllis. A few items of furniture were gone. The woman that had been living with Michelle and Phyllis was gone, too.
"I was like, "What's goin' on?' And that's when she decided to tell me."
The woman who had just moved out had been more to her mother than close friend and housemate.
Michelle's parents were married for only two years, divorcing while Phyllis was still pregnant with Michelle. Phyllis and her lover, each of whom had a daughter, had lived together six years longer than Michelle's parents were married.
Michelle and her "stepsister" had always suspected that their moms were gay. "We had our suspicions, but no confirmation. I did think about it. But it was just something that we accepted. It was just our life."
Michelle had been close to her mother's lover, but also jealous of her. "I had a very close relationship with my mother, very close. Closer than a lot of kids. At the time, she was competition. I was jealous because of her closeness with my mother. You could tell they loved each other."
Even after the end of the living arrangement, Michelle and her mother's ex-lover remain friends. Nearly 20 years later, "she is still in my life. She came to my house two weeks ago for dinner. She is like a stepmother [to me]."
Though from age 13 she knew her mother was gay, Michelle never told her school friends. "Not in North Carolina in 1985!" she says. "I . . .remember never having people spend the night because my mom and her lover were sleeping together. I also remember feeling I didn't have to hide it from my friends, from the close friends I had. I just don't remember it ever coming up with them."
Michelle's father died of cancer less than a year after Michelle's mother came out. Michelle thinks she would have benefited from having more male role models during adolescence, but "my mom always did as much as she could for me. She was both the mom and the dad. But [a lack of male role models in my life] has certainly affected my relationship with men. I wasn't used to being around males."
Michelle, now divorced, married a half-Italian, half-Jordanian Muslim man. While her mother had died, also of cancer, before Michelle's marriage, Michelle feared that her husband's conservative religious beliefs might get in the way of his treating her mother's memory with the respect Michelle felt it deserved.
"I tried to keep it from him, a little bit," she says. Her caution wasn't needed. Even after the secret came out, "he always talked about my mother with the utmost respect."
There was only one person she made a concerted effort to hide it from. "A guy. I was 15. I would hide pictures of my mom with women. If she had any gay symbols, I would hide them. Later I learned that this guy's mom was bi." She laughs. "She was friends with my mom, actually."
The Future
Charlotte psychologist Dr. Lisa Griffin has a female partner and is the mother of two children from a former marriage. Based on her own experiences as a mother and as a clinician both within and without the gay community, she predicts a future in which there will be "fewer families broken up because a gay person felt obliged to marry in order to adhere to societal pressures, and then, because of internal pressures to live an authentic life, had to come out to the family."
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Animal House 2
Charlotte Metro Zoo has been cited over a dozen times by the USDA. Critics wonder why it's still open.
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Fall Books
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The Story of Haylo, Time Capsule Tattoos and My Big Mouth 1
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