Sunday, September 6, 2009

Coming out of the closet to my mother

No, its not what you think (though there's nothing wrong with that either). I came out as a vegetarian, and my mother almost lost her mind. You see, my mother is sort of a traditional African-American mother from south Georgia. I grew up on her black eyed peas, collard greens and regular helpings of fatty stuff such as ham hocks and pork chops.
My family grew up on meat and lots of it. I don't think that there is a single vegetarian in my family, so you can prolly understand her surprise. I thought that she might faint as I described to her the reasons that I went veggie. I've been a vegetarian for about 4 months now but I just neglected to tell anyone in my family.
The reason for the shocking header (Coming out) was that I was so floored by my mother's reaction. You'd think that I just told her that I was gay and was running off with my Rupaul. I don't think that I'd ever heard my mother gasp over the phone. It was weird. It was strange. We got through it.
I'm really not looking forward to Thanksgiving in the Gary household. Me and my 6 siblings sitting at a table filled with all kinds of meat products that I can't (won't) eat.

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