Finally see the light...

I have to thank Oprah for giving me the best Valentines Day I might ever know.

On that fateful day, I felt my optimism and general nonchalant-ness of VDay start to slip. Not that I was bombarded with happy couples...well, until I went out to dinner.

My mother was picking my sorry single ass up, since it was the start of reading week and I had plans to go skiing and frolicking in the north. First, I had to write a midterm that lasted until 6 p.m. (the prof had the nerve to ask me, "What are you writing, War and Peace?" when I asked him for more booklets). I finally got myself together and met up with mom.

We wandered for a bit, then decided that we should eat dinner before making any further movements. Great idea, in principal...but after being turned away from our third restaurant, it looked like we weren't going to get anything to eat.

Finally, we found an alright place that was seating those idiots without reservations on Valentines Day (which was a crowd of mostly single, mostly mid-30's people) at their bar. We pulled up to a couple seats at a small table, no bigger than a dart board, and just chatted and caught up on things.

At some point, a woman entered my peripheral vision, and put a hand softly on my arm. As I turned, recognition flashed, and I leaned out for a hug. Why, it was a semi-distant cousin who was possibly a lesbian! What are you doing here!?

We made the obligatory small talk for a few minutes, then she had to get a seat with her co-worker (a nice blond girl, whom I hoped was her date).

After she had gone, mom gave me that look, the unspoken, "Maybe she's a lesbian, maybe that was her girlfriend." Sufficed to say, it's a long story, but she's a pretty butch woman who hasn't really ever been known to have relationships with men. Not that anyone knows she's seeing women either, but of course, small-town families being what they are, the general unspoken assumption is that she's a homosexual.

Our dinners arrived, we chowed down and talked some more. As we neared finishing, somehow we got to talking about one of mom's friend's kids who got in a fight because another kid called him gay. The poor guy, bless his heart, at 10 years of age, decided to give the bully a big lesson on what being gay means, and that it's not uncool, and that calling someone gay who isn't homosexual is wrong.

Naturally, the kid beat the crap out of him.

"Gee, I thought at that age calling things 'gay' had basically stopped," I said, admittedly surprised. "I mean, high school maybe, but that young?"

She nodded. "I was surprised too," she said, "and a little sad."

We kept eating.

"So, I was watching Oprah the other day," mom said, setting her knife and fork neatly on her plate. "Did you see it?"

I shook no, and took a gulp of beer. Where was this going?

"Well, they had these couples on. And they had had children, and were the perfect families, and all that stuff," she went on. I noticed her eyes start to dart around above and behind my head, but not really looking at me.

"Anyway, well..." she said, lowering her voice, "they turned out to be gay."

"What, the kids?" I asked.

"No, no, the couple. They both were gay, and tried to make it work, but they all came out to each other and everyone." She paused. I nodded along.

"That happens more than you'd think," I said, "people just get sick of lying."

"Well, the point of it was...and what really upset me...was how unhappy they were inside, about hiding it and pretending and forcing themselves." By now her eyes started to glaze, darting to the bottles and screens behind my head.

"I just...it hit me just there, that I would never want that for you, that I don't want you to be unhappy." She started to cry now.

"I finally...I get it," she gasped. "I'm sorry."

My lip started to tremble as she went on about how she really understood I am who I am, and really accepts it and is at peace with it. And how she doesn't want me to be unhappy and miserable, and that hoping that I would wind up falling for a woman was silly and just unfair.

"I'm sorry it took me so long to get there," she said, "but I couldn't control that. But I'm there now."

I realized I had grabbed her hand across the table, and that I was now completely crying in a restaurant full of people on Valentines Day with my mother.

But I felt fucking amazing.

"Uh, I'm going to..." I said, and walked quickly to the men's room. It was deserted, thankfully, and I crashed into a stall and started to sob. I felt so...I don't even know how to describe it now...elated, relieved, accepted, understood.

I quickly realized I had never cried in a public washroom before, and had no idea what the etiquette was. I sat on a toilet, pulled out some paper and cried softly by myself.

Eventually someone staggered in to the urinal beside me, and I realized I had to quiet down and get out of the stall. I did, making sure I'd wiped everything away in the mirror before heading back to my chair.

She was still sitting there, eyes a little wet, our plates vanished. "Sorry," she said. "I always seem to have these kinds of conversations in malls." We both laughed.

I wondered on the way out if my cousin had seen the spectacle, wondered what was going on. Maybe she's more perceptive than I give her credit, and if she truly is a lesbian, maybe she's got me pegged too.

I wondered about Oprah, and how fucking amazing she can be, and I hoped that more than just my mom was changed the day they watched about how hard it is to lie about who you really are, and to accept it for yourself.

And I wondered if I should write Oprah a thank you letter, and tell her what kind of amazing Valentines Day she gave me.