The Total Femme

My ex and I have been getting extremely difficult and troubling texts from Seth the past few days. For whatever reasons, and there may be hundreds, including mental health and substance abuse issues, Seth was and is unable to use the strengths my ex and I had and have as parents. Nothing we have and had to offer seems to have helped him grow into a reasonably happy, healthy, functioning adult (he is 29 now). When I think about it that way, I feel a slight relaxing of worry and guilt, because there is no one I can be, could have been, was, other than myself. With my own unique strengths and weaknesses. That Seth and I, for all the places we connected and loved each other over the years, turned out to need very different kinds of things to situate ourselves in the world is no one’s fault. It’s just luck of the draw.

Knowing that doesn’t really stop me from feeling sorry for myself, as I was over the weekend in the aftermath of Seth’s decision to dump a lot of pain on me and my ex. I am so jealous of parents who get to hang out more or less happily with their adult children, whose adult children understand that everyone is flawed and end up being able to show their love for their flawed parents regardless. I’m so exhausted from worrying about Seth, who lives far away and who sees fit currently only to share his pain in terrifying ways.

I was also feeling sorry for myself for many other reasons: health, other family stuff, work and money, what’s it all coming to and what can I do about it…stressors coming in from all directions, local and global.  

 When I think about the all and everything we have coming at us, sometimes I just don’t even know how we do it. The cards we pulled, the dice we rolled, the color we picked as the wheel spun round – how do we manage when the result is a bolt from the blue, a terrible trouble? We do, though, don’t we. We sure do.

  Oh, look at you! Look at us! How we use our queer femme magic to navigate the waters. How do we do it? Today I am here with you, drawing in the love of knowing you’re out there, making art, making love, making due, making muffins, making your right there and our shared places receptive to more love. You are here with me in your days of what the luck of the draw offered you and how you femmed it into your own precious presence in the minute by minute.

Oh my sweet sips of ice tea, my boba at the bottom, my steaming mug darlings, my hot beverage beauties, oh, you shimmering, shivering, striving queer femme sisters oh sisters, thank you for your every day. Thank you for always coming back to your femme magic, your infectious laugh, your smile that says: hell yes!

Thank you for being the company we need.

             Many a Monday I offer a Meditation for Queer Femmes, in the spirit of my maternal grandmother, Mimi, who was fabulous, and from whom I inherited her Meditations for Women.

Do you have a meditation to share? I would love to welcome you here! Email me at: thetotalfemme@gmail.com