Not Quite...Not Really...

Will someone please just oppress me already?

This white liberal guilt is simply killing me and I don’t know if I can go on much longer with nothing legitimate to complain about. I straddle this line between the “acceptable” and the “undesirable, but tolerable”, a line that leaves me uneasy and teetering somewhere between both sides looking desperately for something to hold on to; something like a sense of community, a validation of who I am and my experience, a slightly knowing nod at least.  

 I live in the land of “not quite enough” “not really but…” and “a little too…”

I live in the land of “where’s your…” and “aren’t you?” and “sure you are…”

I blend

I am assimilated

I am the lower middle class white suburban privilege that I taught myself to demonize during my fully paid for liberal arts education. Eating dorm food and chastising my parents for their wasteful capitalist ways.

I am too femme to be a dyke

Too lazy to be a femme

Too fluid to be either gay or straight

And devoid of easily read, brightly colored labels

And so I blend

 Short of one incident at a Trader Joes last winter, involving orange juice, the small of my girlfriends back, and a hissed warning from a man in a trucker hat, tolerance has been handed to me on a silver platter.  Not that I give a shit about being ‘tolerated’, as it were. I’ve never been particularly interested in ‘tolerance’.

If I blend in nicely with other Outback driving, Starbucks drinking, CampFire leading moms that politely ‘tolerate’ the presence of my partner at social functions, and look to me for ‘diversifying’ their cocktail parties, I couldn’t care less. I want to be embraced, or shunned. I want to be Loved or Hated, I want definition, clear lines, so I know who to avoid and who to welcome.  I have no interest in merely being ‘tolerated’ by anyone.

 Fucking Adore Me or Fucking Avoid me, just don’t Fucking Ignore Me.

Too young to be old

Too old to be young

Too white to be oppressed properly

Too bi, too femme, too recently ‘straight’

Too many responsibilities to take time for dance clubs or political rallies

Too monogamous, too traditional, too assimilated

I am the non-threatening, non-descript, sexually ambiguous mom at the back of the pick up line, I am invisible.

So I don’t get to complain. I am not forced to wear to my labels like neon signs by accident of birth or right of passage. I graduated from college 7 years ago, so my time for outrage is over. I don’t encounter hate and potential violence every day. For that I am grateful, don't get me wrong. But becuase I am not bombarded with anything other than ambivilace on a daily basis, but find myself in a state of outrage anyway, i don't feel justified in my anger, don't feel that my particular brand of oppression is validated.

 What I do get, is to come out of the closet every damn day of my life. To get blank stares when I refer to my “partner” instead of my “husband” or “girlfriend” or whatever the proper term is for whomever I’m sharing my life with at that moment based on who I am speaking with and where and when and whatever label feels least sticky at that time….

 What I do get, is completely ignored by all of the women and those elsewhere on the spectrum, that  I find so incredibly sexy and smart and desirable, because the gay-dar don’t beep when I’m come walking by.

 What I do get, is the assumption that I am slutty (though I have been known to be…) and down for a three way, or ready to let you watch…or better, not the kind of girl you’re going to want to take home to mom once you know the truth about who I am. Not the girl you want to introduce to your friends, with all those icky bi-sexual leanings…what WILL they think?

 What I do get, is a constant barrage of eye rolls, and head shakes, and ‘whatevers’ when I am forced to give a definition of who I am, and who I fuck, and why I do so. While I’m cool with out a label, no one else seems to be okay with out me having one. The labels that I am able to cobble together, a cut out ransom note of familiar phrases that seem to loosely fit emotions that i still don’t completely understand,  are some how unsatisfactory, less than just not quite neon enough.

 What I do get, is to hear some AWESOMELY offensive remarks, jokes, and stories because “I’m not one of THOSE queers” and when I am offended, I’m told to lighten up, “don’t be like THAT, one of those PEOPLE that take EVERYTHING personally”.  How dare I feel momentarily impassioned?

 I don’t get to be a feminist apparently, because I like being the one to cook dinner, raise the babies, and wear heels and an apron. So many forget that aspect of “choice” that is a central tenant of feminism, extends to those of us who CHOOSE a quiet life of making lasagna and folding laundry, those of us who find it kind of hot when their partner smacks them on the ass, calls them a bitch and demands another beer.  Those of us who do not see the need to deconstruct and politicize our every leaning and desire, and find nothing oppressive about watching porn in our marabou heels while eating meat and granola that may or may not be fair trade (but still feel adequately guilty for it later).

 I don’t get to be counted as a traditionalist, because my partner is of a non binary gender, so our relationship is somehow ‘less than’ in the eyes of other traditionalists. We don’t do the church thing, we let our daughter get a ‘boy’ hair cut, and we hold hands in public and smack each other with things in private. No child of theirs will be attending our tea parties. And yet, somehow, we are too traditional for the rest of the outsiders. What with tiny child in tow, non descript family sedan devoid of rainbow bumper stickers, and a sensible, wash and wear haircut, we are often left off the mailing list for the political rallies…not that we’d have time to go, the baby has a piano recital that day. Forgotten to be invited to the clubs, though we have to get up early the next morning to hit up the Costco before it gets swamped anyway…

 And so I toe the line, accidentally assimilated just by being myself. I feel the need to shout at the top of my lungs on a daily basis: “ME TOO! LOOK! OVER HERE! KINKY QUEER CHICK WITH SCADS OF LIBERAL GUILT! LOOK! I COUNT! CAN I COME PLAY TOO?! NO, REALLY! I SWEAR IT! LOOK, I’LL WEAR A RAINBOW BRACELET IF THAT HELPS?! HELLO? Anybody…”

 If only I didn’t look so stupid with a faux hawk….