Family Transpective #1: Dear Diary
I want to get this down. I want to be able to recall this day, and this feeling because, as you know, things have been a bit tricky these last few months and Iâve not been on top of my game lately. Iâve been washed out, depleted, emotionally and physically. Iâve been terrified by imaginings of desperate situations where my child is alone, exploited, vulnerable, hurt, unhappy. Those dreadful imaginings catalyzed a useful learning curve. But, I digress. More about that later. Let me tell you about my day...
Itâs been a great day. A little lie in; breakfast in bed - bacon roll and a mug of tea (hell yeah!) - whilst I edited photos of my partnerâs youngest daughterâs wedding and created an online album for the happy couple.Â
Then a sudden panicked realisation, at 10:50hrs, that Iâd arranged to meet  and have brunch (get me!) with my good friend at 11:00hrs!!!!! Quick text to say that Iâd be late... brush teeth, flannel face and out the door pronto! Smoked salmon, scrambled eggs and coffee aaaaand breathe...
So thatâs how my day started. To be fair, itâs not an unusual start to my Sunday. She and I chatted and laughed, with and at each other, and at the absurdities of our convoluted recent life events. We reassured each other, made cinema plans, and hit our separate Sunday schedules. For me, a trip to the shops to buy supplies for a big, fat family roast. A Last Supper, if you like. My daughter J and her father were coming for supper and I wanted to make it a good old-fashioned Mama Bear one.Â
J is moving back to Brighton and I am going to miss her so much!!! Weâve gone through such a journey together - some very scary patches to be frank - since she came out as transgender to me and Padre last November. No doubt Iâll share those tales with you in due course. Suffice to say we made it through to this point.Â
So, my first born and I sat in the kitchen with a bottle of Cote Du Rhone whilst the chaps watched sport in the lounge. (Donât judge us on that! Itâs just how it worked out tbh. Iâm not compromising feminist values!) We cracked open the plonk, and cracked on peeling veg, prepping supper: crunchy, golden roast potatoes and sweet potatoes, lemon and thyme roast chicken, proper light chicken gravy, fresh carrots, kale, white sauce. A favourite summer Sunday feast. J was relaxed, and I was too. As she talked I looked at her eyes, her skin, her smile, her hands. This is my baby. Nothing has changed since she was a kid, except her name and pronoun.Â
We chatted about her relationships with old friends and new, about her hopes and plans, about her state of mind, mental health and physical health. About the changes she was going through, and those yet to come; her friends, and her ambitions.Â
We talked about politics, and about leaving the EU. About feminism and misogyny and civil rights. About black people killed by the police in America; about the Dallas shootings of white police officers and the potential impact. Remembered old friends and discussed new ones, about school days, and about the adolescence. Books, art, technology, aging, Grandma, cousins and her little sister. About love, and responsibilities. We really listened to each other. We talked and we laughed.
Letâs just linger on that last sentence:Â âWe talked and we laughedâ.Â
Think about it. Mum and child, albeit a fully grown one, talking and laughing across the kitchen table. Sharing secrets, making eye contact, pulling silly faces, affectionately squeezing hands occasionally.
As a child, this is what she was like: affectionate, funny, intelligent, generous, beautiful,  oozing with kindness and  compassion. Everybody loved her, and I mean EVERYBODY: schoolteachers, parents,neighbours, friends, relatives. She was a natural, authentic and quirky child who contrived nothing.Â
But back then, she was a he. As she grew to adolescence thatâs where things went very wrong.Â
Eventually there was no talking, no laughing, no eye contact, no friends, no quirkiness. As a young adult she was just was chopping and changing: styles, ambitions, hobbies. Sheâd have different and exclusive groups of friends. I wonder now how much was the usual teen experimentation, and how much was just trying to fit somewhere.Â
Later she became blank, empty; angry; hyper-masculine; judgmental; occasionally even arrogant; increasingly feeling suicidal; chronically depressed; and frankly, often difficult to be around. But I loved her unconditionally - we all did.
Iâll tell you more in depth later. Itâs a journey fraught with nuances of emotions and subliminal responses. I was, I thought, a very switched-on parent, but there are a few things I wish Iâd known about and noticed early on in my childrenâs lives. But, hindsight is indeed a wonderful thing.Â
For today, I want you to remember this, my first proper blog post. I want you to know that itâs working out better than I could ever have imagined in the last fifteen years. In all of my moments of fear and silent terror, I never really thought it could actually be wonderful again. In moments when I thought it might be ok, I had no idea how.
What I want you to take from this post is that sentence, once again:
âWe talked, and we laughedâ
...and know that it can be ok, even if you donât yet know how.
