My birth mother gave me away–for the price of paying her hospital bill. My adopted parents were the most wonderful, loving parents in the world, and when I was growing up, I adored my dad. He was my hero and I so wanted to be like him. Nevertheless, I was an only child, and sometimes I felt very alone. Everyone else had brothers and sisters. I never learned how to relate to kids my own age–a feeling that followed me into adulthood. I was always the funny one – I figured if I could make people laugh they wouldn’t see my pain.
When I was six years old I knew I loved women but I didn’t know why. I bought a girly magazine, telling the cashier it was for my dad. I loved that magazine and stared at the photos as often as I could. But one day I got caught and my dad took me back to the store to tell the clerk I had bought it for myself. I was a tom boy. I loved to play sports and, looking back, I think I got to play on the boys team because I was better than most of them.
I was ten when we moved from Louisiana to Dallas, Texas, and my life didn’t get any more comfortable. Now I was the new kid in town. When I was 12 I fell in love with a young woman who was 18. I knew no one who was openly gay, but at that time in Texas gays were “queers” and subject to scorn and ridicule. (Things haven’t changed much in Texas since then.)
Then I met a very awkward boy in my freshman year of high school, and we became best friends. After we dated for seven years, he asked me to marry him, even though he knew I was also in a relationship with a woman. Because I wanted to fulfill my parents’ expectations, I told John I’d marry him, but I felt very conflicted. Finally, the night before our wedding, I said to my mother, “I can’t marry John”, and she said that the woman I was seeing “would never be there for me.” This was the only time she ever even hinted that she knew I was gay.
So in 1976 I married my best friend—a decision which not only was unfair to myself, but also to my best friend. After some years, my parents died, and John was my only family. He got a job transfer to Tucson. I couldn’t wait to get away from the redneck prejudice of Texas. Within a year I was having an affair, but then the woman I was with told her husband—and then she told mine. They divorced and she moved to Australia. I was devastated, and began going to a lesbian support group. There I met Liz.
She too had been married and understood how it was to be married to your best friend. She accepted John as family, and as she and I began spending time together, John was included in everything. I shuttled back and forth between homes like a kid in a divorce.
Finally Liz and I moved to Patagonia. For four years John came down every weekend, but eventually he began dating someone else. It was hard for me to accept, as I always expected him to be in my life. Early this year, I filed for divorce after being married 37 years.
Now I am happy and gay and soon to be Linda Hitchcock, (my maiden name), the partner of Liz Bernays. Here in Patagonia, we have made a family with our dog, Bandito, and our cat, Bowtie. I am thankful for my new family, and for having gained the confidence to talk freely about the story of my life. And I am thankful to be living in this supportive community, which has helped me, after all these years, to become comfortable being me.