A letter to Queers Gathering at Thanksgiving Tables

Dear Queers,

It’s the day before Thanksgiving (2021) and I’m nestled in-between my in-laws cats on their back porch. There’s a list of gig work on my right and Florida Spanish moss flowing among the oaks on my left. There’s joy and also an achy feeling inside my chest today.

It’s the holidays. The seasonal reminder of how things are not the same, nostalgia is actually painfully cruel, and you’re nomadic family homemaking is always underway.

This week I had my first genuine queer friends-giving and it was soul healing. Gathering at a table of queers eating nostalgic thanksgiving food our parents would feed us as they ground their teeth around awkward “so how’s college” questions was restorative justice. Green bean casserole that night wasn’t used as a stuffing mechanism to hide feelings around the absence of partners or personhood. No, it was simply a delicious gift made by a wonderfully amazing black gay man named Brandon. (S/O Brandon).

Tomorrow I’ll gather around a table outside in the Florida sunshine to eat a meal with my wife’s family. It will be the first thanksgiving at a “family” table since my last time at my own parent’s house. It feels restorative but also tinged with grief.

There’s a book I read in my first year of seminary called “You Can Go Home Again: Reconnecting with Your Family” by Monica McGoldrick. This book wrecked me in a useful way. I read this book front to back searching for the truth of the title. I did learn how to ask new questions of my parents, how to approach the how’s and why’s of their behavior and most importantly how to lay that toxic shit down - but I never found the green light on going back home.

My wife has met my parents twice. We’ve been together six years and married almost two. The one family member who I’d give anything to be at the dinner table with tomorrow is floating among the Spanish moss. I miss my grandmother and I miss the time I can’t get back from hiding myself from her.

And, damn it, sometimes I do want to go back home. Home to the smell of fried turkey, mediocre green bean casserole and dumplings. My mouth waters just thinking of these foods. Nostalgia can be a real bitch, sometimes.

There’s no recipe to cure a broken heart and an inner child who wants desperately to go home to be fully seen. And, I think in our queer communities and with our chosen family we might need to normalize this statement. Sometimes friends it does not get better. Sometimes friends you cannot go home. And, that sucks. It is more than sucky, it is a living-death; a forever grief.

The last time I went home was in 2017. I knew that year that the woman I was with was my forever person. And that meal tasted dry and bitter. The juices of the fried turkey didn’t hit the tastebuds the same and every word out of my mouth felt like a lie to hid a big truth - my queerness.

So, today as I watch the moss sway, these cats sun bath, and the mounds of plants my grandmother would appreciate get their sun too - I’m wondering what my meal will taste like tomorrow. I’m hopeful for the juices and restoration of traditional dishes being full of more love and less hiding. And, I’m open to any moments of ache.

It’s ok to want to go home still. It’s instinctual and it’s a part of our inner child’s needs. As queers we are really good at re-developing what home means to us. So, tomorrow whatever table you gather at - allow yourself to show up as you, take moments away if needed and share your emotions if even only with your child self. Be honest about the dry seasoning of grief and savor the juices of new moments of truth.

Sincerely, a queer who misses fried turkey but loves their wife, new forming family and misses a grandmother who could not cook to save her life.