Copyright © 2018 by Lara Lillibridge
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lillibridge, Lara, author.
Title: Girlish: growing up in a lesbian home / Lara Lillibridge.
Description: New York: Skyhorse Publishing, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017050453 (print) | LCCN 2017053705 (ebook) | ISBN 9781510723924 (e-book) | ISBN 9781510723917 (hardcover: alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Lillibridge, Lara. | Children of gay parents—United States—Biography. | Lesbian mothers—United States—Biography. | Families—United States—Biography.
Classification: LCC HQ777.8 (ebook) | LCC HQ777.8 .L55 2018 (print) | DDC 306.874086/6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017050453
Cover photograph: Lara Lillibridge
Front cover design: Jenny Zemanek
Jacket design: Mona Lin
Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-2391-7
eBook ISBN: 978-1-5107-2392-4
Printed in the United States of America
Author’s Note
“I Used to Believe, Now I Know” was previously published on TheFeministWire.com on September 17, 2013.
A version of “Being Raised by Lesbians” was previously published on Brain, Child magazine’s Brain, Mother blog on November 14, 2013, and reprinted on Australia’s iVillage website under the title “How Having Two Mums Scarred Me.”
“Cicadas” was previously published online on TheDrunkenLlama.com on December 30, 2016.
For Paul,
without whom this book would have taken a lot longer to write and
would have been a lot more difficult for the reader to follow.
contents
acknowledgments
introduction: a childhood crossword puzzle
notes from the fourth wall: this is how it feels to write about lesbian parents
the early years
elementary school
middle school
junior high
high school
college and beyond
acknowledgments
I am incredibly lucky to have the support of my family behind me. My mother, stepmother, brother, and half-sister have all given me their blessings, even without knowing what was on the page. There is no greater gift they could have given me.
I am beyond fortunate to have the support of my significant other and my two grade-school-aged children, who understand that Mama’s writing is just as important as a job outside of the home. I’m also grateful that my children accept that this is a grown-up book and not appropriate for them just yet. I promise I’ll write a book they can read someday.
Thanks, too, to my writing friends, who were willing to read early drafts, give encouraging words, and discuss at length the same sentences over and over again: Sandy Roffey, Sherry Dove, Andrea Fekete, Arlie Matera, and all my friends and advisors at West Virginia Wesleyan College’s MFA program. I’m grateful, too, for my online writing community of Binders on Facebook, and the generosity of the many already published writers who took the time to answer questions from all of us newbies.
I will always be grateful to my editor, Chamois Holschuh, for her patience with my thousands of emails, and to Skyhorse Publishing for believing in me and helping bring my memoir to life.
Many names have been changed, and I attempted to leave people out as much as possible in an effort to protect their privacy. My focus was on my immediate familial relationships, and I included other people only when their story overlapped ours. The absence of friends or family members is not meant to deny their importance in my life, but an attempt to tell a complicated story as simply as possible.
introduction
a childhood crossword puzzle
1. A description of my mother, starting with the letter “L.” Not lesbian, that’s too easy. Liberal is also good, but I’m looking for a physical description. Give up? Librarian. Yes, I know, she has never been employed at a library, but if you ask anyone at all to describe my mother, they all choose “librarian” as their first word. She is well-read and loves philosophic and political discussions. However, she is deceptively sweet—few people would guess how fiendish she is at Cards Against Humanity. A game that relies on shock value and twisted humor to win, my mother always wins.
2. My best friend, confidant, fellow rabble-rouser, and occasional arch-nemesis. Also, my only full-blooded sibling. Matthew, with two Ts. Want to know something funny? I didn’t know about that second T in Matthew until I was in fifth grade. I’m not entirely sure he did either. No one paid much attention to Matt back then, unless he was in trouble. I always sort of figured that’s why he ended up six foot nine inches tall. He grew and grew until the world couldn’t ignore him anymore.
3. What is wrong with my mother’s partner, Pat, herewith referred to as my stepmother. But what about my father’s wives, you ask? Aren’t they also my stepmothers? Well, yes, but he was always switching them out for new ones. I think of them more as … numbers. Wife #4, Wife #5, Wife #5½, etc. The word “stepmother” in this book refers to my mother’s one true love. She’s been around the longest, anyway—from when I was three until the present. Now that we have that straightened out, let’s get back to the crossword. What exactly is wrong with my stepmother? I guess it depends on who you ask. At first it was clinical depression, but that changed to manic depression. Yes, I know it’s called “bipolar disorder” now, but that’s not the word our family uses. We’ve always had our own preferred words for things, just like we said “gay”
