Fear

I've been reading comments about my last post and I really had no idea that so many people from high school, college, and Houston would read what I wrote on my blog. Let's just catch everyone up to speed, m'kay. I started blogging seven years ago when I moved to Texas. I was pregnant with Zac (who I called Peanut at the time). The archives for that blog can be found here: http://www.pregnantblogger.blogspot.com/. I'm pretty sure that I started blogging under the name, "Pregnant in Texas" before I realized that was more of a temporary condition than a blog name might suggest. Then I switched to "Not So Pregnant in Texas". At some point, when I cared about unique page views and readers, I moved over to my own domain name. Then my boss read my blog after an unfortunate google search and I took everything down. At some later arbitrary point, I started this blog and here I am. If you were bored reading that last paragraph, don't worry, the feeling was mutual.

Anyways, my point before I got mired in seven years of history, was that I was terrified that I had made a huge mistake. I kept reading about how people thought I was brave and authentic and I kept thinking, "Do these people realize who they are talking to? I'm the antithesis of brave."  I started thinking about everyone that I was friends with, including: Clicker's Mom, my Mom, my Dad, the FOB (Father of the Baby)'s sister, women from work, men from work, and my Great Aunt. Yeah, instead of having a lot of awkward, one-on-one conversations with people, (which is how I assume most people come out) I just let social media do the dirty work for me.

I'm still waiting for the backlash, which will only be felt in backhanded comments, silent, furious looks,  or words left unspoken because the world is too politically correct to publicly denounce a gay daughter/sister/friend/coworker/fill-in-title-here. It's much easier to just pass a law refusing my right to marry or have health benefits or my partner's Social Security.  *sigh*

I worried about the FOB's family trying to come and take Zac. Then I remembered that they've only met him once when he was a baby and I don't have a home telephone number so it would be difficult to contact me. Here is a fun tidbit of information about where I live: In Texas, second-parent adoptions of children with two gay parents can't be done in Harris County, where Houston is located. Families go to San Antonio in Bexar County to join together legally. That's over four hours away. Here's another fun tidbit: A Harris County Family Court judge made it a crime for a  same sex parent to spend time, alone, with his partner's biological children. There was no history of alleged sexual, physical, or emotional abuse. He was just refused the right to be alone with the children that he was helping to raise because of his sexuality *sigh*.

Then there is work. Work, work, work. I work a lot and I try to find ways to write about work in the most obscure ways possible, which isn't easy. Work dominates my life and I'm expressly forbidden to share my feelings on "social media that might be read by clients, prospects, or business partners". Let me give you an example: I was sitting in my cube one day about two months ago and I got a call. The person on the other end of the phone call had googled my name and my company's name. Google came back with upteen million hits, but the first seven links correctly referred to me and my job. Three of the websites that contained my information were put together by third-party distributors who had gotten my licensing information through the Freedom of Information Act. I was told to remove the profile of me that I didn't create and then remove the link on Google. I'll wait why you digest that. Has anyone tried to remove a link or reference to a link on Google lately? I've insurance companies approve surgeries easier than I could remove links. I tried, though. Oh sweet baby God, I tried. I tried for six hours and I'm too afraid to try the search again to see what comes up.

So there's that. I'm a blogger, working at a company that actively discourages blogging, and what I really want to write about is what it's like to be a female advisor in this industry, but, I can't. I can't wait for the day that the same person calls me up to talk about this piece. I can't wait to explain what a "cache" is and how I can't remove it from the mystical land where Internets live.

My point, which I swear I left somewhere around this place, is that I wanted to say thank you for the kind comments, both here and on Facebook . I'm not brave at all. I'm still terrified, but the feeling is subsiding as more and more days pass and the sky hasn't rained with the blood of baby lams and throng of wasps. I'm here. Doing better than just fine. Feeling pretty good, actually. So thank you.