The other day I received a call from my aunt. She lives in Jamaica and she’d heard through the grapevine that I was queer. Her phone call was the first I’d ever had from a relative with the explicit intention of letting me know that she knew. I didn’t expect it, I didn’t desire it, I didn’t know what to do with it. She wanted to know why I had cut myself o‘. Why I had changed my name. Why I looked so di‘erent on my website. And because it was the crack of dawn (or, 10 in the morning for everyone else), and because I was standing in the bathroom with a hangover, and because I gave up on being close to my family about a decade ago, I said thanks for calling and have never phoned her back.
I realised a few years ago that I had closed o‘ the possibility of being close to anyone in my family. I was raised in a large, Caribbean arrangement – Anglicans on one side, Rastafarians and Methodists on the other. There is no doubt in my mind that I was loved, but I don’t think I was ever liked. The only time I have ever felt truly close to my cousins was late one night when we snuck downstairs and came across the adult channel. I was amazed. They were amazed. We all learned how babies are made. Later, the notion of coming out to my extended family seemed strange and pointless. For one, I have never been one for establishing intimate relationships on the basis of biological relation. I have never completely fallen for the idea of a chosen family either, even though I desire it. I am a confusing sibling, a sarcastic child, and will probably be a complicated parent.