"She Said,‘I Don’t Want to See It.’”
I didn’t know what she would do or say next, and I wasn’t willing to find out.
written by Tea Colón
That’s what she said shortly after my attempt to show her the woman I went on a date with.
This was my first time being open with her about the fact that I was openly dating a woman—my way of saying, in so many words, that I was gay. I didn’t say it outright, but it was there. Spoken sideways, wrapped in a story. Still, the truth was clear.
About three weeks into 2024, my grandmother died. And I was relieved.
I don’t say it cruelly—I say it realistically, as someone who watched their elder deteriorate from dementia, a disease that took her memory and cognitive skills from her before its time. A disease I saw take the one thing she valued after her love for God; her independence. My Grandmother was a strong, self-sufficient loving woman who grew into someone needing others to support them and it crushed her.
I heard it in her voice whenever I would visit before things got intense, the sadness in her eyes while she tried to recall her point in her story. I saw the depression on her face accepting that it’s hard for her to live on her own because she needed help doing basic things like cooking, laundry, walking to church. Things that made her, her. And to ask for help would be like betraying herself.
So when reality hit that her life would be different because this disease had impacted her health and her daily living, I also accepted that her time with me was slowly ending.
So, I say it as someone who survived a dysfunctional family dynamic, one that led to further separation and a deep undercurrent of resentment. I often wondered how we would survive her ending. Ours was already hanging by a thread. I had taken on most of the emotional labor to support my mother and focused solely on the logistics for the service. It was the only thing keeping me from breaking down like she was—we couldn’t both be crying every day. Things needed to get done.
The day before she passed, I had a confirmed date with the woman I met online. And that was a date I fully intended to keep. Before I received the news about my grandmother, I had already made arrangements to meet my date, and I was excited.
This woman was so smart—a doctor, at that. Charming. Alluring. There was something about her voice and her eyes that caught me off guard every time. I could tell when she wanted to hear more from me—her voice would shift. The timbre would soften. It was sweeter than I expected. Devoted, even, to getting to know me.
It was a welcome change from how we’d started—slow, a little uneven. But now, I was genuinely looking forward to meeting the woman behind the voice I’d grown used to hearing over the phone.
So, yes—I had plans: get my hair braided and meet my date for drinks. I kept my plans because I needed something—anything—to remain normal. It was important for grounding. In a time when everything in my family dynamic was shifting, I needed one thing to stay still.
I knew I would have to be the one my mother leaned on. That I wouldn’t get the chance to simply grieve in solitude. No—being that woman’s daughter required blind loyalty, full service, dedication, and the depletion of self-identity. Being queer—and going on a romantic date with a woman—was not tolerated. I kept my promise to myself and kept a piece of joy with me before things got even more real.
My date was beautiful.
It was exactly the peace I needed, and it affirmed everything I felt before coming to meet her: I love this part of my journey. The part that is unapologetically queer and proud about it. She too loved our date, so much so that she asked to see me again a couple weeks later, after returning from a family trip.
On our first date, we shared a burger, fries, two cocktails, and a few hours of rich conversation at the bar. It was brilliant. It was charming, and it set the tone that we were both interested in seeing where this could go. Whatever it was, it felt good between us.
She was the first woman who showed mutual interest in me—out loud and consistently. She wasn’t hiding her feelings; she was showing them. And I liked that. This was new for me. She took the lead when the bartender approached and told him what I wanted to drink. That was refreshing—for once, I wasn’t the one leading. In so many of my past queer connections, things had been held in secret. I was always the one initiating. So I didn’t even know what it felt like to receive care in that way.
Before this, I had dated women in secret—where dates were labeled as “hangs” to keep things light, casual, and less gay. But with her, I didn’t have to hide.
“My non-negotiable now is that I can’t date anyone who’s not out, or who doesn’t want to be married and have kids.”
She sipped her cocktail slowly right after saying it, giving me a moment to sit with those radical words. She helped me see past the doubts I had about marriage—especially marriage to a woman. She made me reconsider my hesitation about an unconventional pregnancy. I was floored by her honesty.
I walked away from our date with a new sense of pride—and hope. That I could have the life I wanted with a woman, if I chose myself over what society expected from me.
Before her, I had only signed up for the appetizer—not the prix fixe version. I’d signed up to date women, but not to take them seriously enough to imagine having a wife one day. But she helped shift that. And I’ll always remember her for it.
The next few days required my attention elsewhere. In a fair exchange, I recommitted to my responsibilities to help prepare for my grandmother’s funeral.
That also meant spending the night in The Bronx—with my mother, in her neighborhood. One I was trying adamantly not to return to because of all of the memories still there. And that meant contorting into someone I wasn’t, just to keep her comfortable. It meant hiding again. Something I was all too familiar with.
One evening, my mother’s childhood best friend came over to help as we sat around the kitchen table, sorting through family photos. We were reminiscing—sharing memories of life already lived, and wondering what would come next.
Emotions were high, and for a moment, I thought it was safe to share a small part of myself.
I had already told my mother about the date—earlier that day, in a burst of energy I couldn’t contain. Maybe I thought it wouldn’t surprise her. After all, she knew about the experience I had with my best friend ten years ago. But still, she was shocked.
As I spoke, her warmth vanished. She grew distant—cold, even.
“I don’t want to hear about it. Don’t show me her photos. I don’t want to see it.”
And she was serious.
I had never seen my mother so serious about anything like this before. I knew better than to cross that line. I didn’t know what she would do or say next, and I wasn’t willing to find out. So I left it alone. I changed the subject. That was not a battle I wanted to fight.
Her friend arrived not long after, and I decided to test my vulnerability again. Up until that point, she and I had been close—she was almost like another aunt to me. Surely, she’d be more open to hearing about my life in ways I didn’t have to hide.
But when I opened up, her honesty hit me like a dissonant chord.
“…You should ask God to remove the romantic feelings you have for women away from you. You know, I wouldn’t be your godmother if I didn’t share this with you.”
She smiled at me so gingerly I couldn’t process the misalignment between us in real time—her distaste for my identity masked by her affection for the person she thought I was.
It was all unsettling.
I knew she no longer was a safe space for me. I kept my hurt to myself, but the pain showed on my face for the rest of the evening.
Ten months later, last November, my mother revealed her true self to me—one evening at a bar, of all places. She didn’t defend me. Not when a man, eager to keep our attention and buy us more drinks, became verbally inappropriate with me. She let me walk away—left me standing in my own discomfort while she chose to keep the guy’s attention.
This bar was in a queer neighborhood, and at some point that night, a trans woman walked in. My mother looked at her and said,
“Ugh, there are just so many of them around here.”
I looked at her—dead in the eyes—as she and the man beside her, who had also been flirting with her, nodded in agreement.
“She looks great. I like what she has on,” I replied. “You’re making comments, yet you’re in their neighborhood.”
My mother said nothing. She just looked at me.
The man beside her offered some irrelevant comments in support of what my mother said. That’s when I said,
“You know, gay is not one size fits all. I’m gay.”
He jolted, surprised.
“Really? You don’t look gay.”
My mother rolled her eyes and let out a deep, snarling sigh as I began to reframe both of their language around queerness.
The man shared a story—about being flirted with by a gay man at a bar. He told us he yanked the man up after repeated advances.
I explained:
“There’s nothing wrong with setting a boundary and saying, ‘Thank you, but no thanks.’ But putting hands on someone? That’s not okay.”
In my earnest effort to dismantle their casual hatred, my mother cut in:
“Everything isn’t always about being queer, Tea!”
That moment, combined with the earlier disrespect at the bar—and years of smaller but deeply wounding incidents—was all I needed.
Her undercurrent of shame and discomfort around my identity had been growing louder.
This time, I listened.
That week, I prayed. I asked Spirit to send me a sign: Is this relationship still mine to carry?
And the answer came, clear as day.
I had spent years trying to earn her approval, show up with hope, and make space for her growth. But now that I had stepped into self-sovereignty, I could see it: she had been choosing not to see me.
Not because she didn’t know—but because she didn’t want to.
Her love had conditions. And if those conditions were crossed, it often resulted in violence—through cutting words, or when I was younger, through force: spanking, slapping, and silence as punishment.
Her fear and shame destroyed my sense of safety. Her lack of compassion confirmed that no matter how much I hoped for her to grow, that hope could not do the growing for her.
The mother I needed would never come through her—at least not as she is.
So, earlier this Spring, I sent my final message.
I told her in so many words:
I love you. Thank you for walking me this far in my journey. But I can’t stay here with you. This life—it’s mine to live. It doesn’t have space for hate or dismissal. I matter to the world. I don’t need you to validate me. I no longer fear you. I release you with joy.
Because sometimes, the deepest love you can offer is the permission to walk away. Not from the truth—but from the pain of waiting for someone to love you in your fullness when they’ve already shown you they won’t.
There was nothing more to expect of her. She had proven, like my father, that she didn’t have the emotional space to be present in my life. And that may have frightened her.
She told me a week after my grandmother’s funeral service,
“Look, I don’t know how to nurture you as an adult…”
—and that, for once, was the most honest thing she had ever said to me. I appreciated that because finally she had some explanation for why her efforts didn’t match mine in the way I nurtured and showed up for our relationship.
In that same light, I chose to do what she could not.
I chose to name the issue after several attempts to heal it—efforts that were blocked by her refusal to seek help. I chose to mother myself and release her—something she desperately wanted, but was too afraid of what choosing herself would look like.
So I made the decision for her.
I’m hopeful she’ll be happier now, without the weight of learning how to care for me—her queer child she could not accept.
With this release, I am more free and at peace.
Thankful I realized that choosing myself means accepting myself fully—without external validation. Not even from the woman whose role was once to be my mother.