Lauren's Diaries

Lauren's diaries

I am starting these diaries as a way of coping with the situation I am currently in. It was suggested by my therapist. Writing down my thoughts may help me.

My name is Lauren. I am happily married with Tom. We have a beautiful daughter, Ana Claire, who is now 24 years old. My husband and I have always had a very good relationship. We have good communication and we've been through a lot together. But I don't know how this is going to turn out which is one of the reasons I've decided to write these entries.

We have a very good and active sexual relationship, or, at least we did. But it's been a couple of years where we have been growing apart. The sex is less frequent nowadays. And I think the cause of this is the mental baggage we are both carrying at the moment. He doesn't reject my sexual advances, and I don't reject his; it seems we are both losing our mental and emotional stability and it's affecting our libido.

It all started a few years ago. Sometime after my daughter turned 19. Annie and I had gone to the mall. I don't even remember now why. Probably to buy clothes or go to the movies. What I do remember clearly is the conversation we had at the food court.

"Mom?" said Annie.

"Yes, Annie?"

"I... I wanted to talk about something with you"

"Tell me."

She began to shift in her seat and her hands were on her lap. She was fiddling with her hands, caressing herself.

"Is everything alright?" I asked my daughter.

"Yeah, I'm fine. It's just a difficult topic to bring up."

"Well, take your time. You know you can trust me with anything."

"I know, mom. And that's actually related to what I'm want to talk about."

The food court was really loud. Kids screaming, the banging of food platters, wrappers, and orders being shout out made our conversation private, even though we were surrounded by scores of people. I noticed her distressed, so I moved my chair closer to hers.

"Yes?" I even put my food down so I could concentrate on her.

"Well, it's about sex, mom."

"Ok. Don't worry. Do you want to share something with me or ask me something?"

"Well, a bit of both." She cleared her throat a bit. "I've told you about Jack. How he was my first time and how it was something clumsy, but I enjoyed it."

"Yes, I remember."

"Well... I've always thought about sex as something I would enjoy a lot. After I had sex with him, I was disappointed."

"That sometimes happens when it's your first time. People have a lot of expectations, but they don't have experience. I mean, that's why it's your first time, right? But, after you've had sex a couple of times, you learn what you like and it gets better."

"Yeah, I know, mom. I... mmm... I have had more experience since that time."

"Oh... you have?" I asked.

This was news to me. She told me about Jack around a month after she turned 18.

"Well," I continued, "it's natural, of course, that you had more sex. Are you having doubts about birth control? Are you...?"

"No, mom! I'm not pregnant. I've taken care of myself and used birth control methods. Real methods, not that calendar stuff, or coitus interruptus. The thing is..." She took a very deep breath.

"Go on..." I spoke.

It was obvious that she was struggling to find the necessary strength to tell me what she wanted to tell me.

"The thing is," Annie said, "I always felt something was missing. I felt like... like I was at a buffet, but I was only eating bland hot dogs. There are so much more things out there and I was only eating the same thing over and over. The lasagna, the steaks, the sushi... and the desserts, oh, my god, mom, the desserts."

"It sounds to me like you're really hungry." I laughed a bit.

I think that helped her feel more comfortable with what she was trying to tell me. She chuckled a bit, too.

"Well, yeah, maybe, but not my point. The thing is... Jack and I broke up a couple months ago."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Are you ok?" I asked.

I thought to myself how I didn't know this. I tried to remember the months prior, but I didn't remember ever seeing my daughter crying or depressed at all. I would have never guessed she wasn't with him anymore.

"Yeah, I'm fine, mom. It was me who broke up with him. That's not the point of what I'm trying to tell you."

"I see. Then, please, go on."

"Well, mom... I have known for a while now that I'm not... that I'm... umm..."

"Go on. Nothing you say to me will scare me or make me love you any less."

"I'm bisexual, mom."

As she said this, she turned her head down. As if she had done something bad and I would be furious. Her eyes darted quickly towards me and I could see the fear in her eyes.

"Oh, Annie, that's ok. I'm not mad, and I love you regardless of what sexual orientation you have."

I smiled brightly and I closed in to hug her. She didn't move much and barely reciprocated my hug. Her face was still facing down and, when I let her go, she still had that scared look on her face.

"Annie, it's ok, really. You don't have to be afraid."

She remained silent and she was now staring at the table. Her eyes were fixed on nothing and it was obvious to me that my approval of her coming out wasn't her main concern. She still feared something.

"Are you... ok? Are you afraid of what your father will say?"

I knew Tom would be ok with this. We had had talks where we talked about how would we react if Annie were not heterosexual, and they were usually very short talks because we both agreed that it didn't matter to us who she was attracted to and that all we cared about was her happiness.

"Well, I guess a little bit, yeah, but that's not all of it."

"I know your dad accepts you now and always. So... if that's not it, then what is troubling you?"

"See, mom, my interest in women is the reason I broke up with Jason. I wanted to experiment more and see if it was only in my head, or if I really had an attraction to women. So, I broke it up with him so I could be with another woman. A friend of mine that had shown interest in me."

"I see."

Annie had now a look of remembrance. She smiled and chuckled a bit.

"It was a mess."

"What was a mess? Your friend?"

"No. Well, yes, but no. I was talking about the break up with Jack. He really didn't want to lose me. But, yeah, the thing with my friend was also a mess because it turns out I was misinterpreting our interactions. She wasn't into me. Or even women, at all."

She laughed a bit harder this time.

"I'm glad you're taking this with a smile on your face."

I smiled, too. Seeing my daughter happy always made me happy. "Well, if you're going after girls now, you're going to have to get accustomed to rejection."

"Oh, I know that. I've been rejected a lot of times. At first, it hurt, but after a while I understood that being forward got me a lot of rejection, but it also led me to not waste more time pursuing a person that wasn't interested in me. I'm glad now when I get turned down because it means I will have the time and attention to find a person that is interested in me."

"Wow... that's a really mature way of handling things."

"It's just my experience talking, mom."

"Your experience? As in you've found women that are attracted to you and want to be with you? Do you now have a girlfriend? Is that it?"

"Yes, and no, mom. I have been with women. Three, to be exact, but I don't have a girlfriend at the moment."

I couldn't hide my surprise.

"Three women?"

"Yes." Annie looked at me and saw my surprise. "Mom! Not at the same time!"

"Oh... I didn't... I mean... If you had been... with..."

I noticed that I was hesitating to describe what I was feeling.

"I love you, Annie." I continued, "your happiness is the most important thing for me. I'm just surprised at how much you've found out about yourself."

"Are you sure you're ok, mom? If this is making you uncomfortable, we don't have to talk about it."

"It's ok. I'm ok. Please, go on."

My daughter was distressed about something so I would show her all the support she needed.

"You sure? Ok... You'll see, even though I was... uhm... trying all the other meals at the buffet, I still felt something was missing."

"Were you not enjoying sex with women?"

"Oh, no. That's not it. Sex was good. Some of them were older than me and they knew how to please me. Especially since I was new to being with another woman. I had wonderful... uhm... moments."

"Well, that's good. I'm glad you had a good time."

"The thing is, mom, that they have all just being distractions."

Annie began to make herself small on her seat. Her eyes were looking down and she was rubbing her hands. She was nervous.

"Distractions? What do you mean?" I asked.

"I mean that... well... I love you, mom."

"Aw, I love you, too, Annie. You know you can tell me anything you want and I won't stop loving you."

"No, mom. You don't understand. I mean that I love you. I am in love with you."

She quickly looked at me and then dropped her gaze once again.

"I... umm... I... I'm not... sure... umm... what do you mean, exactly?"

"I mean that... well... I want to be with you. I am attracted to you. I love being with you, and seeing you, and I think about you all the time."

My face must have shown Annie that I was having trouble understanding what she meant.

"Oh..."

My head was spinning. I couldn't believe what Annie was saying. I don't know how long I thought about it, but after what I thought was a really long time, I looked over to Annie and saw that she somehow got even smaller on her seat. She was rubbing her hands vigorously. I felt terrible seeing my daughter like that.

"Annie, I'm not sure what to say. But keep in mind that I will always... I'll always care for you. Your happiness is the most important thing for me."

I was about to say love you, but I decided to use other words given the context of the conversation we were having. She looked at me with sadness on her eyes and quickly lowered her eyesight again.

I suddenly felt very exposed and every single glance near me I perceived as inculpatory. I wasn't feeling comfortable at all. I began to pack our food back in the bags.

"It's getting late. Let's head home, shall we?" I asked her.

Annie looked up at me and gave me the smallest of smiles. She was having trouble with this as well.

When we were in the car, Annie was looking out the window and I saw in the reflection she was about to cry.

"Listen, Annie," I said, "I'm sorry if my reaction is causing you to feel bad. It's just that I never thought you would say something like that. Maybe you only think you have those feelings for me because you're projecting in me something from someone else."

I was driving and intentionally avoiding eye contact.

Annie took a very long breath and sighed.

"No, mom, I'm not."

"Or maybe you're just confused. A daughter loves her mother, and you may think it's another type of love than it is."

"No. That's not it."

I didn't know what else to say, so I stayed quiet. After a mile or so, Annie continued.

"I've looked at this from all the angles I can. I know what I feel is about you and not someone else. I know because when I was having sex with other women, I could only... finish... when I thought about you. I've read about the topic, thinking that maybe it was normal for people to have those thoughts, but it's not." She chuckled a bit. "Many of them think about their parents in order to stop being aroused, mom, not the other way around."

"I've had these feelings for quite some time now, too." She continued. "I thought it was a phase, or, like you said, that I was confused. But that's not it."

"That's why I got a boyfriend." Annie kept going. "I thought that maybe if I had a partner, the urges would subside. But they didn't. Then I thought maybe I was a lesbian and this was my way of sensing that I was actually attracted to women and then the feelings would disappear. They didn't either. I did learn though that I'm bisexual. Because I enjoyed sex with Jack and I also enjoyed it with Sarah."

"Sarah?" I asked. "Isn't that also the name of Ruby's mom?"

"Yup."

"Wait. Does that mean that...?"

"Yup. But don't say anything, mom. If Ruby found out, she'd probably never speak to me again. I can't lose her. She's been such a good friend to me."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Sarah was a model mom. I instinctively thought if that's why things hadn't worked out between her and her husband.

"Does that mean that you and her...? Did you... her divorce..."

"No, mom. I didn't cause their divorce."

She turned away from me again. Her face was lost in remembrance.

"Me and her," Annie continued, "it happened months after her divorce. First time it happened I may have encouraged her to drink a couple more glasses of wine than she was accustomed to. And then it was all her. I had seen the way she looked at me. Her sexuality was the reason they fought a lot. She wasn't interested in Jerry, anymore, so they fought constantly."

"I see. So, were they fighting a lot?"

"Yeah."

"And did he...?"

"I don't know much about that, mom. Sarah and I don't talk much. I find her kind of boring. The thing is I tried to sleep with her in order to stop having these feelings towards you... but it didn't work."

Annie took a long breath.

"I mean," she continued, "the first couple of times it was something exciting by itself, and I was aroused... but, after a few minutes of us... you know... I kind of lost interest in her... and started thinking about you."

She looked in my direction. I felt her gaze on me. I turned to see her. We had been parked in front of our house for like a minute, so I couldn't avoid it anymore.

I didn't know what I could say in this situation.

"Mom, I am in love with you."

As soon as she said this, she opened the door, got out, and immediately started walking towards the house. I was left speechless and had no idea what to do.

The next couple of days we acted a bit cold towards one another. I decided then to sign her up to see a psychologist, which she agreed to go to. She went for a couple of years, but I never saw an improvement. Given that she was an adult, the psychologist couldn't tell me anything about her progress, only that I had to be patient.

During that time, I saw that she picked up more extracurricular activities and started going out more with friends. I hardly ever saw her. But, little by little, when I had time with her, I saw that her demeanor was changing. It seemed that every day she talked less and was less enthusiastic about things.

For a while, I pretended not to know what was wrong with her. I chose to believe that what we had talked that time was nothing but an impulse, a mix up with her feelings, or something she may have seen on Internet. There were times, however, where I would catch her looking at me. A look that told me she still had feelings for me.

Tom and I had been having problems because of it. I was always worrying about Annie and thinking how I could help her, so I couldn't focus on work or on Tom. I thought about telling him, but I never even knew how to start the conversation. We had fights that could have been easily avoided. Lack of attention, misunderstandings, that was all our fights really were.

I decided to go with Annie to a therapist who would specialize in this. And I proposed Annie to go together.

Our therapist was Melanie. I found her online with good reviews. We talked a little bit, during our sessions, about where these feelings could be coming from, about how was our current situation, about plans for the future. It was all very clear to Annie. She knew what she felt. She knew our current situation as a family was not ideal. She knew what she wanted for the future.

During these sessions I understood that Annie was using her extracurricular activities as an excuse to go out and meet people. She was actively trying to bury her feelings for me, or to snap out of them. But it hadn't worked even a little bit. Every day she came back home, saw me, and everything went back to square one.

After a couple of months of counseling, the therapist suggested something I would have never imagined she would. She told us to try out having sex.

It was, for me, a little bit of a shock. I'd never imagine a professional would not only approve of it, but encourage it. The logic was pretty solid, though. Unless I cut my daughter off my life completely, I would just make her life empty.

I just couldn't accept to think of my daughter being forever miserable and exposing herself. She had tried being with different people. People who even resembled me. This scared me. I didn't want her to risk contracting an infection, or getting abused on her attempt to forget me. She had been with three other people, she told me, in those couple of years.

I decided to do it. I would let Annie do what she wanted with me.

I couldn't tell Tom, however. Our relationship was fractured, and I still loved him, but this was something I had to do for myself. All these times I had told him that the visit to the therapists had been due to Annie suffering depression. It was true, I just didn't want to tell him the reason. I wouldn't reveal Annie's confession to him so she would still have at least one normal relationship with her dad.

One Saturday night, I decided to tell Annie I was hers.

Tom wasn't home and Annie was in her room lying in bed watching TV. She didn't want to go out anymore. She didn't want to leave the house. Even the people who would usually seek her out, weren't coming around anymore.

There was no turning back. This was going to change things forever. It had gotten to the point where I wanted it to change. I couldn't think of any change worse than having my daughter being miserable because of me and her feelings towards me which she couldn't change.

I put on some sexy lingerie on. Thigh high stockings clipped to a lace garter belt, a satin thong, and a see through strapless bra. It was all color red. But I was going to cover it all to have a little chat first, so I put on a coat on top and sat on the dresser chair and placed some red high heels behind the chair.

"Annie?" I called for her from my room.

"Yeah?" She shouted in response.

"Can you please come to my room?"

When she entered and saw me wearing a coat on the dresser, I saw her perplexed expression, that lasted only a moment. Then she went back to a blank expression.

"What's up?" Annie asked me and sat down on my bed.

She got her phone out and was looking at it. Not because she was interested in it, but so she wouldn't make eye contact with me. It still hurt her to be around me without being with me.

"I wanted to talk with you" I said.

"What about?"

"I went to see Melanie a couple days ago."

"Are you taking solo sessions with her now?"

She was still looking at her phone.

"No."

I took a pause to gather some courage before continuing. This intrigued Annie, who looked away from her phone towards me.

"Why, then?"

"It has been a long time since you told me how you felt about me. And I have seen how you have struggled with those feelings."

Annie was now paying attention to every word I uttered.

"And?"

She asked with curiosity and it seemed she couldn't hold her anticipation. She was paying attention to me now and I saw her eyes scan me from top to bottom. When she got to the bottom, her gaze lingered at my legs. I looked down and saw that the coat didn't cover my legs and you could see the red stockings.

"I have tried everything I know to help you be you again. I loved the happy Annie that you were. You enjoyed life at the maximum. Your happiness is the most important thing to me. I have decided to try one last thing. I decided to trust that you know yourself and your feelings."