Barefoot in the soul. Being a wife, Catholic mother and discovering lesbian

Interview by Lidia Borghi published on the Rosso Parma website on January 27, 2015

Alessandra, born in 1963, Roman by birth, of Lombard origins, married and mother of two children, graduated in social pedagogy, Cattolica, agreed to answer some of my questions, with the aim of making his healing path of the soul known that led her, today, to be a liberated lesbian and without veils.

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Find out lesbian in adulthood, in the role of married woman, mother of two children. When, exactly, do you realize that you are in love with a female?

I have long been thinking at the end to find out and even now I focus on me when I meet experiences similar to mine. I believe that, in adulthood, one does not really find out, as happens in the adolescent or youth phase. It becomes aware, you connect to your experience, giving a precise name to what you feel trying for something that, for the most varied reasons, had set aside, hidden, canceled or, if possible, removed. The realization became a deeply belonging to me, close to what I was and who are and in which, at the end of a long journey and life choices, I had the strength, courage and transparency to finally be able to recognize myself. The feeling was that of a return home, not because I was in exile, but because being in contact with that part of myself that I had put aside, represented the giving me the dignity of person in which I have always believed and that I have always sought.
The path of awareness was a path for me. The hint of a different orientation was often masked or resolved as a feeling of strong friendship towards my friends close to me, even if this is a posterior and unaware elaboration at the moment when I lived certain sensations. I had no one to deal with or share my experience with, I had no experiences paid and therefore the step towards setting aside and denying reality was simple. Then the life choices in the wake of what culture, education and training required and presented as possible, but the thought occasionally reappeared, when I lived strong involvement towards the women I met.
Growing up, awareness increased as the effort of keeping certain thoughts at bay which, however, remained solitary, intimate and not shared with anyone. All this until I managed to give a precise name to the feeling I felt towards what is now my partner and with which the parts of me, hidden and put aside, found their integration and the many questions, finally, an answer that, even if he requested courage, has generated serenity and a sense of profound dignity of myself.

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Alessandra lives and works in Rome, a city that gave her birth and who saw her graduate a few years ago. Would you like to deepen this question of mine? Who is Alessandra? Which work does it do?

Alessandra is a person with many interests and a life always very full of commitments and projects. He is a curious person of life, in constant path of awareness of himself and the relationships he lives. He has always been a person engaged in the social, sensitive to listening to the other, of his life path, as evidenced by studying and professional choices made over time. Returning to speaking firsthand, today I am a social pedagogist and a qualified counselor formed and formed to the helping relationship and I make the tool of listening to the privileged way to establish contact with people and their lives, offering support for the path of self -awareness and growth.
The degree, achieved only a few years ago, after different types of life choices, especially family members and mother, represented a time when I took care of myself, I read in me the resources I was carrying and I transformed them into a direct professional path always and in any case to the interpersonal relationship.
The degree was the so -called dream in the drawer, that drawer that you think is too late to open, the moment has passed, both to be considered a closed and certainly lived speech with regret. Instead the drawer opened, but not miraculously. The merit, in addition to the constancy, strength and support, was of my partner who believed in me and supported step by step my path. I owe to her, in her presence, to her encouragement, to the sharing of the many moments of the journey, to her deep good and also to patience in supporting my labors if that day, both we graduated. The word in italics is very important to me because it brings the meaning of our walking together. Today I deal with training at various levels and person support, both individuals and couples and families. I also bring my contribution and professionalism to various LGBT associations in support of the delicate path of awareness of one's orientation and identity.

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Wife, mother and lesbian, it was said, as well as practicing Catholic. A troubled path that led you to be, today, an authentic, liberated person, who has chosen to flourish to life, in a new spring of the soul. How long was it, for you, to hover in flight, after abandoning the cocoon that kept you prisoner?

Certainly it was a not simple path, a sort of rebirth, with all the joys and efforts it involves. I have always sought authenticity, being able to look at myself and the others in transparency, without hiding anything and this was the most delicate path, not because I didn't want to, but because it was not easy to make it reality in the relationships that I lived and that constitute the profound part of myself. It was hard to hover in flight but it was even more so, living the relationship with my partner, to remain in a state of non -definition, of non -truth, of internal split that caused me malaise and created distance with close and dear people.
The cost was high, many doubts, the rethinking, the steps forward but also those back, as well as the moments of stasis in which I told myself that, all in all, I could continue without operating great upheavals of my life. But I was not so well and I had to myself something different: being able to welcome and relate to the people I loved not despite what I was, but precisely by virtue of what I am and of the wealth that my being represents. So the moment of the coming out came with my husband, a walking companion of many years and with whom there has always been a relationship of affection and mutual trust. The father of my children and the family project built over time. After him, when I was ready to do it, the moment of authenticity with my children came, who he felt deeply had the right to look at their mother in sincerity and truth. It was certainly the most difficult moment, made up of many fears and fears of losing them, to be refused, to break that bond that has always united us, but I could not continue to lie, to consider them small and not able to understand, knowing well that I had to leave them time and space to elaborate the personal experience and find the right path in the relationship with me.
I was animated and I am still, from the belief that everything we had sown in a time of daily care, words, gestures, attention, of continuous presence would not have been lost and would not have made us lose. Certainly the relationship should have been redefined: redefine is not to lose what is there and there is strongly in the heart and life of people, but only expand the horizon, look at each other for what you are and decide to continue walking together in authenticity. An authenticity that as a mother I had to my children and their dignity of people. Today in these relationships there is clarity, there is a link lived each from their point of view and with their own understanding and welcome skills, there is a look in the eyes aware of reality and not oppressed by what is not there. No more contradictory and ambiguous messages that undermine the link, but an affection that manages to flow free and more peaceful; In recent times, however, just before the coming out, the fears and fears made me read every attitude or look as a judgmental and refuse. This was the real prison.
Today I am serene with them and I believe that this serenity is a gift that we do every day in choosing us in truth.
Non rinnego nulla delle mie scelte passate, erano i passi che allora potevo compiere con gli strumenti che avevo in mano e la conoscenza di me stessa forse più limitata. Tutto è parte di me e nulla voglio perdere, perché mi ha condotto oggi ad essere quella che sono.

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Nell’ambito del III Forum dei Cristiani Omosessuali Italiani, tenutosi a Roma durante la prima fine settimana di ottobre del 2014, si è svolto un incontro a tratti toccante, durante il quale si è potuto parlare in profondità di coming out in famiglia da parte di una madre o di un padre, di maternità surrogata per le coppie omosessuali maschili che vogliano affrontare la sfida della paternità, nonché di omosessualità e fede; è ancora vivido in me il ricordo del tuo intervento e, in particolare, di una frase che mi ha colpita per l’amore che contiene: “Ho parlato al mio parroco, avevo necessità di un rapporto autentico per me e per lui; perché la chiesa della strada è orizzontale e perché comprendere significa ‘prendere con sé.’”Vorresti approfondire tutto ciò, Alessandra, per le lettrici ed i lettori di Rosso Parma?

Faith - and not religion - has always been part of my life path. I want to reiterate the distinction, as a faith is for me a relationship that speaks of an ego and a you, while religion is an apparatus of laws and codes that, too often, distance people rather than making them close. I understand that it might seem contradictory to think of an integration between faith and homosexuality, especially within the Catholic Church: I have always believed and still strongly I believe in the horizontal Church, the Church of the people, of the road, of the relationships between people beyond any cataloging, of the relationships with the many priests who, playing everything themselves, are not afraid of getting on the side of the people who manifest particular and delicate experiences. I have known many of priests so and I continue to know them and this is my great strength. It is this Church that manages to understand in the deepest sense of the term. Understanding not cognitively, not with the mind, but taking with it the history of the other, whoever it is, whatever color has, any declination knows.
Take with you how to take on the life of the other, on a path of mutual support in which there is no false acceptance but full welcome and freedom to be. It is believing in all this that necessarily led me to talk to my parish priest, because it was not possible for me to stay in front of him in a relationship of lie and falsehood. I found listening, never a judgment, never a prejudice, but a person who made himself a walking companion without having pre -packaged truths in his pocket. Today I can look at him in the face in authenticity and, when I enter the church, each of us knows what responsibilities to take on the other and which path is part of everyone's life. An experience of great liberation and serenity. I did not seek legitimacy or recognition to my being but clarity, honesty and dignity. A continuing to walk the road together everyone as it is. I am aware that my experience is not the same as many other people who have not found listening and support, but mine also exists and I am witness to it.
For some time I have been part of the new proposal, secular association of homosexual Christian women and men who share their path of human and spiritual growth through the common comparison of life and faith experiences and, in addition to sharing my journey with them, I offer my professionalism in support of the people who approach us. It is that horizontal church in which I believe.

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Some time ago you joined an association that brings together people with whom you have the same experience. What support are they giving you, what are the purposes and ideals that unite you?

For almost three years I have been part of Rainbow Parents Network, an association that brings together homosexual and transsexual parents with children and daughters from previous heterosexual relationships. I really believe in this path and I have to thank the founders Cecilia D'Avos, Fabrizio Paoletti, Valentina Violino and Alessandro Ozimo, for breaking - as he would do with bread - his life, in order to put it at the service of many like me, who had and need welcome, listening and support. Personally, the meeting with Cecilia was a very important moment of my path of awareness and decision to take my life more radically. The welcome and listening, lived and tested from the first moment, made of absence of judgment, care and confidentiality and the path of these years, have accompanied me, in respect of my times and my methods, to look at me more deeply inside and find, with the help and support of the many friends of the association, the courage and the strength to face the coming out in the family and today to be a freer and more serene person.
As for me it was essential to have a point of reference, a place, once and a space in which I do not feel alone, in front of a more perceived difficulty than me, as for me it is important to be able to share my experience, the doubts, fears, as well as celebrating moments of joy and light, so I feel that the association can be an extremely valid tool for the many who need support, to get out of the darkness of the illegal and find themselves in authentic relationships and free. It is in service to other, to his experience and his life of homosexual and transsexual person and, specifically, of parent, which I consider both the purpose and purpose of the Rainbow parents network, in a non -judgmental climate of listening and unconditional welcome; In this context I was accompanied to take my hand and for this I feel I am deeply grateful to those who, with their own care, attention, commitment and even with difficulty, have made and make possible a path of serenity and personal realization.

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I know you have a partner and I ask you, almost in conclusion of our dialogue, to speak to me in short of your eight -year -old love relationship.

Summarizing eight years of relationship in a few lines is not easy, above all rethinking the path of awareness that this time has known and of which it has been dotted. It all started with a strong friendship, understanding, harmony, sharing one of the life of the other and it seemed to be enough. In me, on the other hand, a feeling of love almost immediately was born, but I can say this with certainty only now, regarding my path, the awareness achieved day after day and above all the permission to be myself and to fully experience this relationship. The path of my partner was slower, in fact she still has nodes to be solved. Walking at different speeds and ways often was not easy and it is not yet, especially when we compare with fears, doubts, uncertainties and, in our case, being both mothers, with the fear of losing their children and being refused. It is not easy every day to choose the right step and that goes well to both, calibrate the rhythm of the path, put together several views of the future.
Nothing that is not common to any relationship of a couple, however made more delicate by the fear of being fully and lived consistently with the feeling that is felt without concealment, fictions and hypocrisies, compared to a traditional vision of the relationships in which the heteronormativity seems to be the only possible way and the context around us recognizes us only and exclusively in an eterosexual family fabric and in a model of wives and mothers. The path is not as easy as it is not to live in a social context that rejects everything that does not appear compliant with universally recognized and accepted rules and risks disturbing the balance by arousing fears of all kinds.
The people next to us, the people who really nourish a sincere and unconditional affection for us, have welcomed, supported, supported us and represent the circle of friends with whom we are totally, in which our bond is fully recognized and we are visible and non -clandestine beings.
It was not easy and in some ways it is not yet definitively, put together two families, mine and his and the choices relating to husbands and children, in a climate as close as possible to authenticity. For me this path is concluded, being fully transparent and visible, while for her it is a stop to be consolidated. We live a very shared everyday life and one is close to us made of love, presence, care, attention and mutual responsibility, in the awareness that the path still requires choices, decisions and even delicate moments to be lived in a full and authentic way.
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Finally, what message do you feel to get to the many lesbians who, for the most varied personal reasons, have not yet been able to get rid of fear, which makes them veiled, forcing them to lead a double life, made of great anxiety and continuous suffering?

Posso solo partire dalla mia piccola esperienza di vita: per me il peso della clandestinità, del sotterfugio, della doppia vita, della scissione interna, che provavo nel dovermi continuamente mascherare e mostrare per ciò che non ero, ha rappresentato lo stimolo per cominciare a lavorare su quei nodi che mi tenevano legata ad una vita non autentica. Il costo che pagavo ogni giorno guardandomi allo specchio e non riconoscendomi era diventato troppo elevato, rispetto alla fatica necessaria per uscire allo scoperto e instaurare rapporti veri, senza finzioni. Nessun costo vale la dignità di se stesse e questo lo pensavo anche quando la difficoltà e la sofferenza erano grandi.
Questa è la speranza che voglio lasciare: il cammino non è facile, ma la posta in gioco vale qualsiasi percorso seppur accidentato in quanto, alla fine della strada, ci attende il premio di essere veramente se stesse e di godere di quella libertà e pace interiore che, se non cancella, mette in secondo piano la fatica del cammino.
And in all this it is essential to believe that it is not sun. If relationships are lost - and it is physiological, as not everyone has the ability and willingness to understand and welcome - many others will remain or arise, becoming the strength on which to base their path. He will find and discover, even unexpectedly, travel companions who, before asking you what you are, how you live your sexuality and in which orientation or identity you recognize you, they will simply ask you how you are and if you are finally serene.