Coming out to Grandma
Feeling really touched today after reading a letter that Corry Frydlewicz wrote coming out to her grandma:
https://corryfrydlewicz.com/dear-grandma/
By the time I came around to coming out to my grandpa a few year ago my grandma already had dementia and was no longer able to have a meaningful conversation with me. I have no idea why I waited so long. My grandparents were proud of me and supported me my entire life and whatever toxic fantasy I came up on my own mind about how they would react never came to pass. I told my grandpa I was happy, in love, and not going to spend my life being alone. Maybe he didn’t fully understand but he was happy for me, and he finally stopped trying to connect me with single women he knew or ask me when I was getting married.
I never came around to talking to my other grandma about it. I don’t know why. I wish I did. I wanted her to know that I was living a life I am proud of with someone that makes every day special. I wore the Vyshyvanka she bought me from the clothes shop downstairs from her apartment on the day of my COVID zoom wedding. I wanted her to be close to me even though I didn’t have the courage to tell her. That is still my favorite picture of us:
https://levlaz.org/valentina-rytenko/
I regret that I didn’t tell her and I think I always will.
What I finally realized too late is that when your grandparents nag you about “finding a nice girl to marry” it’s less about the heteronormative part and much more about them wanting you to be happy and not spend your life alone. I know she would have been proud and happy for me even if she didn’t fully understand.
Thank you for reading! Share your thoughts with me on bluesky, mastodon, or via email.
Check out some more stuff to read down below.
Most popular posts this month
Recent Favorite Blog Posts
This is a collection of the last 8 posts that I bookmarked.
- Deeper dive: Were Touch Bar’s problems software rather than hardware? from Unsung
- Joining Cursor from Fatih Arslan
- Pluralistic: Digital sewer socialism (08 Aug 2026) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
- Pluralistic: Enshittification and Reverse Centaurs go global (29 Jul 2026) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
- AI Mania Is Eviscerating Global Decision-Making from Ludicity
- The default person from https://popagandhi.com/
- No-One Escapes the Permanent Underclass from Fernando Borretti
- Is it ethical to use AI? from charity.wtf
Articles from blogs I follow around the net
An Ode to Links
A URL is a technical thing: a hostname, a path, a port, an origin, some query parameters, etc. But a link is a cultural thing: an invitation, a citation, a gift, a shortcut, a connection. All from a simple idea: here’s a thing that points to another thing,...
via Jim Nielsen’s Blog September 10, 2026I don't like it but the Trump DoJ is right on AI and fair use
I've written about this topic a number of times before, but in this case I'm tempted to re-use the popular meme "When the worst person in the world makes a good point," as I did awhile back when I wrote about Elon Musk&
via The Torment Nexus September 10, 2026“A great look at the destructive power of an uncaught Infinity value”
There are two distinct flavors of speedrunning: completing a game as fast as possible through feats of extraordinary mastery, timing, and precision, completing a game as fast as possible by finding all sorts of bugs and exploits in the game (commonly known...
via Unsung September 10, 2026Generated by openring