My mom has been wanting to come visit me since I moved and has been arranging a family visit to San Diego including my brother since mid-summer last year. Finally, last month, she succeeded. As per the experience of many LGBTQ+ people, my parents and I have never seen eye to eye on who I am. To me, they seem more interested in proselytize their religious views against one part of who I am instead of getting to know who all I am, let alone who I share my life with. Needless to say, I anticipated a lot of preaching and judgement throughout their stay.

While I spent a month racking my brain, searching for peaceful resolve to my family’s maiden voyage to my SoCal home, my husband has been in the background taking care of things around the house and strategizing so my family’s visit is low-stress and high-enjoyment. Ty is much better at navigating family politics than I am, and he helped me see things in a brighter light. He suggested simply that we put the spotlight solely on them and provide them with a San Diego get-a-away holiday in lieu of a traditional family visit.

On the evening of their arrival, we met at our favorite local full scale bar & grille Mexican restaurant in our neighborhood. I realize now this was the same place we took Ty’s family when they were in town. The first night they were here, Ty grabbed the check at dinner so we could pay for their first meal in San Diego. I immediately saw a difference in my dad’s disposition and this cheery attitude maintained through the next day. He was more positive than usual and he did not preach at me. It truly set a good tone for the start of their trip.

The next morning, I planned a trip to the Air & Space Museum so my dad and brother would feel in their comfort zone and find themselves in their element, too, while in San Diego. Both of them are pilots and both of them love aeronautics. The very moment we got past the ticket booth, they unleashed their inner nerd. They gave us a tour of the place that would out-facilitate and inform any professional tour guide. They were both so excited, they quite literally only stopped talking in between breaths. They knew more about the exhibits than the information placards. They were walking Google boxes spitting out the history behind everything. I knew within the first five minutes that the rest of the trip was already won and already a great success.

Over the next days we explored all of Balboa Park, Ocean Beach, Old Town, and we even went to Sunset Cliff to watch a perfect San Diego sunset. Mom and I talked endlessly while meandering the parks, beaches, and Zoo. I could tell she was having motherly withdrawals from me moving so far away. I focused on her a lot during the trip. We took them out of the city to show them real purple mountain majesty in Anza-Borrego desert. Dad noted that the International Space Station would make a viewable pass-by after sunset and so we pulled over and watched the luminous sphere make its way across the mountainous night sky. On the way back we stopped at the Julian Pie Company, a local San Diegan favorite in East County, to pick up and share with my family one of their caramel Dutch apple pies.

The trip came and went and it even felt as if it even went by all too fast. I guess all I was really worried about in the beginning was wanting everyone to have a good time and to be good to each other. I learned that leading by example and setting the positive tone can incite a self-fulling prophecy of which I want to be a part.

Planning a positive experience for them set-up a positive experience for myself.