Hunting, by Gillian

The first game I remember playing in my life was 'Hunt the Thimble'. My mother introduced me to it when I was, I suppose, about three. The thimble had originally belonged to my great-grandmother, and was made of silver worn almost paper-thin by generations of use. To me it seemed the most wonderous, brilliantly-shining object I had ever seen.

I loved it, and was consequently brought to tears when Mum told me she had hidden it and I had to find it. The glorious object was gone; the responsibility of having to find it too great. No doubt puzzled at my reaction, she set about joining me in the supposed search, and in no time we found it. We did it a second time, together, after which I had grasped the concept. I willingly covered my eyes for the third time of hiding, and said something like, No! Me! when my mother made to join me in the search. I was into it now. The game was on.

We played that game endlessly, until I was in fact much too old for it - 25 or 26. No, no, just joking, more like 5 or 6, but still an age by which I probably should have outgrown it. Looking back, I rather think I had but my mother had not.

After a couple of days of my being the lone seeker, she suggested I hide it for her to find. Ooh, fun! Thereafter we alternated hider and seeker, she being every bit as thrilled as I to hunt for and eventually find the gleaming beauty.

She loved either role, exhibiting as much excitement when I neared the hiding place as if I was approaching the end of the rainbow with its proverbial pot of gold. We both played our own games within the game. Sometimes, the hiding place was too easy. Almost immediately I started the hunt, I caught the gleam of highly-polished silver from behind Mom's tea cup. I feigned blindness and faked a continued search for some time, so as not to curtail my mother's pleasure. Once or twice, my search went on too long, the hiding place too clever, and I became irritated. Then Mum would say she had forgotten where she put it and would join me in the search, and it was fun again.

I grew tired of 'Hunt the Thimble'. We, just the two of us, had played it too often for too long. But Mum so enjoyed it. How could I disappoint her? It was a small price to pay. I continued to play; to fake the challenge of the hunt and the thrill of discovery.

And so, with this innocent toddler game, began two things. It was the start of the strangely reversed role I had, for the rest of my life, with my mother. I took care of her needs, rather than the reverse. Even as a child I read to her, I let her win at card games, I made her tea, I tucked her up in bed. I was the parent; she the child.

Another pattern began with 'Hunt the Thimble'.  As I outgrew the game ahead of my mother, I began my acting career. I pretended emotions I did not feel, desires I did not have, and continued to do that extremely well for the next 40-odd years of my life. That innocent bit of 'pretend' in a childhood game grew into an ability to fake a completely artificial heterosexual identity for decades. Such mighty oaks from tiny acorns grow. The reversed roles shared by my mother and me were never to be corrected. They were too deeply entrenched. But at least I eventually managed to retire from acting to live, finally, happily, as the person I was born to be.

© September 2016 

About the Author 

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30-years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty-years. We have been married since 2013.