Friends, we are just jumping into the goodness this time, without much of an intro, because there is SO MUCH GOODNESS.
The Questions
*What’s your name?
Holly: Holly K Austin. I keep the K in there because it’s my maiden name and my name looks nekked without it.
Emily: Well, I’m Emily T. Meadows for the very same reason, haha.
*How would you describe yourself?
Emily note: I met Holly in college, and I remember that she loved Marmite on toast, that she was the president of Colby College’s LGBTQ club called The Bridge, and that she solely dated women. Fast forward and now she’s a married woman (to Seth, a dude), she’s a foster parent, she attends church, she has a lot of pets, and she is an attorney for the child.
Holly: There’s so much here to respond to already. Marmite on toast is still da bomb. I currently have 5 cats, 2 baby guinea pigs, 1 dog, and the partridge is presumably going to be delivered sometime soon for the pear tree. “Foster parent” is probably my most important identity; “Attorney for the Child” is important too. Kids need a voice in custody and neglect proceedings and I get to be that for a living.
I do attend a Methodist church but also have a Zen Buddhist meditation practice. My favorite place to go is a Buddhist monastery in the Catskills. I’m more Buddhist than Christian. And yes, in a former incarnation I was the President of the Colby College Bridge, which is the College’s LGBTQIA+ organization.
Emily: And, your nails are on point.
Holly: *Blushing*, why thank you. I do have a little nail obsession. I have started doing artistic acrylic nails on myself because a mutual friend of ours got my foster daughter and me a kit, and it’s so damn much fun.
Sexuality is Fluid, Yeah We Said It
*When did you realize that sexuality, or who you’re attracted to, is fluid?
Holly: Oh gosh. It was an iterative process. In high school I discovered I was attracted to girls. I mean, I knew it in like 4th grade really (oh, the hot little redhead in chorus!!), but officially admitted it to myself at age 17. I came out as a lesbian and went to prom with a girl which in 1994 was a Big Deal.
Then, I went to college and I only dated girls. I went abroad my junior year and I met a dude. A hot dude. A hot dude I fell deeply in love with (also a redhead incidentally). And I realized that my identity needed to be more flexible. I had known about bisexuality before I came out as such, but wanted to “fit in” to what was then LGBT culture. LGBT culture at the time had a strong emphasis on the L and G and excluded the B. After I started dating Norm, I lost friends who decided I was no longer “gay enough.” For real.
Emily: This happened to my hair stylist, who I have known since I moved to Seattle. Homegirl was raised Mormon, married a man, and then fell in love with a woman. She felt immense pressure from the gay community to identify as gay. She also started wearing flannel, and jokes about how it gives her street cred.
For me, I learned about the idea that sexuality is not fixed or binary from my favorite celebrity, Oprah Winfrey. I was an avid watcher of her show, and remember an episode where she introduced the idea that sexuality is complex, and can be anywhere on a spectrum. This was mind blowing for me, and explained SO MUCH. I mean, can’t we all agree that Duane “The Rock” Johnson and Gal Godot are equally growl-worthy?
Holly: Yes to the spectrum! I honestly think most people are somewhere along a spectrum, and the folks who are all straight or all gay are relatively few and far between. One of the zillion reasons I love the younger generations is because we are moving in a direction that allows people to be more honest with themselves about the fact that they’re not only attracted to people of one sex or the other. And that there aren’t just two genders.
Emily: You just said “younger generation” and I am hyperventilating a bit. Oof. So, how do you identify now?
Holly: Now I identify as pansexual – I am attracted to people who are all along the gender identity spectrum. And just because I’ve been married to a man for (*gasp*) 17 years DOES NOT MEAN I’M NOW STRAIGHT. People get that wrong a lot, and it bugs the hell outta me.
Emily: I still identify as straight but between Gal Godot and lesbian Tik Tok, I’m happily dancing the cha cha slide along that spectrum we talked about.
Pandemic Butterfly
*If there is anything I’ve learned during this pandemic is how much a person can grow and change in a year. How have you grown or changed while under quarantine?
Holly: This was a year of massive transformation for me. I reinvented myself under quarantine. I quit my old job that had a steady paycheck and benefits, just as Covid was hitting the US. Then, my training program to become an Attorney for the Child got cancelled, and I spent 4 months on unemployment. Meanwhile my husband was a nursing student and not earning an income either. Goodbye savings. Then hello help from my parents (GOD BLESS THEM AND THANK YOU!)
I finally started working and discovered that what I thought might be my dream job really is my dream job. I fucking love my job. And then this spring we invited a 16 year old foster kid to live with us. Our other foster kids were age 5 or younger. Becoming a parent to a teenager has been insanely awesome. I love the kid more than I can express. So now we have an almost-three-year-old and a sixteen-year-old, plus a nine-year-old on weekends. It’s sheer chaos. I’ve discovered I kind of have a thing for chaos this year.
Emily: Uh huh, and she writes a delightful blog about the chaos, too.
Holly: Also, I have spent a lot of time staring my privilege in the face this year. My white parents had savings and were willing to share with me to keep us afloat. That is a thing that a lot of Black families couldn’t do because generational wealth and net holdings reflect America’s racist systems.
I think more than anything this year of quarantine has been an exercise in gratitude: gratitude for a spouse I can spend 14 days quarantined in the house with and not get sick of, gratitude for my beloved kids, gratitude for a job I love. So much to be grateful for.
Emily: Amen, sis.
Croatia, please
*As you look forward to the next half of your life, what is something (or multiple things) that you want to do/see/accomplish?
Holly: Wow, not a question I think about really, believe it or not.
I’d like to adopt a kid or two, preferably the two living with us now. There are some impediments toward either of them ever going back to their families of origin, which is goddamn tragic and makes my heart ache for them both. That said, it’s foster care, and anything can happen.
Interracial adoption is a complex multi-layered thing that will, if we do it, present a lifetime of challenges for my kids. I still would love to do it. It might be selfish, but IF my kids can’t go back to the families they belong in, I want them in my family.
Emily: I love this. Speaking as an adopted kid who started therapy last year to process my identity and abandonment issues, I hear you. What would my life have been had I not gotten adopted? I was loved, and that counts for a lot.
Holly: I want to travel more, to places like India, Botswana, Japan, Costa Rica, Morocco, Croatia. I want to spend more time in Jerusalem, too. So many places, so little money!
Mostly I want more of the same goodness I have in my life now! And one of the people making my life so richly rewarding is you, Em. You make me laugh on the daily, and make me think. That’s a rare and valued combination. Mwah!
Emily: Croatia is on my list, too. And thank you – you inspire the fuck out of me, girl.