Maria Bello Comes Out

Puente de Vallecas In a piece in the New York Times titled “Coming Out as a Modern Family“, Maria Bello comes out as “whatever” and all my feelings for her since I first saw her in ER make sense.

I will freely admit that I watched Coyote Ugly (and maybe watched again and – okay – maybe one more time) because I thought she looked rather nice in her tight, black camisole.

What can I say? I really appreciate a nice cami.

Maria writes that she had come off a rather reflective period in her life, reviewing old journals and revisiting the idea of old loves (including a woman), when she had a revelation:

“As I continued to look through photos, I came across a black-and-white one of my best friend and me taken on New Year’s Eve. We looked so happy, I couldn’t help but smile. I remembered how we had met two years before; she was sitting in a bar wearing a fedora and speaking in her Zimbabwean accent.

We had an immediate connection but didn’t think of it as romantic or sexual. She was one of the most beautiful, charming, brilliant and funny people I had ever met, but it didn’t occur to me, until that soul-searching moment in my garden, that we could perhaps choose to love each other romantically.”

The next time she saw her, they began figuring out their relationship which did, in fact, evolve into a romantic one.

What I love most about her essay is that her 12 year old son plays an integral role in her process. She worries what he will think and is reluctant to talk to him about it until he comes to her and asks her if she is in a relationship with anyone. She finally tells him that she is and his response is “love is love.”

I think of my own son who is the same age who has said the very same thing to me. I think about my son and the boys at his school who slow dance together at the school dance without embarrassment. I think about how their generation is cracking the world wide open and it fills me with so much hope.

She concluded her essay with the following:

“Maybe, in the end, a modern family is just a more honest family.”

I have long struggled with the idea of faith but if I have faith in anything, it is love and honesty. Now – cami or no cami – I have a whole new reason to love Maria Bello.

[FEATURED PHOTO CREDIT: WIKIPEDIA]