Quote:
Originally Posted by Strappie
So some things are that I think some would like to know is...
At what age did you start to come to terms with things (meaning started to think things were different and needed possibly a lifestyle change?).....
What was your situation at that time.... married or single
What gender were you with at that time...
What were some of the hard thought struggles...
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Hindsight is 20/20 it seems. I had a lot of clues from early on, but not enough to put my faith in for a long while. My mom tells me that the reason I got the "birds and the bees" talk was because I asked why Barbra Streisand and that girl couldn't just stay married in that movie Yentil. Looked like fun to me. Then my best friend in elementary school - she and I played this constant role-playing game for like 5 years. She played all the boy characters and I played all the girls. I remember once generously offering to play a boy character, and she said she preferred to play the boy - which was a relief. Last time I heard anything from/about her, she was straight and not gender-queer. But it was a fun time. I was still in elementary school the first time I dreamed I kissed someone - and in that dream I couldn't tell whether the person was a boy or a girl. In the summers, I remember kissing the television every time this one pretty girl came on the screen. I was sort of boy-crazy as a teen. But even in the midst of my most intense high school romance, I one day wrote a poem about a girl in my gym class. A poem - despite its lack of pronouns - I threw away rather than to examine what it meant that I wrote it. I'd have moments of overpowering attraction to a girl from time to time, but I would swallow it whole and put it to the back of my mind. In 10th grade, I realized I could get away with flirting with straight girls - that most didn't seem to mind it one bit. It felt far better to me than the weird competition straight girls do. My high school best friend and I had an open and silly flirtation for a long while. When she slept over at my house, she slept in my bed. When I slept over at hers, I slept on the floor or the love seat in her room. It was like this weird boundary that I just couldn't sleep in her bed without crossing some sort of line. After high school, I pretty much decided I was probably bisexual. My boyfriend from that time period encouraged that, and by the time he and I broke up I was almost sure I was gay. I came out to a few people. Then I met my ex-husband. I was 19. I was up-front with him about my orientation, but he seemed sort of like an exception to the rule. But eventually he wasn't. A few weeks before the wedding, I had a brush with reality that I chose to ignore. I didn't do anything, but it was just that I knew that I *would have* and that it probably wasn't so smart to be getting married. That was 12 years ago now. A few years later I developed a HUGE crush on a butch coworker. I managed to tamp that down with trouble. She just felt so right to me - just wow. I guess she was the first person I felt that specific butch-femme energy with. I felt like I was on fire for weeks. But somehow I killed it. It was weird during that time because I kept thinking my husband was a woman and having to correct my brain. She had just invaded my thoughts so much. But I still thought I was likely bisexual and even though I was attracted to her, I'd made a promise in a church that I had a mind to honor. Sometimes I'd go to gay bars just to watch the same-sex couples dance. It was this awesome relief. In summer of 2004, I went to England for a summer thing, and I ended up going to the Candy Bar a few times - my first lesbian bar. Walking in there just felt like home. If home were a packed loud bar full of british lesbians.
Anyway, the next fall, I found myself crushing on a whole new butch coworker and I realized the first one wasn't a fluke. I remember having dinner with my husband that fall for our anniversary and I felt physically ill because I just knew I couldn't hold up my end of the marriage. Within a few weeks I came out to him - told him I thought I was gay and not bi and that I had to leave him. That was a hard time - the first time I left didn't take. It took me until May of 2005 to leave him. And I think it was September of that year that I finally kissed a girl for the first time. I was terrified. I don't know why I was so terrified.
Some time between leaving my ex-husband and kissing my first woman - I looked into a mirror one day and saw a dyke looking back at me. I didn't think I had internalized homophobia - heck I loved gay people and felt left out around them. But when I saw myself in the mirror and actually saw myself that way - it was hard. When I identified as bisexual, the world was my oyster. I felt like everything was a choice. But, in that moment the world shifted - and I realized I didn't have the power to *choose* my sexuality and the sexuality I was born with was one that seemed to silence and invalidate me. I don't feel like that anymore, but in that moment I think I just felt the shift from straight privilege to not having it anymore.
Maybe I would have figured it out sooner if I'd been braver. Or if I'd known butches earlier. I guess things have turned out just fine. Coming out was fine. My parents have been quiet but supportive. I stumbled - am still stumbling around - in the romance department since coming out. And even since that day with the mirror, I've had a long debate with myself regarding my orientation and how I identify. Those questions are pretty well settled for me now. I'm so glad I don't have to go back and live those years over again, and I'm so glad I got out of my "straight" life. Things haven't been perfect since then, but I'm still happier than I was in that little prison I'd made for myself way back in that old life of mine.
ps. I wrote this during that time: