Struggling to come to terms......

[Nat]

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...

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: