Category: Thoughts and Realizations

Everything and nothing has changed

I love her.

It’s hard to sit into my feelings for her when my brain is all over the place – when I am just finding my footing – when at times none of this seems at all real.

My life.  Like I am living in an alternate reality.  Like all the cells in my body have changed and I am actually a whole new person housing the same old soul.  As if my childhood up to last year was an entirely different life – and I actually did die on my way to my first date with her, or perhaps even earlier.

It is like a Murakami novel.  Almost real – but not quite.  Subtle changes that indicate a large shift.  And blatant changes that can only be dealt with my acting as though they are normal.

Sitting on this balcony now seems like an entirely different place than 10 months ago.  I sat out here the last days of June – 2am when no one was around – and I looked out.  Knowing that everything would change.

Only a couple of weeks later was my first time with a woman.  Not the woman I love, but my catalyst.  I am grateful for her – bold and unapologetic.  In many ways she was a bad idea – but she’s the best bad idea I have ever had, as she set me free from my self made prison and lead me to where I am now.  Sitting on my balcony – in love – as my whole self.

It’s not all orgasms and shared wardrobes…

Nothing makes you feel more “everyday gay” than when you run into your girlfriend’s ex-wife and her girlfriend while you are taking care of the dog that your girlfriend and her ex adopted together.  It’s a fantastic feeling.  I wanted to be on the inside track – I wanted to know a life being with women.  I wanted to be out of my closet, I wanted all of it.  And I’m getting it.

The run in was made even more thrilling seeing as the ex had contacted my girlfriend that day to see if she could take the dog – and was told “no” it was too short notice.  Meanwhile, I’m just writing outside at a coffee shop – dog tied near my chair.  The icing on this fantastic moment is how goddamned excited the dog is to see the ex… it is her other mommy after all.  Oh, and more icing: this is the first time I have actually met her.  And I have to say, she looks just as cute as she does in their wedding photos.

I wouldn’t say the incident ruined my whole day.  That would be dramatic.  And this sort of thing is bound to happen – seeing as all the lesbians live in the same goddamned neighbourhood in this town.  So I should not be phased by such an everyday-gay experience.  However I am a lesbian – and what kind of lesbian would I be if I weren’t to get somewhat worked up over this casual encounter.  I was warned, after all, when I first revealed to a gay girl-friend that I thought I should be with women.  “Girls are crazy” she said.  Yes.    It seems that we may be… Just a little bit.

What Made you Gay?

This is the question I can see my mother asking in her head over and over.

That and “Are you really?”  and “Maybe you were ‘turned'”.

Just because I was very late in coming out.

Because I was in such deep denial.  Because I put great effort into being a “straight girl”.

My question is – “What made me closeted?”

Because the problem is not that I am gay.  That is a great thing.  The problem, in my mind, is that it took me so long to truly realize and accept it.

Categories

Just over one year ago I said to a close friend
“Is that it?  Will I never get to be with a woman?”

I realize now that it was a belief in a label that kept me “straight” for all these years.  I was straight.  Never mind the fact that ninety percent of my sexual fantasies were about women.  Never mind the fact that I always knew I was different – I always knew I didn’t quite belong.

Sex and sexuality are not the same thing.  One can have sex with a toy.  One can have sex with themselves.  If there is drive, one can have sex with a person outside of their sexual orientation.

There are so many little details that make each of us up.  It is not necessary to justify all of our little quirks in order to fall into a pre-conceived category.  However, if one is an over-analyzer, it’s difficult to resist.

I have “come out” the other side since that moment last spring. Or more accurately, I am continuing to come out the other side.  I am myself in a way I have never before experienced.  I have a home.