2014:
I am in the kitchen with my mom, and I’m desperately trying to explain to her how my “best friend” is both my sunrise and sunset—the reason that I’m no longer depressed and actually get up to go to school in the morning. I’m a sophomore in high school, and though my brother has paved the way for complete acceptance by our parents for, what right-wing politicians might call “alternative lifestyles,” I’m still terrified to say the words to them that would confirm what they already know to be true.
My mother is a guidance counselor for our school district, and it’s on her shoulders to explain acceptance to kids half my age—and to explain to the more sensitive parents of said children why accepting those who aren’t normal is a worthwhile endeavor. My dad, who married a white woman in a community over half Latino, would almost certainly understand how love can transcend expectations. I know in my heart that if I were to tell my parents that I think I will never be able to love a man the way I love my best friend, they would shrug their shoulders and say “okay.” Somehow, knowing that a revelation that took years to admit even to myself would be met with such indifference scares me worse than the possibility they might cry or shout. I don’t want to accept the fact that the only person left to accept me for who I am is myself.
2007:
My sister often comes home to stay with me after school until our parents come home because she knows that I am terrified to be alone. Her friends ask her to stay out after school, and she often brings them along with her to entertain me. My older sister is 3 years my elder, and though she’s in middle school, I am often gifted the opportunity to join her and her older friends on their excursions to the park or the library.
On one such occasion, she brings home two of her close friends that I have only heard about. They snuggle on the couch and hold hands. One of the girls is my sister’s short height and has beautiful, mousy brown curls that are unlike anything I’ve seen before. The other girl is taller, and she wears black pumps that match her straight black hair and emo glasses. The taller girl is odd, but she loves me instantly as she has several half-siblings around my age that she hasn’t seen recently. She moved out of her mom’s house to be with her girlfriend. Likewise, I love her instantly.
I think to myself that this girl—this lesbian—is someone that I can trust with the secret I’ve kept to myself for three years. I tell the girls and my sister that I think I might also be a lesbian, and they shower me with praise for being so brave to admit it. We walk together to the park, and they tell me that I do not need to be scared to admit it ever again. I promise to try.
2015:
My girlfriend of two years has recently stopped speaking to me, but I am no longer scared to admit to people that I date people of the same gender. Sometimes, a girl who is a year younger than me will come to my house and we will snuggle on the couch or on the bed. She asks me to give her a first kiss, and I do. My heart is still broken, and I’m really not in a mental state to be kissing anyone, but she asks me for a second kiss, so I give it to her because I like doing it. She asks me if I like her, and I tell her that I think I do.
My younger friend has been raised vehemently Catholic, and her parents have previously warned her to stay away from me after they saw me holding hands with my ex-girlfriend at a school soccer game. She has to promise them when she comes to my house that we are in sight of my parents at all times—where I might be dissuaded from touching her inappropriately.
On my birthday, I wake up and cry because I miss my best friend: my ex, and I know that she has a new girlfriend. I’m late for school. My eyes are puffy. Still, my young friend that I have kissed at least ten times by now hands me a small bouquet of candy roses and asks if we can be in an official relationship. I cry and tell her no, and then she also stops speaking to me. Weeks later, she wants to know if I feel bad for breaking her heart. I think to myself that she has no idea what a broken heart feels like—it wakes me up with night terrors of my best friend dying in horrendous ways and me being unable to help her. My young friend asks me how I would feel if she committed suicide, which scares me.
I send the text messages to my principal at school, and suddenly everyone knows about the ten times I kissed her. They call her parents who then call my mom to ask her how they could have raised a pervert that preys on Catholic, sophomore girls like their sweet, obviously straight daughter. Her older brother, my age, stares at me venomously in class. I feel conspicuous, and merely seeing me in the hall catapults her into tears. She drops out of our mutual clubs as her parents accuse me of stalking and sexual assault. Even when the turmoil dies down, we both know that we can never be friends again.
2008:
My friend tells me at a sleepover that she is bisexual: a word that I’ve never heard before but I like because it leaves room for opportunity. I tell her that I am too, and we hug. I’m only 11, and dating isn’t on my mind at all despite the acknowledgment of my own sexuality. I’m surprised when she wants to hold hands and cuddle in future sleepovers. I don’t mind, but I hate when she does it in band class where other students can see. I’m worried that they might assume we’re a couple, and I still think I have many years before I have to come out. I tell her that I just want to be friends, and she says, despite my protests, that we should both come out together as a show of our friendship.
She comes out to our mutual friends one morning over breakfast, and they all start to make fun of her. She stares me down across the table as I sit silent, and I worry that she’s considering outing me as well so that I can share in the bullying. Afraid, I join in with calling her a dyke. One of my friends suggests that she only wants to date girls because none of the boys like her, and I laugh at the joke. Weeks go by, and any time she suggests to me that I come out—asserting that she’s happier being her true self despite the bullying—I just join in more with the teasing until she no longer wants to speak to any of us. She never tells anyone my secret.
I’m so sorry.
2020:
I’ve finally found someone that can make my knees go weak and my heart swell with just a single look, and he wants to marry me. He puts a huge, blue rock on my left hand, and we start planning a winter-wonderland-themed wedding. He loves me despite my flaws, and I can be honest with him like I’ve never been with anyone before. It’s weird to think that I’ve been in a four-year relationship with a man. The relationships I had before with men had previously lasted only three weeks, as if they only served to remind me that I had no interest in dating guys. Still, it’s not about my fiancé’s gender, and for once I am able to agree that someone’s sex and someone’s gender have no bearing on how your heart feels about them.
Despite my happiness, I feel as though I have to brace myself for the same conversation at least once a week. People congratulate our engagement, but some of the people who likely think of homosexuality as a cry for attention will pepper in comments like, “you just needed to find the right man,” or “well I guess you aren’t gay anymore,” and “he’s such a good guy, it’s no wonder he turned you straight.”
Some people shrug their shoulders at me and say self-assuredly, “it was just a phase.”
These people have no idea what it’s like to love someone of the opposite sex so much that it feels as though you can’t breathe when you’re without them. I can’t understand why I would want to put myself through the trauma and tragedy of being gay in high school just for the opportunity to experiment. I wished every single day when I wasn’t borrowing someone else’s confidence that I had been born normal. I have never wanted to feel like an outcast for who I love.
Know that it’s awkward to explain to your parents that you’re interested in your own gender. Suddenly, every sleepover is met with caution as they wonder if it’s platonic or something more. I wasn’t allowed to have sleepovers with my best male friend for fear that he might get me pregnant, and I couldn’t have female friends over without an uneducated lecture on safe, lesbian sex. Why would I want this if it wasn’t to liberate me in some way?
Why would my young friend have dared kiss me in high school, more than once, even, knowing that her parents might flip their shit the way they eventually did? How would that have been worth the risk while she lived under their roof if it was just a phase? My sister’s friend moved out of her mom’s house at the young age of 15 just to be honest with herself about who she loved, and still, people think that love can somehow be temporary.
And if it really was just a phase, can we at least acknowledge the fact that nine years, the majority of which was spent living with secrets, is a really long phase? Not to mention that I was uninterested even in holding hands romantically with anyone for nearly five of those years, leaving the theory of experimentation almost impossible. I still am unable to comprehend how people could discount love as though it was an interim means to an end.
2022:
People now ask me, “so I guess since you married a man, you must be straight now?”
Nope.
I liked girls then and I like girls now, and I will try very hard to forgive myself for having a sexuality that doesn’t fit into our society’s rigid standards or labels. Just know this: it is not a phase. It was never a phase.
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