Almost Queer Love

About her...

I was in year 12 my final year of school. 17 years old turning 18 later in the school year. In my part of the world we go to what we call college for year 11 and 12. It’s a bigger separate school where we no longer have uniforms and are kind of treated like adults. Some people thrive in that environment, I just wanted to get messed up. Please keep in mind I had undiagnosed ADHD and had gender identity issues that would stay very buried inside for a long time. It was 2004 and I didn’t have the language or knowledge to completely express myself but I had learned one new word and before I had even kissed a girl I bravely told my friends I was bisexual.

My plans for college were:
Kiss/fuck as many boys as I could
Kiss/fuck as many girls as I could
Be a singer in a band
Be the coolest rock chick that everyone wants to be/bang
Get messed up on drugs and alcohol
Leave school to become a rockstar, fall back on art and go to art school when/if that fails.

Yeah I was a try hard loser. But I guess I was the most popular I had been. I had new friends and even took some of my little group of misfits from highschool with me to a group of “cool” boys who I had music class with. The boys were for the most part nice, a lot of them dated my friends and they were nice to me. No one really wanted to be in a band with me though. Music was my dream, but I didn’t know how to make it happen. I definitely didn’t have enough talent and I had so much anxiety and no “can do attitude” so I basically floundered.

I got high and drunk, at school, and skipped class a lot. Some of the boys were interested in me at first, but after a while I felt unwanted, unpopular. My self esteem was far too dependent on what boys thought of me. One of my friends was in love with me and I broke his heart. We were kind of together for a bit, then he caught me going down on his cousin when I was off my face at a party. I tried to fix things and see if we could be together, he seemed to want that too, but then he met someone else and broke my heart back.

(Side note they stayed together for many years and he actually tried to get me to leave my husband for him a few years ago, they broke up not long after that)

So college was a bust education wise. I won't go into too much detail about this. It’s ok, my life didn’t go down the toilet, meeting my husband changed a lot of things for me. But this isn’t about him, this is about her.

So it was early in the year, year 12. I was feeling shit about not getting anywhere with forming a band and to be honest I felt gate kept out of rock bands, by the boys. Many of whom were supposedly my friends. But then I saw it. I never checked the notice board, but for some reason I did that day. An ad for a singer and a drummer in an all girl rock band. WHAT?! It said to talk to our music teacher about it. She was so pleased when I approached her, but part of me was annoyed she didn’t just suggest me to the group of year 11s. We were introduced. There was Gabby the bass player: a cool grungy/punk chick with super long dark hair and a boyfriend who looked like her but taller with long blonde hair who played in a cool punk trio. There was Amy, a guitarist who was a bit rough in a country bogan kind of way, had an older bogan boyfriend, was a bit into nu metal and punk kind of along for the ride because her friend was there. Her friend was Frank. Frank was the other guitarist, she was something else entirely.

I’m not sure how soon I realised I liked Frank. I knew I liked girls, even came out to my friends before I met her, but I don’t think I realised straight away. Frank was so cool, but not in a popular kid kind of way, just in a genuinely herself kind of way. She was so cute, dark super straight blonde hair, big gaps in her teeth, shorter and skinnier than me but not by much. She was a country girl, she was cool and loved punk rock but she was also smart and wanted to become a nurse. She was raised by her gran and lived in a small country town a little out of the city and would travel into school every day. We clicked quickly and became friends super fast.