Lesbians Lament

It's a long road

Oh my god. Where to begin? Okay, first I'm simply put a teenage girl. I'm in high school I'm floating in the top 20 of my class. I'm getting ready for junior year. I'm in band. but none of these facts about me are what we're here to discuss today are they? no. they're not. we're here to talk about my sexuality. I'm a lesbian (yes as though the title didn't tell you I'm a big fat homo). But the point is, saying those words is a big step I've taken in the journey of my life. It's a big step in going from where I began to wherever I'm going.
Lets travel back to the beginning. When I was young I remember something or someone somewhere had told me it was wrong to like people of the same sex as yourself. I didn't get why this was wrong but someone told me it was so I believed it. I was young and naive and to be honest Glee was what taught me otherwise. I watched this show and quickly realized it was okay. I began at a young age to read fanfiction and began to believe that because girl on girl didn't disgust me something had to be wrong. i didn't have a problem with gay people. they were normal they were born that way. but I sure as hell didn't want to be one. I panicked. And then I pushed it down. If you cover the thing you think is wrong with you with things that are very not wrong then you begin to believe them yourself.
I told myself for years I was straight.
I told my best friend one day sitting on her bed almost in tears that the night before I had been up for hours terrified that I wasn't 100% straight. She said okay, (or something on those lines). she told me it was okay to be whatever I was. she told me that it was okay to be me. even if that meant I wasn't completely straight. of course I didn't listen to this immediately and I wish I could go back and slap my young self.
As I grew up I became too busy to worry about things like being gay. I dated boys and told myself I loved them. my first kiss was a boy but something was always missing. It didn't feel like anything more than the connection of skin with skin of other platonic parts of myself and boys. It felt like holding their hand or touching their arm. but it was supposed to be so much more than that so I closed my eyes and went through the motions. these relationships never worked. never ever ever. not with any of the boys I tried to date.
I went to a new school and with it I got new friends. they opened my eyes to a whole new rainbow of sex and sexuality and here I was figuring out my vagina and what it wanted. I subscribed then to bisexuality. told myself I can like girls too as long as there's still that 5% that likes boys. I'm still kinda straight. I can accept that.
with a new school came new boys. And one boy in particular caught my eye. actually I caught his. I wasn't in the market for a relationship. at least not a hetero one. but here was this amazing guy who I adored as friends and he wanted to be something more. I told myself that my anxiety came entirely from the fact that my relationships usually don't work, not that he had a penis. and then he mentioned sex. he said it wasn't required for our relationship and there was a small voice that said, "good because he doesn't have what we want." And all of a sudden it was all I could think about. being gay or being bi that was the only thing I could contemplate. and one day my best friend looked at me and said, "oh you are so gay." and she was right. and I knew it. I looked at her and said, "I'm so gay." and just like that it felt so much better. to say it out loud and to mean it with the windows rolled down at 10:00 pm as we drove to our other best friends house. and that was the moment I knew I couldn't do this to me or to the guy I was dating. don't get me wrong. he's great and I love him, but he does not have a vagina. and there's nothing either of us can do about that. I had to tell him. even though I hated the idea of it, purely because I knew it would hurt him, but staying with him was hurting me and I couldn't do it any longer. So I told him. i told him I was gay and we broke up but we stayed friends.
I wish I could say the self doubt ended there.
I wish this was the point when I tell you that I love myself and my gayness and no one can convince me it's not okay.
When I say that my being unable to love him the way he loved me hurt him I mean it hurt him. he was devastated and he told me time after time it wasn't my fault there was nothing I could do. but actions scream while words whisper and he kept acting like it was my fault that this happened to him. I know it wasn't. I do. but it's so hard to believe that when he doesn't. and honestly, he made me feel wrong. he made me feel like I got the answers wrong on a test where the answers were written in the margins. and that is not okay. because no one gets the answers wrong on the test on themselves. we are who we are and those are not wrong answers. my friends told me that I couldn't let him make me feel this way but I can't abandon him. I'm just so tired of being hidden. of trying to fix someone when I've just fixed myself.
In this long journey I've found who I am fundamentally. I don't want to change that. I will not hit unsubscribe to the channel that is Lesbianism. I am who I and and I like who I like. what I like just happens to be what I have in my pants. but hey, that's okay. because I didn't get the answers wrong.
I'm still going forward on this road. I'm still growing still changing and I know that being gay is not all that I am. but, it is a big part. a part I wouldn't change for anyone.