Still Growing by Brenda

Even when I was a little kid, there was something terribly alluring and exciting about other girls. I remember being eight years old, and having races on the playground. We’d run and run and run, our little legs flying. As our long hair whipped out behind us, I thought, “This is amazing.” I imagined we were wild horses, galloping free with our manes flowing in the wind. It was a good feeling, but the races always ended, and we always had to go back inside.

School was a funny place for me. I always had a lot of friends growing up, but at the same time I felt separate from them, different. One thing was that I never developed a worshipful feeling towards the boys at my school. They would jump all over the place and be jerks and gross. Most girls would practically swoon over them, but not me. I thought they were stupid and pompous and I challenged them at every turn. I really had no motivation to impress the boys or follow their rules, and I let them know that every day. Thinking back about it now, at age 27, I probably on some level understood that those rules were part of a game for heterosexuals to play, and I wasn’t part of it. I had nothing to lose by challenging the boys and talking back to them, so I did it.

I first put a name on my difference when I was twelve. It was at the library. Every Saturday, my mother drove my brother and me to the larger (and better) public library thirty miles away. She set us free to discover whatever we wanted to discover. She had no rules about what books we could read or check out, only that we not lose them. (What a cool mom!) On that fateful day when I was twelve, I decided to read a book about “growing up” for girls. In the middle of the book were two pages about sexual orientation: “Some girls are attracted to other girls. They are called lesbians. Some girls are attracted to boys and girls. They are called bisexuals.” Ohhhhhhhhhh! Something big clicked in me. I latched onto the word “bisexual.” “That is me,” I thought. I remember looking out the windows of the backseat on the drive home, happily thinking of myself as a bisexual.

But things were not really happy for me after that. Even though I suddenly had a much better understanding of myself, I automatically understood that “now” was not a good time to explore it. I grew up in a very small, rural town, where homogeneity was valued above all else. Differences were not well-tolerated, and I had seen several examples of people who were driven out of town because they had strayed too far from the norm. Being from a farm, family and friends and having that community meant everything to me. At the age of 12, I made a conscious decision to wait and “let it go for now.” Also, this was the early 1990s, before Ellen and Rosie and Al Gore’s internet opened up a whole new world for us. I become something like a dormant seed- hidden potential, waiting for the right conditions before I sprouted.

I went away to college in 1999, when I was 18 years old. College turned out to be a much different place than the farm life I was used to! I met all kinds of interesting people with interesting experiences and philosophies. I also met S, the most fascinating person I had ever known. She smoked cigarettes and drank beer and had a leather jacket… I practically swooned every time she talked to me. My eyes followed her in the crowd, and I always wanted to be by her if I saw her at a party. When she hugged me or held my hand, I felt like I was on fire. Even with all that, I still was too scared to come out of the closet to anyone.

That changed when S got a girlfriend. I was absolutely crushed, devastated. What about me? What about us? It was so dramatic. When I saw them dancing together at the GLBTA dance, I left all in a rush. I ran back to my dorm room and collapsed into a pile on my bed in the dark. As I stared at the wall, a voice came into my head, “You have to come out. It will be like this every time unless you come out.” I knew that I would never have a chance to love someone until I came out.

So after that night, bit by bit I started to come out. That was eight years ago, and I am still on my journey. With each passing year and each relationship, I have become more confident and comfortable. One thing that has been very important to me has been to maintain my health- physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Another thing has been to really own my body and my sexuality- to make my own decisions about sex, my body, and relationships, and to not let anyone else make those decisions for me.

If I could say anything to those kids who are in high school or college and just coming out, it would be that everything will be ok. You’ll figure your stuff out and then get on with your life. Ultimately, your sexual orientation will not define who you are. Your health and your fire, your passion and the good things you do will speak for you and give your life meaning. The people around you will benefit from your wisdom and your struggle. In the end, life is good and very worth living.

Check out Brenda's blog threeholepunchme.blogspot.com