I don't know if it happened before her. I think back, lightly scratching at the veneer of what I projected to the world during the years of school and childhood and it all seems very innocent until she came along. I looked at them, but I looked at everyone. I study people, I watch people; that has always been a part of my life.
She was different. It seems trite, but yet, she was. The women in my life were mothers, sisters, friends. They were stuck in their roles and most of their life was spent in frumpy, but practical, attire.
Then I met her, who looked like she stepped out of the pages of a magazine complete with high heels, her blonde hair pulled into a tight ponytail, her smile demure and ever-present, dressed in all black, her clothing tight, her skirt just above the knee and that knee was covered in sheer black pantyhose. And that was the knee that changed me.
Now, you see them all the time; they are modern and put together and well-dressed. Back then, I had never met or spied a woman who looked or acted like her.
She was gracious and effusive, her laughter ringing through the space between us, she was brimming over with sexuality, her hand gently squeezing my forearm, her knee (that knee) brushing against my leg. She made me uncomfortable but I couldn't stand to ignore her.
And so began a lifetime of concern and wondering.
Her presence in my life was my first indication that I was attracted to women. She didn't make me the way I am, but she certainly lifted whatever veil I'd been hiding under from exposure to religious thinking and a deep-seated fear of the word "gay."
She was also the harbinger for many other things I'd never considered about myself, that I wanted to be a sophisticated, charming and fashionable woman, which was preposterous at the time, I was a dowdy copycat of my mother who wore no makeup and did not ever laugh just to laugh.
For a long time, I let myself believe that it was wrong to feel how I felt about her and many other women who I found myself attracted to over the years. I overcompensated for this by becoming ultra boy-crazy, sometimes while talking about whatever dolt I'd decided was my current crush, I would be watching the long legs of an attractive woman slink past my view and momentarily halted out of speech.
I was a secret queer.
I watched shows about gay people, I had gay friends, I danced in gay night clubs, I attended the gay pride parade (I even walked in it one year), I shadowed the life I couldn't live and hid in a presumed heterosexuality.
Men were safe. They liked me and I could hide in their arms. So I let myself be with men, lots and lots of them. I convinced myself that each one was the one I wanted, the one who could make it all better, the one who would rid me of this attraction and keep me from being alone like my mother. I didn't want to be alone, so I was never alone, jumping from man to man, crush to crush, leaping, hurling, fighting, wanting, hating myself, and all of it was useless, I thought I was hiding, but I was hurting everyone, especially myself.
When things with the burnham and I ended suddenly, still I tried to always be in a man's arms, but not finding what I needed or wanted, I was always unsatisfied, because I wasn't thinking about the person those arms belonged to, just that they were holding me.
And then I let go.
I chose to be alone. To see what would happen. To find out who I am. Who I really am. And every day I peel off a little more of that pretense, that projection that I felt the world should know me for, that perfect little nice girl that everyone saw me/sees me as.
I am attracted to men, but once I accepted that I was also attracted to women and didn't need to be with a man out of a fear of being alone or to hide being attracted to women, that drive to be with someone, anyone; all the chatter, all the effort of leaping from guy to guy just stopped. And in the quiet, I've realized I had been allowing myself to be taken by any man that would take me, rather than choose someone who inspires me, delights me and enjoys me and someone I inspire, delight in and enjoy.
And now, there is nearly a lifetime of cobwebs to sort out, of friends to be honest with, of people who I've lied to by omission, or lied to from fear, or lied to because I didn't know how to say it. It's taken me a long time to learn how to be comfortable with myself, for myself, not for anyone, not to please anyone, just for me. And now, when people ask me I will not hesitate to say, I'm queer. I don't want to hide it anymore.
