My liberation had limits

20 years ago, I graduated from high school. An all-girls, private, Catholic high school. I'm protective over that person. I'm angry that she struggled so much. I'm angry she hid herself in ways that made her feel safe. Wearing bulky sweaters and layered clothing during the classically sunny southern California days. I'm angry that I believed I had to hide. I'm angry that I hid. 

I thought high school would be the most isolating social arena for me. And it was, at times. But isolation continued at home. I wasn't embraced. I wasn't celebrated. I was bullied. I was mocked. I was made to feel like the me I used to be would never be good enough. The indoctrination at home and in school ran so deep that over time, I too believed I wasn't good enough.

I couldn't control the dynamics of a Catholic, parochial school and the ways I was made to feel like an abomination in our religious studies classes. I couldn't control the ostracization by popular, pretty, wealthy classmates. I thought maybe because I didn't look like them or because I didn't drive a fancy, new car, or because I was introverted, that maybe those were the reasons for excluding me from the very social fabric of high school. I can't speak to their reasons. But I can speak to my pain. To look at myself in bathroom mirrors and ask, "What is so wrong with me?' 

                                 

                                  

I couldn't control never being asked to a high school dance from our interconnected all-boys, parochial school. I thought maybe because I wore my skirt just above my knees instead of showing more thigh skin or maybe because I always wore sweaters or sweatshirts so boys couldn't make sense of my female figure. Then I thought, well maybe because I'm not blond so I added blond highlights to my light brown hair. But that didn't work. I never fell within their sight lines, even if I was directly in front of them. I can't speak to their reasons. But I can speak to my pain. To look at myself in my bedroom mirror and say, "What do you have to offer to the opposite sex?"

I couldn't control the dynamics at home and the ways my parents felt like I brought unnecessary attention to our family. I thought maybe my mom made sense. Our family did have a lot of struggles already, who was I to add onto the pile? 

So, I withdrew into myself. I isolated more. I developed disordered eating. I pretended to be other people in online chat rooms. I had to escape the life I was living. Being comfortable in my own skin felt as foreign as a statistics class. The me I wanted to be only existed in my dreams.

 

Before I move on, I do want to address that I did have a group of friends in high school. We lovingly called ourselves, "The Leftovers." Each of us represented a sample of one of the bigger on campus groups, the drama kids, the band kids, the athletes, the AP kids, and me, the closeted gay kid. I wasn't ready to tell my straight group of friends about the thoughts I'd had about women or how much I hated our uniform. I hated that our tops were white and had to be tucked in, adding unwanted attention to the shape of my body, not to mention, my ridiculously overgrown chest.

I had two other friends in high school too. They weren't part of The Leftovers, but they were a part of the gay community, albeit not exactly 'out.' But then one night during my junior year, one of those friends told me she was bi-sexual. I couldn't contain my excitement. I couldn't even celebrate how big of a revelation this must have been for her because I couldn't wait to tell her that I, too, was bi-sexual. I wasn't. But it felt safer than telling my best female friend that I strictly liked women as we laid on her living room floor together. There was liberation that came from saying something close to the truth, like releasing the steam valve of an instant pot. I could breathe easier. I had someone to gossip with about all the things I didn't feel comfortable sharing with my non gay friends like how hot Kelly Clarkson is or to ask am I the only one that strangely looks forward to seeing a certain teacher in chemistry class? To be certain, I wasn't, which resulted in a friendly competition between my friend and I around which one of us could get said teacher to change teams for us. LOL.

I kept my gay secret as best as I could through high school graduation. I couldn't risk getting expelled for violating the moral ethics code and I couldn't risk being further isolated in the social world. So, my friend and I were straight at school then bi outside of school and then straight again at home. 

                                     

                                    

There was no way I could drop a bomb like this on my family. I kept my sexual preference between my friend and I, until she officially came out after high school, and I felt compelled to find my own way too.

My mom outed me to the family after following my work friends and I to a gay club one night. I had all my bases covered or so I thought, but I hadn't really considered the lengths my mom would go to uncover a truth.  

Shunned by my family and asked to leave their house if I planned to continue 'this way,' I lived with a gay coworker for a few weeks. I was welcomed back home after my parents decided I could still live with them if I played by their rules.

• No rainbow anything in the house
• You can be gay but we don't want you flaunting it
• No women allowed in the house (I still find this funny. It's not like I would've gotten pregnant

                                   

I accepted their demands and moved back home. I missed the comforts of having my own bed. I slowly came out to friends, though each revelation felt like a punch to the gut. I had such a fear or rejection and humiliation, or a friend being disgusted by me. But they weren't. The Leftovers all claimed they already knew and loved me just as I was. My new friends at work, the ones that were straight, also said they knew. I was like damn, ya'all could have told me and saved me the anxiety. 

I started college later that year and did things like join the gay/straight alliance and minored in women's studies. A year later, at 19, I entered my first real relationship with a woman. My first girlfriend appeared more butch, even with her long ponytail. She didn't wear makeup and could build things like the Christmas holiday display at work and change things like her car's oil. She was taller than me and stockier, in an I felt protected and safe with her, kind of way.  Having been a virgin up until that point, a new set of fears crept up. What is sex with a woman like? Who's the giver and who's the receiver? Am I a top or a bottom? I couldn't know back then how much of the binary I lived within. It never crossed my mind that there could be overlap in such roles. 

    

I knew right away I wasn't a bottom. (Sorry to my ex for kicking you in the face). Sex with a woman was nothing like I imagined it to be. Something still didn't feel right. I never thought about having sex with a man but I had thought about having sex with a woman. Looking back, I thought about having sex with a woman as someone other than the old me or even the newer me. My ex, having over a decade more experience in the gay dating world, thought maybe I was meant to be "more butch," in and outside of the bedroom. Enter, short haircut, only men's clothing me:

I felt more myself than I had just being a gay girl with long hair wearing girl's dickies pants because they were still rugged, work pants. And that newer me worked for a while.

Until it didn't.

3 years later, I'd move from the west coast to the east coast for law school, where I'd meet someone who helped me become the most me I'd ever been.

TBC . . .