Chapter Text
I remember the first time I had doubts that I felt the same way others do. I was maybe eight or nine years old. I was talking to my friends about a movie, and everyone in my friend group was talking about who they had a crush on in the film. I listened and smiled, I joined in with saying “yes he is good looking” and confirming what I thought I was supposed to say. I told them that I had a crush on one of the characters. Mostly because no one else in the friend group had “claimed” him, but I did not feel the excitement and the need to fantasize about him like my friends did with their “claims.”
In grade school, I had a crush on a boy. Well, all of the girls in my grade had a crush on him, but he was still smart and genuinely kind, unlike the other boys. I remember my heart racing when I looked at him and thinking ‘yes this is a real crush.’ Then I would look over to my best friend and feel the same way and think ‘I am just excited to see her.’, there was no way I could have a crush on a girl that does not happen.
Though I cannot remember the specifics of my first kiss, it was so long ago, and I chose to forget it until recently. I hadn’t seen my friend in over a month because she was out sick. When she walked into the room after all that time away, I ran up to her and kissed her, not realizing what I was doing until it was too late. I pulled away as soon as it happened, and I apologized profusely not wanting to get into trouble. Years Later I kissed a boy on his birthday. I thought for years that that was my actual first kiss and told everyone that that was my first. Because a first kiss has to be with a boy, right?
The year I turned eighteen, it was the year I thought I had my first kiss, it was the year I stopped going to church, and it was the year I started finding myself. I got a job and started looking for colleges, I went to a month-long art program and realized that that is what I wanted with my life. I remember driving to my boyfriend’s house, my best friend sitting shotgun. She was the first person I told I thought I was Bisexual. The words out of her mouth make me want to laugh and cry at the same time. “well, I’m not into girls” she said, and I dropped the subject, and never picked it back up.
I remember telling my sister on Christmas Eve 2016, and her telling me that she isn’t blind, and she loves me the same. I told my mother around my birthday a year later, she was shocked at first, but then after that died down, she said to me that she should have seen the writing on the wall. I told my dad this past Thanksgiving, he was shocked, we haven’t talked about it since. I do not know which one I feared telling the most.
I am the first person out in my family, though I know I am not the only queer person in it. It is not my place to say someone else’s story, but it is both nice and frustrating now knowing I am not the only one. I can confidently say I know myself better now than I ever have, and now that weight off of my chest is so freeing. I do not regret telling my family, though it was terrifying at the time. The only thing I regret is not figuring it out sooner, and not having the confidence to tell the last of my family until four years after I discovered myself.