Sometimes the path to love is not straight and narrow. Since writing this the love I hoped for has ended. Despite that, in sharing this I share more of myself and my journey as I always have, through my writing.
Love is forever defined and redefined. We haven’t grasped the full idea of it only glimpses and yet it is one of the most important motivating things in our lives. We develop personal views of what love should be like romanticizing it. Then, we get older and realize it’s so much more. As a result I believe we can have multiple great loves at different stages in our lives. I’m with one of my greatest loves right now. That grown “I’m pretty sure I know what I’m doing by now” kind of love. Where they are the key to everything and unlocking so much more. Where I know I want to sacrifice all my time for them but being older, wisdom tells me better. Wisdom tells me to move slow and deliberate and to treat her with care. Show her I love her every day in little ways. This kind of love didn’t come easy though. I fought for it because at first I couldn’t admit who I was to even me. I wouldn’t figure that out until I met Shavonne in high school. I called her Midnight, exchanged longing glances, and wrote love poems the way I imagine Shakespeare did while courting his interests. Meeting her was pivotal in changing my life and who I would love today.
This love journey started in first grade for me, in Virginia Beach. I learned that two plus two was four, that reading was an amazing pastime, and that I was gay. I didn’t fully understand what that meant at the time but I knew what I felt. Boys didn’t exist for me outside the context of friend. Girls were these amazing little fairy creatures that I was too afraid to really interact with. The discovery of these feelings was scary. It was bad enough that I was from the Virgin Islands, spoke with an accent, and had to live in a culture I was unfamiliar with but to be gay on top of that was too much. The United States was strange enough and I was already teased for being different and what I felt for Susie Black didn’t make me feel normal. She was a girl in my neighborhood that caught my eye while her brother, the local older bad boy, was the one every other girl was enthralled with. To me Susie was appealing but I forced my attention to her brother in order to be “normal”. Despite this, over time, I found it difficult to follow the heterosexual narrative my life was saturated in.
So my life continued with me being attracted to one girl after another. There was Jasmine in middle school. She was mixed with large dark and lovely curls I wanted to run my fingers through but I never did, avoiding stalker-ish tendencies. I was slightly disappointed when she straightened her hair. In high school there was Laticia. She was this Queen Latifah-esque girl but the nerd version. Full figured, beautiful smooth skin, and totally enthralled with discussion of Gundam. With each of these encounters I understood more and more of myself. For example, I knew I was a romantic because I never saw the world as what it was. Everything was idealized or glamorized in my eyes. Even the girls I had a crush on. It also became evident that it would be difficult to pursue my Romeo heart even if I wanted because I had no confidence in who I was. I was already an outcast in my mind because of the differences I started with then adding to that I had grown up in a Christian household. Years of being told I’d go to hell for the feelings I felt naturally was enough to turn the last of my courage into several pounds of quivering jelly. So I continued to spend years denying my truth and eventually volunteered to wash away my “sin” via baptism.
It’s evident today tht that didn’t go to plan but at the time I felt lighter. I believed my baptism had saved me from an eternal hell and that I would find love with a boy. This lasted only so long. Eventually new situations arose and required a change of scenery so I moved to Orlando and repeated my freshman year. Upon arriving I, a tenured bookworm, tried my hand at athletics and met Shavonne Johnson. Shavonne was on the volleyball team with me. I practiced with her, played with her, and quickly we became friends. It felt like a great friendship. We spent a lot of time together outside of school doing what friends do like watch movies or have sleepovers with other friends. It would take a whole summer away in Jacksonville, FL, during which we talked often on the phone, before I admitted honestly to myself that it was more than platonic for me. As this revelation developed it wasn’t easy. I cried in anguish, hated my life, and even cursed God, all because I dared to love a girl. I hated myself for having these feelings. I’d believed so strongly in my baptism, so sure I had put this behind me. But the answer wasn’t simply four as elementary had taught me, this was more complicated. I couldn’t just wash away who I was.
In the end I returned to school in Orlando my sophomore year excited but, I wasn’t ready to conquer my fears. My revelation didn’t suddenly give me the might of Sampson. Instead, I became meeker and a gap developed between Shavonne and I. Eventually she would confront me by secret courier note as high schoolers do when expressing deep emotion. The folded piece of paper told me of her deepest hurt that we weren’t as close anymore. In reality I’d forced myself to drift away from her because it would reveal too much of my truth if we remained intimate. More truth than even I was ready for. Her note however pulled at my heartstrings. I asked myself if I could find the courage to really tell her. In the end I determined it would be better to speak than to just let our friendship end so I coordinated a time we could talk. When the time came I was still undecided about actually exchanging words. I had to take a portion of the jelly that was my courage and make it solid enough to form a backbone. With that I called her and over the phone and I confessed everything. Told her the reason why I was hesitant to be so close. To my surprise, and to the joy of my romantic heart, she wasn’t disgusted but intrigued. All my fantasies of being chased down the street like a monster were put rest as exaggerations. She spent the entire night up with me excitedly talking about societies views and family acceptance and what this meant for us. We never slept. A high school crush was the best natural high, better than cocaine. We met the next day in school, both smiling from ear to ear. I had done it, I’d told her, and in doing so I started to accept a large part of myself for the first time. Even though we only lasted about two months and she’d eventually lose her virginity to my brother, a story for another time, she helped me open up my true path. She was the first time I admitted to myself who I wanted to love. As a result I continued exploring the lesbian I’d always been so that I could become the woman I am today. That has lead me to the person I love now. By this time I’d been through so many situations, trying to find the right answer for me, that I knew how to handle most things. More importantly I knew that women were the right fit for me and that feeling was magic. With any luck the woman I’m dating now is my last great love and I will be able to fall in love with her over and over again for the rest of my life. Time will tell but I’ve found a little bit more of my own happiness in knowing I’m a lesbian.
