Does anybody read these?

Katy Perry kissed a girl...and no one cared

This is probably the most real that you will ever see me be.

And I am scared to death, but I firmly believe that the ability to tell your story makes you a better writer. And sometimes you have to bare your soul to do that.

A few months ago, a friend mentioned that her life was going too well and it was making it difficult to write. I chuckled, but she’s probably on to something. Hemingway was a raging alcoholic (sadly, many writers are), F. Scott Fitzgerald probably gaslighted his beloved Zelda, and Sylvia Plath stuck her head in an oven. Tortured souls are not few in writing. And, while I would never have the balls to compare my writing or life experiences to theirs, I guess maybe angst and writing go hand-in-hand. Or, maybe it’s something in our personalities that make us writers in the first place. I’ve said many times that I have no idea what I would do if I couldn’t write anymore.

But this story isn’t about writing. This story is about a recent stop on my life’s journey. I almost said “detour,” but I think detour implies that it was a path you didn’t want to take. While it wasn’t a path I ever thought I would choose, I am glad that I took it. And even though part of me feels colossally stupid right now, I know that I will look back later on and realize that this was all part of the route my life was supposed to take.

I debated whether or not I should tell you all. After all, my heart was completely and totally ripped out of my chest this past weekend, so it doesn’t even matter anymore.

Except maybe it does. I could say that I am doing it to help just one other person who is struggling with the same situation, and that would be all nice and make us all feel good. But really, I think that no one should have to be ashamed of the person they love, and I am pretty sure that if I ever find out why I got dumped, that will be the reason.

I will never forget the first time I saw her. She had the most beautiful, big brown eyes, and the most perfect smile you will ever see, even with the gap between her two front teeth. She was with her grandson, although I found it very hard to believe that she was old enough to be a grandmother. While I was instantly struck by her beauty, I was also smitten with her intelligence, her kindness, and her sense of humor. She also has the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever met, and maybe that’s a good thing and a bad thing. She was someone I wanted to be friends with, but I instantly felt like we connected on a deeper level.

I will spare you all the details, but I will tell you this was very new territory and I never felt scared with her. In fact, I’ve never felt safer than when I was with her. Have you ever kissed someone and not known where your body ended and the other person’s began? That’s how it was. We were both wild about each other, and we had to keep pinching ourselves to make sure we weren’t dreaming. We did a lot of romantic stuff, but we did a lot of stuff that friends would do like going shopping for shoes in the middle of the night on Black Friday.

It was complicated. She had a husband, and I understood that he came first. I liked him, and he liked me. We both wanted her to be happy. I had no illusions that we would live happily ever after, although I did ask her one night if something happened to him would she want to get married, and she didn’t even have to think about it.

So, maybe I was foolish to think it could go anywhere. All I know is that being in this situation turned my life upside down. Was I OK with this, and what would I do if people found out? I decided, also perhaps quite naively, that I didn’t care. The only thing that was important to me was having her in my life.

I don’t know what went wrong. She got a new job, and she was working insane hours. She was stressed out, and she told me that she pushes people away when she gets stressed. But at some point, I realized that she was shutting me out for whatever reason. And now, things aren’t good anymore. In fact, they’re about as awful as they could be. We had a horrible fight on a few weeks ago, and I’m pretty sure that she’ll never talk to me again. So, if I wasn’t sure what I’d done to make her stop loving me before, I guess I know now. Maybe it’s better, because now I have a reason for her to hate me.

While it’s over and only about four people in the whole world even knew about it (although there may have been more because my roommate says we were incapable of looking like straight people when we hugged), I feel like I need to share this part of my journey. Am I gay now? No, I still like men. Very much so. I don’t even know that I would call myself bi, because don’t think that I would ever seek out another woman to date. What I realized was that no matter whether you call yourself gay, straight, bi, whatever – you don’t choose the person you love. If you do, you’re doing it wrong, and you’re probably missing out.

I don’t even know at this point if my friendship with this amazing woman can be salvaged. I hope that it can, but I apologized for being an asshole and left that ball firmly in her court. Ironically, now that she’s told me that she just wants to be friends and stopped sending me mixed signals (which has been our dance for the last month or so), I would be OK with just being friends. In fact, I told a friend last week that I think I just do better when I only have platonic relationships anyhow. However, I was not nice, and I won’t be surprised if I never hear from her again.

Would I go back and take a different path if I had the chance? Not anything except when she started to shut me out, I would have had more of a conversation about it (because I didn’t realize she was friendzoning me; I thought she was just pushing me away to deal with stress), and I never, ever would have fought with her last weekend. I wouldn’t have never met her, or never gone out with her, or never fallen in love with her. I treasure every minute that we’ve had, even if we never see each other again.

Maybe someone will read this and have the courage to look for love in unexpected places. Maybe someone will read this and have the courage to come out. Maybe someone will read this and have the courage to deal with their own issues about their sexuality instead of hurting his or her partner. Maybe someone will just have the courage to talk to his or her partner instead of running away. After all, who would better know what you're going through?

And, maybe just maybe, someone will read this and realize that no one really chooses who they fall in love with and that it’s not our place to speculate or judge about what happens behind closed doors.

Whatever your journey, I hope it’s the ride of your life.

Song of the day: “Same Love” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.

(Sidebar: The title of this post comes from the fact that Katy Perry kissed Miley Cyrus this past weekend. On the lips. In front of tens of thousands of people in the Staples Center. And no one seemed to care. The times they are a' changin', folks.)

Labels: coming out, dating, Katy Perry, love, relationships

posted by Laura at 6:54 PM | 0 comment(s)

Worth repeating

Even though I am a writer, I have never been much for poetry. I'm more of a prose person, and I tend to prefer nonfiction over fiction.

However, about seven years ago, I wrote this poem. A guy I liked totally shot me down, partly because we were too different. Here I sit now, in a different time and in a different situation, and this time no one will tell me what I did wrong, just "I wasn't feeling it anymore. I don't know what to tell you."

I have always been the type of person who wants to be friends with someone first. So my attempts at dating always end up going horribly wrong because most people aren't wired like me. And then I take it poorly because I have lost a friend that I would do anything for.

This time it wasn't just me falling for a friend, I was pretty sure the friend fell for me too. I guess not enough to stop "feeling it" at some point. Regardless, right now I feel hurt, stupid and embarrassed because I totally got mixed signals and made a complete and total ass of myself. Plus, I am losing someone who had been my rock and was there for me more times than you can even imagine. I would probably still be sitting in Orlando crying about the Disney thing if she hadn't called to check on me.

That was a lot of lead in to revisit this poem. After eight years and a lot of different experiences, we could probably change the lines a little bit here and there. But I didn't. The main message is still the same. I'll keep praying that some day I'll find someone who thinks I'm worth keeping around.

Maybe someday ...

I'll be thin enough.
I'll be pretty enough.
I'll be funny enough.
I'll be smart enough.
I won't be too young.
I won't be too old.
I won't be too liberal.
Or maybe I'll be liberal enough.

Maybe I won't be too loud.
Maybe I won't talk too much.
Maybe I'll speak up when I need to say something.
Maybe I won't be flaky.
Maybe I'll take myself less seriously.
Maybe I won't drink too much.
Maybe I'll cuss less.
Maybe I'll go to church more.
Maybe I'll be in the right place at the right time.

Maybe I'll just take life by the balls.
Maybe someone else will, just in case I can't.

Maybe, just once, I'll be worth it.

posted by Laura at 8:32 PM | 0 comment(s)