Coming into

It is really hard to grow up in a religious family and know that you’re gay.

By now you know I moved from Georgia to North Carolina. And the transition was hard, me trying to be something I am not so desperately that I begin to believe these things about myself. Do you know how painful that place can be? Sitting alone, knowing these things are not true, willing them to be true, but knowing all the while that you can’t make them go away and how awful that actually is. Wanting to be normal. Wanting to believe that this lifestyle is just a simple choice, just say no and you can go back to normal. That, unfortunately, is not how this whole gig works, and what a fucking shame. A simple choice would be so much easier than losing all of you childhood friends, feeling completely shamed by your family, uprooting your life and moving two states away, and living some lie because everyone is happier this way.

I think I always knew on some level I was different. I got in trouble for making my Barbies kiss, and more than kiss. I never liked boys, I wanted to be better than them in things, and I wanted them to be my best friends. I remember being so nervous in middle school when my best friends would have these massive sleepover parties and we knew our guy friends were going to come try to scare us out at this cabin. And all the girls would start putting on these cute pajamas and lip smackers and blue eyeshadow and I was looking at the guns on the wall wondering if I could scare the boys before they scared me.

I really knew in high school when I was going to my first school dance and was completely mortified by slow dancing that close to a guy. It is seriously such a hard place to be, high school, knowing everything your lifelong friends think is not how you feel. Feeling trapped in this tiny town that you may never escape because you don’t have the money to even go to school outside of that tiny, small town. Seeing the LGBT people around you being bullied and laughed at and arrested for using a different bathroom, I mean it’s wild. I very distinctly remember being in 9th grade and pulling up to school and seeing a cop car with its lights on. I walk in and it is chaos inside. Apparently, this boy Josh that we went to school with, who liked to wear pink and lipstick and bows in his hair, had decided to use the women’s restroom and someone called the cops on him. And he was arrested. I knew right then in that moment that I would never be safe in this town.

I would never be able to walk around school holding hands with a girl. I would never be able to have sleepovers with my girlfriends because they would think I was just trying to look at them. My parents would definitely not allow me to have friends over because they would be afraid that I was trying to pull something. All I was hoping for was an opportunity to gab with my best gals and ask them questions about these girls I thought were cute, did they think they were cute too? But I never got to do that. I regret that. That makes me very sad to know I missed out on that part of the stereotypical high school. Even worse, I think if I had done all of that then, I wouldn’t be so scared to talk about it right now. I would feel okay doing that right now.

But it looks like this is just going to be another one of those years where I don’t really get to explore who I am. Because I am currently trying to test the waters, to see what these people, my friends in Raleigh, say and do when it comes to this whole gay marriage and equality thing that is sweeping the nation right now. And to be completely honest with you, I can pretty much spell out for you how this thing is going to go.  I can lay out for you right now who will desert me when I do finally accept this secret about myself and who will celebrate me. The ratio is pretty gross, like a solid 15:1. That isn’t like a reduced ratio for some number like 45 friends, no I have about 15 close friends. So as of right now, I am feeling pretty dependent on that one.