okay, not really, but that’s how things worked out.

when i was twelve i realized that i liked girls. it was a really rough period for me. i grew up in a suffocating christian atmosphere and i battled with god on this subject every night. i cried myself to sleep with shame and prayers. eventually i became very angry with god. he’d done nothing to calm my nerves or show any kind of compassion. in fact he hadn’t responded in any way at all. i stopped praying for the most part after that.

i told a few of my friends at school that i thought i was bi, though in my heart i knew i was gay. surprisingly they all accepted it without another thought. it soon got around at school that i was bi. some people didn’t like it and made fun of me, but most people just ignored it. a rumor started that my friend betsy and i were going out. we laughed about it quite a bit.

i continued to battle with my sexual identity until i was sixteen. i had tried to continue on with my christian upbringing until that time, when i couldn’t take it any longer. i just pushed it all behind me and never looked back. however, how i came out to my mom is not how i planned. a friend of mine, sam, had let me borrow a book of lesbian short stories. it had a blank cover over it, but it was ripped, and was falling off. and when i set my bag down in the living room it fell out and i didn’t notice. but my mom found it and all hell broke loose.

sam was there that night sleeping over. we had never gone out, thought about it before, but it was just too complicated. but we were, and still are, best friends. my mom came knocking on the door once she found the book and we opened the door and she just held the book out and asked, “who’s is this?” in the most grim and disturbing voice i’d ever heard from her. frozen in fear i replied, “it’s sam’s.” she looked at sam and told her never to bring something like that in her house again. sam agreed and when my mom left she asked, “what’d you say that for? now your mom hates me!” but what was i supposed to do, let my mom hate me?

later my mom returned and called us both out into the living room. she had gotten it into her head that we were going out. she sat us down in the living room and pretty much forced it out of me. i never really uttered the words, “i’m a lesbian.” but i did say quite strongly that i’d asked to borrow the book and i think she got the message. after interrogating us until two thirty in the morning she allowed us to go to sleep, but not in the same room. we were forced to sleep separately because she was convinced we were going to do “inappropriate” things to each other. at three in the morning i was falling asleep and i got this knock on my door. i was so frustrated with the whole night and i groggily opened the door. sam was there and she told me my mom was forcing her to go home. furious i got out of bed and as they were walking out the door i yelled, “what do you think you’re doing? this isn’t going to help anything!” she just looked at me and then continued out the door.

the next few weeks after that were, needless to say, fucking hell. she told my father, my sisters, and my brother already knew and could care less. i got phone calls from my two sisters. one was supportive but surprised, the other said she couldn’t support who i was, but loved me all the same. my father was strangely supportive as well. the one who had the biggest problem with it was my mom.

she had violent outbursts of anger and tears and made me feel like the worst person on the planet. i wanted to run away and never come back. i wanted to take it all back. our relationship stayed strained for the next year. then it became neutral. now i’ve just turned twenty and our relationship is still not the same. i don’t think it ever will be. she looks at me with sadness in her eyes sometimes. like i’m someone she never knew. and then sometimes it feels like i am a little girl again and everything is alright. i never tell her if i am dating anyone, i never tell her if i’ve had my heart crushed. i dread the day i tell her i am getting married. i dread the day i tell her i am going to have children.

our relationship is better than it was when i first came out, yes. but it’s not something that just happens over night. it’s been four years and we’re still not the same, we never will be. sometimes it just happens like that. it sucks, but it’s the truth. but remember, when you lose someone important, you will always gain another. i have a group of five friends right now that i could not live without. they are my family now.

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