Coming to Terms with Coming Out

I was in fourth grade, drinking a Capri Sun and waiting for my mother to make dinner. Flipping through the channels on our television, I saw a title that sparked my interest: A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila. I was nine years old, and definitely curious about love. The first thing I saw when I clicked on the channel was Tila Tequila kissing a boy. Uninterested, I laid on the brown leather couch in our living room and drifted away. When I woke up, dinner was ready.

A few days later, I was laying on the same brown leather couch. Tila was back on screen, but this time with a woman. Something in me changed, my interest was peaked. She kissed a woman with tacky pink lipstick and a poof in her hair, and my jaw dropped. Dinner was ready.

No one was home, and my mind was racing. So I did what any other curious kid would do, I googled girls kissing. I felt a fire ignite in me and all of a sudden I was scared. I have never felt this way about boys before, and I was sure that I wouldn’t. My brown leather couch was starting to see a whole different side of me.

I was in sixth grade, drinking a coke and watching a movie in the theatre with my friends. I was with my first boyfriend, and I was being pressured to kiss him by my best friend. I was nervous, but not for the same reasons every other girl was. I was afraid the fire wouldn’t ignite inside of me. And sure enough, when our faces were pushed together by our friend in efforts to make it happen, nothing was lit (figuratively, and I guess a bit literally). I went home and sat on my brown leather couch, and I felt a wave of sadness come over me. I knew what I wanted, but did not know if I could get it.

I was in tenth grade, and had just broken up with my boyfriend of one year. Somehow, some way, I started messaging a girl on Facebook. Long story short- she was out, and I was confused. She told me she was picking me up, and I sat on my brown leather couch feeling a range of emotions from nervous to over the moon. She drove up the driveway in her old Ford Taurus and had her friend in the passenger seat. We went for a ride, and at the end of the night her friend bet her $20 that she wouldn’t kiss me. We did, in the driveway of my mother’s house. That’s when I felt it, the fire I’ve been searching for in boys that couldn’t give it to me.

High school was gruesome in more ways than one. After that night, I pushed the very thought of her lips into the back of my brain. I never wanted to think about it again, and I didn’t. I dove into relationship after relationship, trying to fill the void with various different men.

I thought I was going to get over it. I thought that if I had enough relations with boys I wouldn’t ever think about girls and their soft skin and bright beautiful eyes and the way they made me feel differently than any boy had. But the thoughts never escaped me, and they were impossible to ignore when I went to college.

I was a freshman at university. I lived in a dorm with a bunch of other freshmen, but why did I feel so lost and alone? We met with the community assistants that lived in the dorm with us, and they all seemed very nice. One girl, though, stuck out to me like a sore thumb. I was infatuated and did not make the connection as to why until it hit me like a ton of bricks. Emily, if you one day come across this blog post, thank you. Thank you for walking past me on the grove during that warm afternoon, and thank you for holding your girlfriends hand so proudly as you smiled at me.

I went home for winter break after my first semester at college. I sat on that same brown leather couch, the one that has seen years and years of me ignoring my sexuality, and cried to myself. I had figured it all out- why I never felt right with anyone but that one girl, that one night and that one kiss. Memories came flooding back to me as I realized all of the signs were there, I just chose to ignore them.

I decided to download Tinder- that’s how girls met other girls, right? It took me seven long months to message someone back. A Tuesday night in August, I was feeling particularly brave. I scrolled through messages I had received since I switched my settings to women and found a girl that peaked my interest. I messaged her back, and the rest was history. I sat on the brown leather couch and texted her the rest of the night, and made plans to meet her later that week.

This girl changed my whole life. She helped me know, understand and accept who I was. She showed me Fifth Harmony as we sat on her porch and discussed conspiracy theories about how Camila and Lauren were madly in love. I told her I was confused and I wouldn’t know how to handle coming out to anyone. All of that changed when she put her lips against mine and when I finally felt that fire ignite in me for the first time in three years.

For the last time, I took to my brown leather couch. I had been holding my breath ever since I was nine. I had been angry, scared and misplaced ever since I was nine. But, at age eighteen, nearly ten years later, I stopped holding my breath.

Coming out is full of heartbreak. It’s full of long nights thinking about whether or not you will ever be okay, and convincing yourself it’s just not the right time to tell anyone. I’ll be the first to tell you, you will never find a perfect time and place. Sometimes, you get outed by people you trusted. Sometimes, you get told you mean nothing because of your sexuality. You’ll sit on your version of my brown leather couch and wonder if you will ever be 100% authentically you. I will also be the first to tell you that you will, one day.

I wrote this as my first blog post because I know there is someone that needs to hear this. It is time to stop holding your breath.

Love always,
A