It’s
funny how we humans can lose feelings over time. We can have this overwhelming
emotion, but within months, days, hours, sometimes even minutes, we
forget what that experience felt like.
I
recently experienced a moment where I remembered an emotion I haven’t felt in a
long time. The feeling I had when I first started coming out. Isn’t it
interesting that we can forget something so monumental like that? It’s been
almost a year, and I’ve become so used to who I am that it is no longer
something that I have to think about. I don’t think, therefore I am. I
simply am.
Maybe
that’s how it should be. It’s probably supposed to feel this natural. Who I am
shouldn’t be a big deal. I shouldn’t feel something extra just because I’m not
what the world would consider “normal.” It should feel normal to me, and it
does. Maybe that’s how it should be, but sometimes I wish it wasn’t this way.
Sometimes I wish it felt like something more.
Anyone
who hasn’t come out (or who doesn’t have anything to come out about) can’t
possibly know what it feels like. It’s indescribable. Imagine a world where a
part of you must be locked up. Hidden. Caged in like an animal. Imagine that you
are the one imprisoning yourself. That the cage – or “closet,” as we call it –
is your own mind. Then imagine that feeling when you finally decide that you
don’t want to live – if you can call it a life – in that cage anymore, and you
finally reach out to someone. You can’t imagine it. You have to feel it.
I
first started coming out on November
15, 2012 . At that point, my sexual orientation was a part of me
that I was so completely desperate to hide. I was scared, ashamed. I saw myself
as a walking sin. I had spent years of my life, wasted years of my life,
trying to pretend it all away. I thought that if I would just ignore it, then
it would disappear. On November 14th, I finally decided that I’d had enough. I
was in an extremely bad relationship with someone I honestly didn’t love, he
had just gotten arrested (for beating his mother, no less), and I was
exhausted. Putting on my happy face façade every morning and pretending that I
was someone else was draining everything out of me and I couldn’t take it
anymore. I was done. That night, I was emailing my best-friend/little-brother
(who I knew was bisexual), and he knew that something was wrong. I told him
that my boyfriend (ex-boyfriend now) had been arrested and also that there was
something else on my mind, something I was really struggling to deal with. He
asked me if I wanted to talk about it, and I suddenly had the feeling that I
did. I arranged to meet him before school the following day to talk.
That
night, I started to have second thoughts about coming out to him. Then I just
took a look in the mirror. I kid you not, I looked my reflection in the eye and
said to it, “You know what? You’re not straight! Suck it up and deal with it
already!” The next morning, I met with my little brother to talk. I tried to
tell him how I felt, who I was, but I couldn’t. Those two little words were on
the tip of my tongue, but I simply couldn’t say them. I knew he was a safe
person to tell, but I just couldn’t do it. My fear had such a fierce, intense
hold on me that it simply wasn’t possible. So I wrote him a letter telling him
everything. Even in the letter, I couldn’t just say it. I wrote at least a
page-and-a-half discussing other topics, other struggles. I wrote about
everything on my mind, except the one thing that I’d been dealing with for five
years that, in reality, was probably the source of all of my other struggles in
the first place. Finally, I decided that I’d stalled long enough and wrote out
the two words that changed everything.
Later,
he and I met up to talk again. I took out the letter and read it to him. I know
that my voice must have been dripping with emotion, not because of what I was
reading at first but from the anticipation of the part I would have to read. I
was terrified, but I knew that I had to do it. For myself. I couldn’t keep
living in a cage.
Finally,
I reached the part that I’d been stalling on saying. I paused and took a deep
breath, then finally said the two words that carried more depth, more meaning,
than anything I’d ever said. “I’m bi.” I continued to read the rest of what I’d
written. About my past relationships and how tired I was of it all. About my
home life and how ashamed I felt. About how I wanted to stop feeling like there
was something wrong with me. When I finished, he pulled me into what was probably
the longest, most loving hug I’ve ever received.
After
that moment, the first emotion I felt was a sense of relief. Someone knew my
deepest secret, and it was okay. There was no judgment, no condemnation.
About
a week ago, I came across the email conversation I had with him later that
night. It was nothing incredibly special, and I think that perhaps that is why
it is special. There was no pomp and circumstance about my orientation. It was
just a conversation between a bi girl (that’s what I identified as at the time)
and her bi brother. A week ago, when I reread that email, all the emotion of
that time came back to me.
As I
sat there reading through that email again, I could almost feel myself wearing
my favorite sweatshirt over my favorite spaghetti strap. I could almost feel the
weight of my favorite blanket draped over my shoulders. And above all, I could
feel the novelty of it all.
In
that email, we talked a bit about my letter, but it was mostly just random
conversation. At one point, he mentioned his boyfriend (ex-boyfriend now, but
boyfriend at the time). I remember how different that felt. Talking to a guy
about his boyfriend, and that actually being okay. Normal
Suddenly
I felt like I was in a new world. A new reality. A world where everything I’d
been taught was wrong and that meant that suddenly I was free. Free to be
myself. A world where I didn’t have to be afraid to be who I am. A world where
suddenly it was okay to talk about my orientation instead of hiding it like it
was some disease that I didn’t want anyone to see. In this strange new reality,
it was okay for me to talk about thinking that a girl was cute. It was okay to
see two guys kissing or two girls holding hands. It felt strange, but pleasant.
I
carried that feeling with me for months, all through Thanksgiving, Christmas,
New Year’s, even into St. Valentine’s Day. All through the cool fall and the frigid
winter, I carried that feeling. Everything had a new meaning to me. Everything
I did had a new purpose to it. Even the
simple act of breathing was different. The air that entered my lungs
felt, smelled, different than it had before.
As I
read that email, I could feel that sense of the cool autumn air. I could
imagine the fall decorations that decorated the mantle of the kitchen
fireplace. I could smell that warm autumn scent, with the pumpkins and just
that feeling that the world outside was cool but I was inside all nice and
cozy. Then I could imagine the atmosphere beginning to change as the weather
grew colder and the autumn leaves on the kitchen mantle were replaced by a
Christmas tree in the living room and stocking holders on the mantle of the
family room fireplace. I could smell the peppermint. The snicker-doodles sugar
cookies, hot cocoa, pumpkin pie. These scents carried with them a different
meaning because they came at the same time as a new sense of freedom. I walked
through life with a different attitude, a different outlook. That time wasn’t
perfect. I didn’t suddenly have everything together simply because I came out
to one person. It didn’t take away all of my other struggles. But it changed my
world. Life was different for me.
I
don’t feel that emotion anymore. I don’t carry that feeling with me everywhere
I go. Now, the only emotion I feel connected to my orientation is that occasional
fear. The fear I get when I’m around my “family.” That’s the only time I don’t
feel like I can be myself. Yes, there’s that sense of freedom when I can
be myself. But when I do feel like I can be myself, it doesn’t feel like
there’s anything extraordinarily special about it. It’s just normal. And I wish
that it did feel more special. I wish it had the feeling it used to have.
The
other day, I asked someone how it is that we lose the feeling we get when we
first come out. She responded, “You don’t.” If that’s true, then why can’t I
feel it anymore? If other people keep that feeling, why didn’t I? What happened
to that feeling? And will I ever get it back?
