I fell in love with my English 1st-grade teacher, Miss. Garcia. She was so pretty. Long dark hair, glasses, so nice. I just wanted to hug her forever and kiss her cheek. After that, hiding in place with girls became a norm. I had this neighbor, Melissa, that would play house with me. I was always the dad, and we would lock the door and made out for hours in my room. We, of course, did this when my parents were not in the house, and my brothers were too busy playing music or doing other things around the house. I was a very hyperactive kid, so the quiet I was, the better for them so they wouldn’t have to deal with me. I did play house with other girls around my neighborhood, but not like with Melissa, our thing was special. I would play dad, but go with the boys to play sports, and leave the girls with their awful dolls. They were always so mad because I had gone away too long of a time. Always told them “I am a dad, the breadwinner of this house. I was working”, of course “working” was playing baseball with the boys. All of this only happened during weekends.
I was bullied so much in school, that bringing this to the table would have been worst. The bullying was so bad that my family and I decided it was time to change schools. So in the 6th grade, I went to a different school. There I met my 1st love, Miss. Burgos. She was the religion teacher. She was so nice to me. Tender, caring. I was always on my best behavior with her (I was a very badly behaved kid in class because I had ADHD, and nobody in the 80s knew what was that, so the teachers didn’t have any patience with me). My eyes got so dreaming every time I saw her. Then, after Christmas Vacation, she came back to school telling everybody how she got married during the break. I was so devastated. She showed me her wedding album, and I just wanted to die. After that day, I started to act up in class, and miss behave. She had broken my heart, and I was never going to forgive her. In the 7th grade, I met a nun, Sor Ada. She was the most awesome person I had ever met up to that point, and she was a nun! I saw her like my private Julie Andrews in Sound of Music. I wanted to be with her all the time. I even went on Saturdays to do volunteering work just to be with her. We were not Catholics, but my mom was so happy I was doing something nice for others. I asked her if someone that was not Catholic could become a nun. She told me that only if I received a call from God, but that we had other positions of ministry in our church, and I didn’t have to become a nun to help others. I couldn’t tell my mom I wanted to be a nun so I could live with Sor Ada and sleep in the same room, and shower together (yes, that what I thought nuns did at their cloister. I had always had a very vivid imagination).
Things were not working out in that school. I started to get rebellious. I fought other kids because I was being bullied again, disrespected teachers, other students, the principal, my grades dropped. Everything was a mess in my head. So they called up my mom and told her they were not going to let me enrolled for next year. That I was going to be able to finish the school year, but that was it. So my mother decided it was time to go back to my other school. I knew that I was going to be bullied again, even more, so I tried very very hard to fit in. I got in so much trouble they didn’t let me graduate and had to take summer school. High school was more of the same, but I was completely conscious I was a lesbian, and that that was not going to change. I told my friends I had a crush on this or that guy, just to hide the fact I really really loved boobs. I was on the volleyball team, the softball team, but I never NEVER changed uniforms in front of them. Not because I was ashamed of my body, but I knew I would want to look at them, and I couldn’t afford to get more bullied. We had these huge bathrooms, and they would all change in open view, but I would go into the stall and changed there.
Although high school was a very miserable time. I made this core group of friends. We were always together. I felt so happy to have “a click”. We would go to the library and do homework, go to the mall on the weekends. It was nice, but I was never honest with them. I never told them who I really was because I didn’t want to lose them. I had never had friends up to that point. So when we graduated high school, they all wanted to stay at a hotel. I was so up for that, but they wanted to invite boys there, and I didn’t feel comfortable. I told them we shouldn’t have boys over, that we were not like that. But they still had the boys over, and I didn’t stay at the hotel. That summer was weird. I knew college was going to be so different. I was going to meet so many people. Different people, and I was going to make sure nobody bullied me there.
I went to college with all my friends, but we were in different departments, so I didn’t see them all the time. I had to make new friends. It was so difficult at first because I was so scared of people bullying me. So I started to notice all the “weirdos” and would start conversations with them about really random stuff. I started to make friends, got invited to drink after class, and do cool shit during weekends. This was a whole new world. I still saw my friends from high school, but not that often. They would go to this bar a lot, but I was so not into that scene (the straight scene).
And one day, I met this girl in class. She started to talk to me because I had a huge picture of Gillian Anderson in my book. I remember that day like if it were yesterday. I go to classroom rocking my boy haircut (now called a “pixie”), cargo shorts, a shirt that said, “Boys are dogs, keep them on a leash” and my scooter. She looked up to me and told me “Is that Gillian Anderson in your book?” I told her yes (because I was so fucking in love with GA..still am), and she proceeds to tell me “I am so in love with her. I would marry her. Let me see that picture. She’s so fucking hot….Oh look, you can actually see a little bit of her nipple in this picture”. I was in heaven. I fell so hard for that girl. She was the one that made me took the initiative of coming out, and I will be forever thankful to her. I started to go to gay and lesbian bars, and that opened my eyes. I felt so happy and free.
I went out with my friends one night, to that awful straight bar, and we started asking questions to each other, catch up. And one of them asked me “What is going on with XXXX? You are always with her. You barely see us anymore, and you go to those weird clubs now. What is going on?” So, I took a deep deep breath and told them “I think I am a lesbian. Well, I think I was one for a long time, but now I feel okay about it, and can actually say it” and I cried. They hugged me and told me that it was okay, that they would always love me...But it was sorta bullshit. One of them, the one I hang out the most, started to push me away until she finally said that she couldn’t be my friend. It was wrong to be a lesbian. I felt really hurt because I thought she was like a sister to me, but I was not going to stop being me because of nobody. My mom notices the distance and one night, after a crazy night at the club, she was waiting for me at home. When I arrived she asked me what was going on with my friend XXXX. I told her “Well, to be honest mom, she stopped talking to me because I am a lesbian, and she can’t deal with the fact that I slept for years next to her, and I was a lesbian. And she is freaking out because she is thinking that I wanted to sleep with her, but I really didn’t because I don’t like her in that way, but she thinks I do. So that’s why we are not friends anymore, and I am tired of all”. My mom surprisingly said she always knew I was different, but she was waiting for me to tell her and went to bed.
But that was all bullshit. The next week I had an appointment with a psychiatrist because “It is just a phase. You are not really gay, and the doctor will fix you”. I told that psychiatrist that I was there because I have told my mother I was a lesbian. That I really love women, and that I knew what I was. We had a long chat about life goals and all that crap. At the end, she told me I didn’t have a problem. That I knew whom I was, and what I wanted in life. That my mother was the one with the issues. When I told mom that, she was furious. “She can’t say that with just one visit”. But I never went back. After that, I felt I was completely free for the first time. I didn’t have to hide being me. I actually felt more comfortable with me, with whom I am. It was a boost of confidence. I really didn’t care for my mother's approval or my friends from high school. I made new friends, tons of friends. I started to enjoy life (maybe a little too much, so much that 2-3 years are just a blur in my head). I started to enjoy the company of women without the “nobody can see us/I can’t hold your hand in public/we can only kiss in my car”. I became proud of me, of what I represent.
My friends make fun of me know because I always let people know I am a lesbian, although I am other cool things too like a chef, a student, an aunt, a crewmember for an airline, a writer, a loyal friend, a sister, and many other things. I feel like being honest with all those things makes me fearless and empowered. So maybe at the end, I did have to endure all those crazy and awful years to learn that at the end, everything will get better. That with time and a lot of patience, your mother will not blame herself for me being a lesbian, and actually, comfort me during hard breakups. That the friends that pushed you away, had come to terms with their thoughts and can actually have conversations like adults, or even get invited to their weddings (and always with a plus one “In case you want to bring a little honey with you”). That you will not be singled out as “the lesbian of the office” because now it’s way better than 20 years ago, and many people understand that sexuality is fluid and that the fact that you sleep with a person of your own gender, doesn’t and shouldn’t define the quality of person you are. That now if I wanted, which I do not (but I will not go into details here), I could get married, and have a wife, and kids, and even grandkids, and it will be okay.
So, on “International Coming Out Day”, I am not vouching for you to come out if you are not ready. It takes time, and process, but if you do I will be here to welcome you to this amazing and supportive family with tons of hugs, and maybe 2 or 3 beers to celebrate your life, and mine.
