Coming to Terms with the Gay in Me

WARNING.

This is going to be a very honest blog post.

If you aren't up for such a thing, stop reading now.

Okay, you're in it to win it, so let's talk about this.

Internalized homophobia.

I got it. I suffer from it.

I really do.

GEEE I WONDER WHYYYYYY

When I reflect on my life, I can see and KNOW that from a really, really, really young age, I liked girls (and boys, but that's not what this is about).

My first kiss was with a girl. Actually, a group of girls, in 4th grade. We all decided to 'practice' kissing with each other. It went on for quite a few delicious minutes. I can remember wanting to keep on keeping on, and the rest of the girls were ready to move on to choreographing a dance, or playing dress up with our fluorescent ties.

I think that was my first feeling of 'rejection' from a female.

This continued into middle school. There was a girl in 7th grade that I had a mad crush on, who I wanted to be around all the time, hold her hand, gaze at her dark skin and deep brown eyes, but she wasn't into it. I think I made a move. Rejected again. Meanwhile, I was in LOVE with boys all the time. Boy crazy. But again, another post for another time. We are talking about the gayness ya'll.

Again and again, over the years, it seems that I fell into the 'falling in love with your best friend' trap. And every time, my best friend was 'straight' or just not into it. In college, my best friend and I ended up drunk and totally did it on the bathroom floor, but called it 'experimental' the next day and both moved on to the next male.  When I remember that morning after, I remember feeling deeply heartbroken that she wasn't experiencing and expressing feelings of love for me. I denied mine. (Side note, the next year she had a girlfriend. Ouch.)

Since college years, I've been dating male after male, always knowing that I could NOT DIE without the experience of being with a female on a romantic level.

Here we are, I'm 41 and I have finally met a woman that is into me.!!! APPLAUSE!

She loves me back, I'm wildly attracted to her, and we are in relationship. Nicole and I have been together now for over a year, and it is the most peaceful, mature, loving relationship I've ever had.

Does this mean I'm gay? (AHHHHHH!!!!!! Screaming, running around, denial melting)

I'm pretty sure I'm mostly homoromantic (a phrase I've recently discovered that means I fall deeper in LOVE with women), but I'm 100% sure I'm bisexual.

On to the homophobia.

When the ruling for gay marriage came through yesterday, I felt it bubble up.

I got goosebumps, and tears welled up, and I felt a VICTORIOUS feeling come over me.

But...then...I also felt....

Wait, this is wrong! We are wrong! Hell! Brimstone!

I am ASHAMED, deeply ASHAMED that these thoughts came up. I know SO many amazing gay couples that this ruling DEEPLY affects in MANY ways. So please please understand that my CONSCIOUS mind was not thinking these things. It was my subconscious, my programming.

What's fascinating about this is that I grew up Jewish. So I had no ideas of HELL programmed into me by my religious upbringing. But the society I grew up in, redneck Florida, was super helly and Christ-ey. So deep in the back of my mind, I must have learned that gay is wrong. Jews are sort of grandfathered into heaven (chosen and all), so being Jewish was never a problem for me personally (I have TONS of friends persecuted for being Jewish - another blog for another time), but gay!? JESUS.  (pun intended) Bad.

I have been in the theater my whole life. My world is saturated with gayness. I LOVE the gay. I live the gay. I AM the gay. RuPaul is my SHERO. Alix Olson and Ani Difranco brought me up. I know every word to "Galileo."

So what's the problem.

WHAT'S the problem.

WHAT IS THIS SHIT> There's a part of me that thinks I'm wrong, bad, just plain...sinful.

I HATE THIS.

BUT.

I think admitting it, and talking about it, unearthing it, bringing it into the LIGHT will get a conversation about self-hate, self-judgment going. And this is what I desire. I want to hear about your own struggle with your sexuality. Feeling alone in this is scary and weird. I called my sister yesterday, panicked.

"I NEED A RABBI!" - Rabbi Jenny (my sissy) to the rescue.

I said, "I feel wrong being gay."

IN TEARS.

She told me that I was coming out late in life, and that I had always been afraid and that this is a very intense time for me. She assured me that it is in no way 'wrong' in the 'eyes of God,' and that it simply IS. God is love, and gayness is a part of the DIVINE nature of life.

And I believe this. OF COURSE I FUCKING BELIEVE THIS. HELLO, have you met me!?!?!?!? But I have to confront these weird thoughts, and talk about them with my people.

I know that yesterday was an HISTORICAL day. And I'm SO proud to be American. And I'm proud of the love I have with Nicole. But I'm also tortured at times with my own self-condemnation from a society that tells me I'm wrong, I'm going to hell, and it's not NATURAL.

This morning I googled 'science and homosexuality.' Taking action against my fear.

And I found so many cool things about the gay.

There are so many different flavors of gay in the animal kingdom. We are not the only species that experiences homo love. And I know this. I've read this before. But I read more about it, again reminding myself that there's nothing WRONG with me. And there's certainly nothing wrong with YOU.

Thank you for listening, and being here with me through this intense, hopeful, transformative, trying but amazing time.

Congratulations to my friends who are ready to get married, and to those friends already married that are now legal everywhere. It is truly awesome.

With rainbow flavored love,

Amy

IMPORTANT P.S. I am not writing this so that my religious Christian friends can in any way exacerbate my fear. Please, if you happen to agree that I am bad and gay is wrong and hell is real, DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT respond to this. Do not write anything even slightly resembling that. This is what I'm trying to HEAL from. Thank you.