Dear John, I Love Jane: Women Write About Leaving Men for Women (11 page)

One-third of my life spent by his side. Sometimes it feels like those are the only memories I have.

It is midnight when it slams into me again, stealing me from sleep. I creep out of bed and go out into the living room, into the dark quiet where the tears flow freely.

I open my laptop. I need to look at our wedding photos, but the screen blurs within seconds. I can’t remember what his arms felt like, can’t recapture the essence of what we were together. I am struck by the thought that I won’t know what his hand will feel like in mine when we’re both eighty years old, and somehow—in the moment—this feels like the biggest tragedy of all.

There is a hole in my heart where he is supposed to be.

I always thought that regret was reserved for those who made mistakes. The rightness of this choice does not ease the ache in my heart tonight. I miss him, desperately so. I try to be quiet so she can sleep, but my grief overtakes me. The sobs rip through my body, until I am gasping, choking, the fierceness of this pain taking me by surprise even after all these months.

She opens the bedroom door and comes to the couch. Without a word, she leans my body forward and slips in behind me, pulling me back against her chest. She whispers in my ear, smoothes my hair.

“It’s okay to cry. I have been in this place, and I know this pain. I will stay until you get to the other side.”

She holds me and rocks me and I am amazed. It cannot be easy to comfort the woman you love now while she grieves the loss of the man she loved then.

“What was it like for you when you left? How did you feel? How did you cope? How many nights did you cry?”

Then I ask her the one question I most need answered—hoping that because she walked this path a full seven years before me that I will find solace and hope in her response.

“When will I feel whole again?”

She shifts her body to face mine. Through the pitch black of the room I can tell her eyes are locked on mine.

“It is my experience that you will never feel fully whole again.”

Although it is not the answer I wanted, it is the first that has made sense. Perhaps it is in the acceptance of this truth that I will finally find some fragment of peace.

We dance in the kitchen, our bare feet sticking to the floor where my daughter spilled a glass of orange juice this morning. The music is faint and we are surrounded by half-filled boxes, and open cupboards, and a life turned topsy-turvy upside down. We’ve been packing and lifting and moving for days and we’re so aching and exhausted that we’re giddy.

But still, we dance, and whisper, and kiss. She tilts her head back and smiles, that quirky half-smile that melts me every time. I look at her and realize something is different now; something has changed. Suddenly, I know what it is. I am here with her, fully present, in this reality. This now. This life.

Our life.

A few weeks ago I was struck with a powerful vision. It stayed with me long enough that I could record it in the battered black fabric journal that has held so much of this story.

I was holding something small, cradling it in the palm of my hand, and feeling filled with love and bittersweet nostalgia. The object was heavy and warm and egg-shaped, and I was wrapping it carefully and tenderly in something very soft. With all the gentleness in the world, I tucked it away in a very protected and private space. This thing would always ache, but I knew that I didn’t need it anymore, that I could care for it without keeping it close.

Tonight I finally understand what the vision represented. The object that I tucked away with so much love was the part of my heart and soul that lived in the past. The part that belonged to him and us, and the life we had together. It is time to move on, to give myself a chance to live fully, to open my heart and to step into our future.

And so I smile back to her, burrow my head into the curve of her neck, and we keep on dancing.

It’s not a one-shot deal, this coming-out business. Extracting yourself from a cocoon takes time, fierce resolve, a willingness to be exquisitely vulnerable. It feels safer to stay in the space you’re used to, cramped and dark but familiar. Everyone sees that inspiring transformation from caterpillar to butterfly, but did you know that the process of unfurling your wings hurts like hell?

You step out of your familiar, comfortable life into the vast, uncharted territory of another. You step with intention into that wide-open space, turn your face to the sky, throw your arms and your eyes and your heart wide open and just pray you’ve got enough grace to accept all that comes.

You just stand there, more exposed than you ever thought possible, and say, “This is my truth.”

It has been the most liberating and the most shattering of experiences. I am free, soaring high, authentic and true, and I am broken, on my knees, sobbing tears that flow without end. I am both more than and less than I was before.

This Love Is Messy

Amanda V. Mead

I
blame Angelina Jolie. If it weren’t for her, I would have stayed blissfully oblivious. But she had those lips, the kind that send your blood rushing south at the thought of them pressed against your own. This was precisely the image that brought me to orgasm every time my fiancé’s head was between my thighs. I thought it was perfectly normal then, and I would still agree that sexual fantasies of celebrities are normal—whether they are hetero- or homosexual. However, it occurred to me that I hadn’t orgasmed without said image for years, if ever.

One afternoon when I was about twenty, I tried desperately not to think about Angelina Jolie, or her godforsaken lips. I tried to think of my partner, male celebrities, male coworkers, all to no avail. I could not come! I finally gave in to my fantasy and found sweet relief. As time went on, I questioned the fantasy. Was it about Angelina Jolie? Was it about the unattainable? Was it about taking sexual risks? Was it about being with a woman? I tried each hypothesis, gathering data in hopes of coming to a logical conclusion. I substituted other female celebrities, and it still worked. Then I began to substitute the celebrities with women I knew, or strangers I saw in cafés or walking down the street. The common denominator was women. This scared the bejesus out of me. I asked myself the question I couldn’t answer for another five years.

When I was a little girl I loved playing with dolls, dressing up, and dreamed of becoming an actress or a singer. I was also one tough cookie, with a few dust-ups under my belt to prove it. I swore like a sailor and was an honest-to-goodness born feminist. I stuck out like a sore thumb in my tiny town in northeastern Montana. I remember never feeling like I fit in. I wasn’t cool enough, nerdy enough, athletic enough, or bad enough to fit into any of those particular groups. I was always one step behind when it came to trends, until I finally gave up and turned to baggy jeans and flannel shirts. I usually ended up injured whenever I attempted a sport. And even though I was considered smart, the only subject I really excelled at was English. I was often described as boy-crazy. I used to buy those magazines like
BOP
and
Teen
and paste the pictures of tween boys all over my room. I was also well-known for being loud and goofy, and completely unafraid. Behind the flamboyant façade was a girl traumatized by family dysfunction. This contradiction translated into intense anger during my teen years. I was a complete mess. However, I managed to keep myself together just enough to get by, because I had one solid thing to hold on to: my best friend.

Since third grade, Carol and I were inseparable. She was with me through my blackest days, and in return I was fiercely protective. She was sensitive and sweet, a vulnerable thing to be in adolescence, and I felt it my duty to keep her from harm. I recall one particular incident in junior high—a boy made fun of her for sitting in the front of math class. I was frantically searching my perpetually messy locker for homework when she came running toward me, bawling her eyes out. She tearfully explained the situation, which instantly sent me raging into the classroom. I grabbed that boy by the scruff of his neck and threatened to beat him within an inch of his life if he ever insulted her in that way again. Carol stood in the corner, still weepy, with the strangest expression on her face; it was somewhere between embarrassment, pride, and awe.

It should have been no surprise then that the other students began to whisper about us, especially me. Earlier in the year a new girl arrived at school, and I immediately befriended her. When Misty stayed the night at my house, I showed her the nudie mag I had lifted from my stepfather. I wouldn’t normally have shared something like that with a girl I had just met, but I was inexplicably drawn to her. She was equally interested in the magazine. Initially, giggling fits ensued, but our reactions quickly morphed into intrigue. We turned the lights low, and spoke in whispers about the women and their bodies and what things must feel like. What I remember now is that I felt the strangest sensation when she touched me, and I didn’t feel it again until I was twenty-two. The next week at school it seemed everyone knew what happened under the sheets that night, and it wasn’t pretty. “DYKE!” was a common exclamation heard following me down the hallway. Misty was saved from the ridicule I endured. In her quest to become part of the “in” crowd, she had confessed to a very Christian and very popular girl that I had pressured her into doing these disgusting things. I was followed and taunted by groups of girls in the hallways between class periods, and on one occasion found myself cornered outside school, pushed into a brick wall, and told to repent my sins.

Carol knew that whatever happened between Misty and me wouldn’t happen with her. My relationship with Carol was sacred, untouchable. She had once confided in me that sexual advances from girls made her uncomfortable. I took pride in being the one person she could always feel safe with, and I intended to keep it that way. Our friendship continued uninterrupted until our first year of high school. That was the year she met her first boyfriend. Initially there were some attempts at bonding, but eventually it became clear that he was not comfortable with me around. He asked her to sever our relationship, and when pressed for a reason, he told Carol that I was in love with her. She disputed his claim, but nevertheless followed through with the request. I have never felt as heartbroken as when I lost her. I sat with my acoustic guitar in the basement, wrote love songs, and ripped up all of our photos. I spent months crying my eyes out and punching pillows and walls.

Because my whole life revolved around Carol, I found myself utterly lost when our friendship fell apart. I spent the better part of a year completely numb. After the numbness, I tried some truly ridiculous ways of coping, like converting to Buddhism at age fifteen. What really enabled me to move on was witnessing how awful her relationship with her boyfriend was, and taking solace in her terrible decision. Eventually I found some new friends, and even fell in love with a boy. Evan and I had an extremely volatile relationship filled with heat and drama. My parents hated him. I suppose that was a large part of my attraction to him—and the fact that he was nothing like me. He was not terribly bright or ambitious; Evan’s world consisted of three things: cars, drugs, and music. Teachers were positively dumbfounded to see us walking down the hallways holding hands, or pushed up against lockers intent on breaking the school’s PDA rules. I could barely contain myself around him. We were so notorious for our inability to keep our hands off each other that a girl I had hardly spoken to “willed” us a bed at a local motel in the yearbook’s senior send-off.

I enjoyed sex with Evan immensely. We stayed together much longer than necessary because of it. I finally broke it off with him a month before I left for college. I should have given myself some time to adjust to the changes happening in my life: moving away from home, beginning college, and tasting independence. Instead, I embarked on another serious relationship. Within two years, Reggie became my fiancé.

Reggie was, and still is, the ideal man. During one of our first conversations I mentioned how much I loved blueberry muffins because they reminded me of my Mamaw in Oklahoma. A few weekends later he woke me with fresh-made blueberry muffins in bed, along with a bagful that he made that I could take back with me to college. He was kind, thoughtful, ambitious, gracious, compassionate, loving, doting, smart, funny, attractive . . . the list really does go on. I could praise him for pages, and I doubt it would capture the gravity of his worth. So when the week of our wedding approached and I found myself absolutely panic-stricken, I was baffled. By that time we had been together for four years, lived together for two of those, and had a pain-free, easy relationship. We were both on track to finish school in the next year, our families loved us, our friends supported us, and we even saved enough money to pay for most of the wedding and a splendid honeymoon in Brazil.

I spent the week of the wedding running miles during the day, eating very little at dinner, and getting drunk at local bars. A few times I didn’t come home until dawn. One infamous night I ate so many pot cookies that I forced myself to vomit just to come down. I was utterly terrified. The thought of getting married brought on waves of nausea. I even attempted to rekindle a love affair from high school with a man I had remained friends with over the years. It didn’t make any sense. I knew I loved Reggie, that he loved me, and that our life together would be relatively bump-free. My logical brain needed to find (or make) a legitimate reason to support the haunting feeling in my chest. It couldn’t. So on July 16, 2005, I married Reggie in an elegant but modest ceremony in my hometown.

The cracks were already there, I suppose, but they really began to show in the coming months. I’m not sure when I became consciously aware of my desire to figure out my sexuality, but suddenly it consumed me. A friend of mine found herself more active in the gay community on our university’s campus after the demise of her relationship. She felt the need to fill her days and nights to get through the breakup, and I hesitantly joined her at some functions. I brought Reggie and friends along until I started to feel comfortable enough to go alone. Soon enough, I was spouting off about the injustices of inequality and writing poems about cute girls in my classes. I declared myself bisexual in embarrassing emails to friends. Nearly my entire circle of friends consisted of queer people. I belonged to this group. To Reggie, these changes seemed fairly benign. I did sense that he was apprehensive, but something otherworldly was pushing me to keep searching for answers.

All of the pontificating and proselytizing in the world on my part still didn’t make me gay, and I knew it. I hadn’t had a sexual or romantic experience with a woman since adolescence. I wanted to, but the perfect opportunity hadn’t presented itself. I went to the potlucks, dances, and guerrilla gay bar nights, all coming to no fruition. Then one week my friend asked if I would join the Queer-Straight Alliance on a trip to a neighboring town for a dance party. It was an absolute blast. A fifteen-passenger van filled with social misfits is my kind of a good time. Secretly, I decided my goal for the weekend was to have a lesbian encounter. I envisioned being approached in a smoky room by a husky-voiced woman who would slide her arm around my waist, pull me in close, and kiss me savagely. A girl could dream.

I knew most of the people in the van, with the exception of a girl in the farthest seat with soft, milky skin, a rigid nose, and a distinct laugh. At the hotel room later, everyone was feverishly getting ready for the night out, and I was surprised by how pretty she was up close. She was intentionally boyish in looks, with her hair chopped short and styled into a faux-hawk, muscular arms, and a classic lesbian swagger. I was even more surprised when I saw how meticulous she was about makeup, clothes, and hair. Up to that point, the lesbians I had met fit into distinct butch or femme categories. I was making mental lists of why I could or could not be gay, based on what I saw. One glaring
no
for me was the butch/femme dichotomy. I wore my hair long, experimented with makeup, and liked fitted clothes, but I in no way felt that I was femme. I also practiced archery, worked as a security guard at concerts, and nearly always found myself in control of situations and relationships. I resented the idea that because I enjoyed some traditionally feminine things, I was excluded from being butch. Heather was clearly neither and both simultaneously.

At the dance that night I did not encounter my fantasy lesbian; nor does it seem to me now that she exists in any world other than
The L Word
. I felt pretty defeated after this realization, and was sulking at the bar when I noticed Heather standing alone at the edge of the room. A burst of adrenaline or drunken arrogance sent me sauntering over to her, and I asked for a dance. She followed me on the floor, and we awkwardly danced for a moment. Something came over me then, because I slid my arm around her waist, pulled her into me, and we moved as one rhythmic animal. My heart pounded, and I couldn’t breathe. I placed my other hand behind her neck and brought her lips against mine. When her tongue slipped between my lips, memories flashed through my cortex and sent me spinning. This was it all along.

The next year seemed to come straight from a soap opera or torrid romance novel. Heather and I played merry-go-round three or four times, while Reggie tried to pick up the pieces and put me together again. Reggie knew about Heather to some extent, but I believe he was completely ill-equipped to handle the situation. He also couldn’t stand to see me in pain, so he offered me the only gifts he could: love and support. My relationship with Heather was tumultuous, at times violent, and always painful. When I finally ended the nonsense that was our affair, I was nothing but a shell. I knew I had devastated Reggie—the only human being who ever truly loved me unconditionally. I hated myself. I was lost and delirious. As if things couldn’t get any worse, my mom started to get an idea that something was going on with me. She stumbled upon my MySpace page, on which I listed myself as “bisexual.” Not since adolescence had I even attempted a conversation about my sexuality, but her discovery sent us both reeling. She wrote a series of emails attacking me, Reggie, and our marriage. “Is this just another activity that’s ‘no big deal’? Something
you
consider ‘normal,’ like washing your hands? I’ll never again be able to view you as the person I thought you were because now I know different. I’ll always love you because you came from my body, but you’re also a stranger . . . I hope your marriage survives.”

Her reaction hurt me very deeply, and that was enough to send me scurrying back into the closet for a while. For two years I was in constant agony. I even contemplated suicide a few times. Slowly but surely, I began to sort out the real from the imagined. I unearthed memories that shed new light on my life, such as my junior high experiences. I recalled the demise of my friendship with Carol and the intensity of those feelings. I thought about every female friendship after Carol, and how they all seemed to end in disaster, usually because I had expectations that surpassed those of a normal friendship. Things began to come together, and they all added up to one revelation: I am gay.