awakenings

It’s been whispering to me for some time now.  Only an idea, just a word really.  Teasing at my brain, turning around in my subconscious, compelling me to consider…

Transparency.

~~~

I first spoke my truth here.

Awakenings sheltered me while I stretched my limbs, shed the bullshit, exposed my exquisitely tender heart and let it all pour out.  I wallowed in self-indulgence, curled myself into a ball in the corner, beat my chest and howled at the moon.  I got brave, I got clear, and I found dead calm and purpose.

Everyone needs a safe place.  A spot to be vulnerable, to exhale, to let it all down.  A space to just be.

This has been mine, and I am fiercely protective of it.

~~~

Two years ago I leapt.  Opened my eyes, threw off my lifeline and jumped at a million miles an hour.  I spent as much time crashing as I did soaring and here I am now, scarred and humbled but blissfully, painfully, brilliantly alive.

But still hiding.  Still compartmentalized.  This part here, that part there.  Neat little boxes for a life blown wide open.

It doesn’t make sense anymore.

~~~

Opportunities arise.  Doors appear in front of me, but the message is clear.  They only open if I give myself a name and a face.

Can I do it?

Okay, I’m still here.  I promise, the blog is not dead, just on hiatus.   I’m a writer with no time to write. – what a total cliche. But I still have so much more to stay here – so bear with me.  If you’re still here, still reading – I promise I  will come back eventually.

In the meantime, if you would like to share your story -  anonymously – here in this space, I would love to share it.  Please email me at awakenings@awakeningsblog.com

For now – a video.  Coming out is important.  Living out is important.

I found this video a few days ago via the divine Dorothy Snarker, and although I’ve never been a Grey’s Anatomy fan, it stopped me in my tracks. As Dorothy says:

“In less than two minutes she brought up what is a universal revelation in the life of almost every gay and lesbian person. The lightbulb. Whether it comes quietly to oneself or jarringly in the open, it happens….The catch in her voice was the catch that comes from an answer you never even though to ask the question to but now can’t believe you ever lived without knowing.”

And she’s right, no matter if you use leaves and glasses or tasting a food you’ve never tasted or any other analogy, there is that moment of facing your truth, of slipping into your experience, of life fitting on a level you never thought possible.

For me it was like I was a multilayered puzzle – all the levels had to become perfectly aligned in order for the puzzle to be completed. I’d get the pieces so achingly close, but I could never quite ease them all into the exact positions necessary to bring it all together. The harder I struggled to make them fit, the more things would shift and the less likely it seemed that I would ever figure it out.

And then came the moment where I took a deep breath, and opened my eyes and everything effortlessly fell into place – exactly the way it had always meant to be. And I was stronger, and more sure and infinitely more aware of everything.

If I was an animator I could draw you a cartoon of exactly how it felt. Picture me, in solid form, surrounded by a whole bunch of other me’s …different colors and transparent to different degrees, all vibrating at slightly different frequencies and moving at slightly different speeds.

I walked through life with all those versions of myself hovering near, moving in and out, overlapping, and almost, but not quite ever, lining up exactly with my core. Then there was one day, one minute, one second where all those multi-hued layers slid into utterly perfect alignment – not even off by the smallest fraction of a millimeter – and all their beautiful colors made me glow from within. For the first time there was just one me, a same-but-not-same me (just with one heck of a big gay rainbow aura).

And even though it’s been far from perfect since then, and there have been plenty of times where my alignment has been knocked far out of wack, I know now – in a way I never could before – that the only way to bring it back to center is to live with utter and complete authenticity. That alignment wasn’t just about coming out and accepting that I’m gay – it was about what happens when you live your truth, and that involves choices in every moment of life.

And when I make the right choices – when I am true to myself and live with intention – I always see the leaves.

***
Dorothy also recently posted that ABC/Gray’s Anatomy has decided to unceremoneously terminate this lesbian storyline – currently the only one on primetime TV. Read more about it on her blog.

I have not just been in the closet – I’ve been buried in the back of a long term storage facility with an elaborate Fort Knox-style security system. I was tucked so far in the back corner that you would have needed a map, compass and sophisticated GPS system to find me in there, hidden away, trying my hardest not to be noticed.

Even if you had stumbled across me and somehow recognized me for what I was, I’m not sure you could have gotten me out. For so long I have been crammed and locked inside a massive box, which was inside another massive box, which was inside another massive box (ad infinitum). Each of these boxes was chained, padlocked and booby trapped and covered in words scrawled in angry black marker…

…Denial…Good Girl…Conformity…Expectations…Insecurity…Fear…

Why?

What combinations of personality and life experiences led me to deny myself for so very long? What convoluted social regulations made it necessary for me to push down, block out, hide away from things I have been feeling and wanting for much of my life? What kind of lies did I have to tell myself to sustain my belief that I could feel and think all those things and still be a good little straight girl?

Why was I so damn afraid to be me?

I never gave voice to this in my life. Not to friends, not in the countless journals I filled with angst and joy and philosophies about the meaning of life and stories about kissing boys. Only in the quietest, darkest corners of my heart and in my wildest silent fantasies did I let this live. I never once spoke of this aloud until meeting my best friend M.(another married lesbian, we’re a more common breed than one might think).

And in having a place to release my feelings they became – for the first time – something real. It was such a relief, such a sweet exhale, to let go of these swirling, mixed up, crazy emotions that had been fighting for acknowledgement for so long. It wasn’t a quick path from there to here; it still took three full years of discussing and processing and agonizing to get to the point where I could accept my sexuality without reservation or denial or apology.

For the past seven months I have been ever so slowly making my way out of that closet and into the light. Every step forward is liberating, every time I am open and honest with the people in my life I feel a little bit lighter and a little more solid at the same time. Every time I am accepted for who I am, I feel myself occupying this new space with more confidence.

But as I move further and further into this new life I also find myself wishing I could have figured this out a little sooner, that I could have been this person a little earlier. I wonder what it would have been like to own my experience on this level when I was 16 or 21 or 28. I wonder what it would have been like to go through my early adulthood knowing and accepting and loving myself this way.

On many levels I get that this was my path. That everything I’ve lived through in the past 32 years was necessary to my journey. That everything I did was something I had to do to get here, to this point, so that I could live THIS exact life. But sometimes I just have to shake my head and laugh that it seemed so hard and took so long and scared me so much – because the reality is incredibly easy. It fits. There is a rightness to this life, a sense of immediate and total belonging, that I’ve never experienced before. This is who I am, without doubt or hesitation. This is me.

And I hope that most of you out there know on a personal level exactly how amazing that is, because there is nothing that compares, and no way I could ever fully explain how it feels.

It’s exciting and calming and electrifying and crazy and easy and it’s just simply good. Yeah. It’s good.

On a lighter note….

A few months ago I came across a fantastic blog written by a woman named Kathryn and immediately felt right at home. The blog, Recovering Straight Girl, was the first that I had found to directly address my current reality, that of coming out after marriage and motherhood. Not only does she address it, but she does so with humor and grace and realism. I was hooked right away.

While exploring her blog that first day, my friend J. (another RSG, about a year ahead of me in the whole process) and I came across Kathryn’s Recovering Straight Girls 12 Steps to Becoming a Lesbian and we just about killed ourselves laughing as we read the steps aloud. I just had to ask permission to post the list here.

Just to make this a little more personal, I’ll include my personal commentary below each step (consider it a warm up for an upcoming post – where I intend to talk about sex)!

The Recovering Straight Girls Twelve Steps to Becoming a Lesbian (reposted with permission from the author)

1. We admit that we are powerless over being lesbians; that our lives have become unmanageable trying and pretending to be straight.

Um. Yeah that. I made a damn good (32 year) attempt of it though.

2. We have come to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity; it is the power of pussy.

Um. Yeah that too. Powerful stuff, that.

Enough said.

3. We have made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to being with women, and have made that shift by actually engaging in hot sexual relations with a woman more than once.

Well, not more than one woman, but definitely more than once. And definitely, definitely, definitely hot.

Did I mention it was hot?

4. We have made a list of all the men that we slept with; accepted that straight sex is mediocre sex, and forgave ourselves for wasting so many precious years sleeping with men. We have come to realize, accept and willingly expect that orgasms do happen (over and over again,) and that they are a normal part of sexual relations. We have also realized accepted, and now expect that sex last longer than ten minutes. Note: Some personal training is required in this area to build up an endurance level.

For this one I am hoping that a mental list will do. Funny, I wouldn’t have categorized most of my (straight) sexual experiences as mediocre sex…I always thought I rather enjoyed it. However, having experienced the reality of being with a woman – well…lets just say everything is relative.

“orgasms do happen (over and over again)”
Funny that. I always assumed I just didn’t have it in me to be a multi-orgasmic woman. Now I know better. Not only are there more of them, but seriously people – they are ***this*** big and ***that*** long. No joke.

“now expect that sex last longer than ten minutes”
Seriously, this has been the most surprising and lovely aspect of my sexual experience thus far. It is so fluid, and not goal-oriented. Truly, all of lesbian sex fits under the heterosexual definition of foreplay, so it just rolls and spirals and spins to the edge and back again for as long as you want it to. For all you straight gals out there, at the risk of being presumptuous and rude… I gotta say, you don’t know what you’re missing.

5. We have admitted to a higher power, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs pretending to be straight. In other words: we came out, and realized that we would rather have dental work done than have sex with another guy.

Well, I have to say that there is no such thing as using the term “came out” in the past tense – because it is such an ongoing process (more on that in another post as well). The coming out process is really life long, I think.

As far as the dental work bit, well – as strange as it seems even to me, I kinda have to agree. Yikes. I really must be gay, ‘cause I hate the dentist.

6. We have made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves and with much certainty and without hesitation, cut our nails, and very possibly our hair. Note: During this step, some recovering straight women may want to also get a tattoo or piercing, this is entirely a matter of choice. A tattoo or piercing is not a requirement as of this writing.

Cut nails – check
I keep waiting for S. to notice and ask why my nails are always so short after years of having them longish, but either he is oblivious or he has decided not to ask. Note: if you’re wondering why the short nails – just think on it for a bit. Rather obvious, no?

Cut hair – check
However, I rather think my hair cut had more to do with wanting to be as cool as Victoria Beckham than it did wanting to embrace Lesbianism. However, there is a page ripped out of a catalogue stuck to my fridge of a woman with short-short hair. Every now and then I look at it and wonder if I would have the guts, and if it would look good…

Tattoo – almost check
I’ve been meaning to have this done for months and months though, way back when I was still deep in denial, so not sure if this counts. However, it is this journey that helped me finally decide what tattoo to get. This will be my second tattoo– so it’s not entirely a RSG thing.

Piercing – nope
My ears are not even pierced anymore. I can’t imagine I’m going to go out and get pierced…although stranger things have happened (like me finally coming out of the closet, for instance). Side note: I am WAY into piercings in other girls though. Both of the women I have kissed have had lip piercings and I have to say, it adds a certain something to the experience! Hmmm…happy memories.

7. We are entirely ready to have the higher goddess remove all these defects of being straight: To prove it, we have gone to at least one lesbian bar, lesbian dance and/or lesbian event (preferable a lesbian folk singer); we have purchased CDs from Melissa Etheridge, KD Lang, and/or The Indigo Girls; and we have acquired at least one item with a rainbow on it.

Lesbian Bar: check, check, check, check.
I think I’ve been to more bars since September than I have in the past decade. It’s like college all over again, except with more girls and no sweaty football players! We’ve actually got a decent number of places to choose from here, although most of them are fairly ghetto. Last night we went to a Lesbian country bar, where I line danced and two-stepped the night away with gay girls from 21 to (I swear) 65!

Lesbian Event: check
Rainbow Festival, and several lesbian folk singers actually. I’ll attend my first Pride in April and hopefully road trip to San Diego Pride in July. I flirted with the idea of going to Dinah Shore with a friend this year, but don’t think I’m up for that yet! Coming up: Tegan and Sara in April, and I heard a rumor of Melissa Ferrick coming to town as well…

Music – check.
Funny story. I was talking to J’s girlfriend T one day about music. We talked about our musical likes and dislikes – including when we discovered certain favorites. Upon hearing that I had been listening to Melissa Etheridge, Indigo Girls, Ani Difranco and Tori Amos since college, T looked at me in disbelief and said in a most incredulous voice, “And you didn’t know you were gay?”!

Rainbows – check
Canadian AND American pride magnets, and my girls insist on keeping a pride flag cling-on in their bedroom window!

8. We are removing our straight shortcomings: We no longer refer to our straight friends who are women as our girlfriends, and reserve that term only for women that we are sleeping with. We have accepted that hiking is a part of life, (although secretly it can be disguised as shopping,) we have purchased a sports bra, (although we know that it’s only to be worn while playing sports.)

I have noticed that I have been more aware of using the term ‘girlfriend’ – although I would never have called the woman I was seeing/sleeping with my girlfriend (called her my not-girlfriend actually) so it didn’t seem to matter as much. I am sure that once I have an actual girlfriend I will be much more careful about how I use the term.

Not so sure about the hiking bit, as I enjoyed that even when I was playing straight. Shopping I am always up for! Sports bras…yes – only during sports. I am NOT a fan of the uniboob.

9. We have traded our magazine subscriptions to Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Elle, and Marie Clare; for new subscriptions to Curve, Girlfriends, and The Advocate.

Well, the only pre-gay magazine subscription I had was to “Lucky” (and that was only because someone bought it for me) although I admit to buying more than my share of “In Style” and “Marie Claire” in the past. I did buy a copy of “Curve” a few months back – but I think I can make up for my lack of subscriptions with my memberships to websites like “Our Chart” and how many LGBTQ related businesses/organizations/people I have on myspace friends list!

10. We have continued to take personal inventory and when we are wrong promptly admit. We are open to guidance from our lesbian sisters on things related to: the proper placement of hand stamps at lesbian nightclubs, womens basketball (especially the womens NCAA tournament,) camping, baseball cap etiquette, dogs, cats, and beer.

Hand stamp placement? Huh? If we’re talking sports I will need plenty of guidance. I’d only willingly attend a basketball game if it was with a bunch of fun friends, or if I was purposely going to scout for women! Baseball cap…I don’t think so. Beer…not for me.

11. We have sought through prayer, meditation or deep reflection ways to first access, then fine tune our newly realized Gaydar in order to improve our conscious contact with lesbians. We then have:
a. Successfully recognized a lesbian and tried to make some kind of contact with her outside of a typical lesbian arena.
b. Been nodded at by another lesbian who recognized us, outside of a typical lesbian arena. Note: This is a very important, but very difficult task that may take a lot of practice before achieving. Do not be discouraged, do not give up!

Damn, but my gaydar sucks. Unless a chick an obvious butch or dyke (or is making out with another woman) I have to admit that I always have that “Is she or isn’t she?” question in my mind. That is the nice thing about a lesbian bar or gay event – at least the assumption of gayness is a relatively safe one!

a. Yes, yes, yes – I did this….however, was not successful at making eye contact. I’m giving myself credit for trying.

b. Eek – not so much. I swear, if I hear one more time “You look like a straight girl”, I just might buzz my hair and start wearing ties and big black boots. I think the only way I would get recognized outside of a ‘typical lesbian arena’ is if (not to be indelicate) I had my tongue stuck down another woman’s throat, or if I took to wrapping myself up in a pride flag every time I left the house. Heck, my car (with its “Legalize Love” bumper sticker and pride decal) is more obviously gay than I am! That’s the kicker of being femme, I think, to most people femme = straight.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other straight women, near and far, in the city, in the country, and in the suburbs (especially the suburbs,) and to practice these principles in all our lesbian affairs.

Conversion/Recruitment Attempts – Check.
Ask my straight friends – I keep trying to tell them how silly they are being with this insistence on heterosexuality. Heck, if I had known what I was missing it sure wouldn’t have taken me this long! Plus, eventually I want to earn a toaster oven.

So there you have it. All you other RSG’s out there, lets hear it from you too! Leave your commentary in my comments section, or ask Kathryn if you can post this on your own blog.

public display of affection.

It feels delicious to walk through a crowd, my fingers intertwined with hers, and feel her thumb caressing the back of my hand. Or to stand next to her and feel her hand slip into the back pocket of my jeans, pulling me a little closer. To lean against her in a booth at some random pizza joint, and to feel her softness against my back and hear her voice in my ear. To sit next to her in the second last row of a darkened concert hall and enjoy the feeling of her arm around me. To turn my face toward hers and kiss her without caring or noticing or wondering if there was one person watching or if the whole world had pulled up their chairs for front row seats to the show.

It does not feel brazen, or bold, or even liberating to be with a woman in public. To be affectionate with her does not feel like a political statement or some sort of personal crusade. It’s not defiant or in-your-face and I don’t have a damn thing to prove. It just feels good, and right and so comfortable I wonder (once again) what on earth took me so long to get here.

I wasn’t always this comfortable. At first when we were out together I was a little antsy, cautious, unsure of myself. I didn’t realize until I took my wedding rings off that my reluctance had nothing to do with the act of showing affection to another woman where others could see, but instead had everything to do with my guilt.

Although I know logically that likely nobody but me noticed they were there, the rings felt like a flashing neon sign pointing directly at me saying “Look Here! Cheater! Bad Girl! Leaving-Her-Good-Husband-To-Be-With-Women! SHAME, SHAME, SHAME!” As soon as the truth was out and I stopped wearing my rings I felt the shift right away. All of a sudden I could be out with her, could BE with her without feeling that sense of anxiety – and then it just slipped neatly and naturally into something so undeniably right.

It is still a novelty to me to feel comfortable enough in my own skin that I’m not constantly wondering or worrying what other people are thinking of me. I have had many freedoms in my life, but the freedom from that debilitating self-judgment is brand spanking new. Never before have I been able to escape the need to define myself based on the opinions of others.

I once wrote a blog entry (that’d be on my old, straight blog ya’ll, the one my mama reads – so no linkage here) and referred to myself as an approval whore. That about sums it up. I not only cared what people thought, I based my entire sense of self-worth on what I perceived those thoughts to be, and I acted in order to cultivate the sort of approval that I was desperately seeking.

Now it doesn’t matter to me if the sight of two women holding hands and kissing bothers you and you think I’ve bought myself a one way ticket straight to hell. I could care less if you think it’s hot in a ‘girls gone wild’ sorta way, and you elbow your buddies and make rude comments. Perhaps you don’t even really see us because, like most people, you are so wrapped up in your own life that the actions of those around you are peripheral and barely warrant notice.

What does matter to me is that I am with someone I want to be with, and I feel free to be with her just as I would be with anyone. I finally feel free to be me.

And yea, that feels damn good.

and I came across a slice of wisdom that said
‘you were never not going to be here’
and it was right
this was as inevitable as the tides
as the shift of seasons
as the cycle of life and death

my whole life I have been spiraling
toward this point
and I no more had a choice about reaching this
than I did about being born into this body
or craving the taste of dark chocolate melting liquid on my tongue
or having azure eyes that see more
than I can ever comprehend.

it seems so clear now.
i wonder how I didn’t always know.
but of course I always knew.
didn’t I?

i knew it somewhere
in my deepest depths
and hidden thoughts
and ignored dreams.

i knew that I would belong here
in the arms of a woman
softness against softness
nestled curve against curve
warmth against warmth
breath against breath
flowing endlessly together into the long, long night.

Yes.
it was as inevitable as night following day
as letters forming words
as the rising of the sun.
as the heady free fall of love
as the force of change itself

it was as if the universe exhaled and things slid into place
like the mechanism inside a lock when you find the right key.
and the way my muscles feel after a long massage
when the ache subsides and my body relaxes
and fills up it’s rightful space
and says yes
oh yes.
this is how I am meant to feel, to move, to exist.
this is how I am meant to be.
without tension or pretense or that nagging feeling that I should be someplace else.
or someone else.

just here.
just now.
just this.

yes.
it was inevitable.
i was never not going to be here.

there is much to
learn
and so far to go

and so I am steping
boldly
into this new life

boldy, yes
but not without fear
and certianly not
without grief

and there is pain

yes, there is pain
and there are days
when I am consumed by loss
and I want to pull the covers
of life
around my head
and sit in darkness
with my demons
instead of trying to escape
the knowledge
of what precious life
I have relenquished
to the wild ether

but there is hope
there must always be
hope
and there are days
when I spiral on hope
spiral to infinity and back again
with my breath
or her touch
or your words
or the sound of the raindrops hitting my window
as if life just goes on
or because life just goes on

And so I take a breath
and I breathe again
and again and again
filling my lungs and heart and soul
with hope
because my life depends on it

because the center
of life,
mine and yours,
is always breath

and each day I choose
to unwrap my battered
heart
one more time
and one more time again
and to hold it out
palms upturned
and I make a fragile offering
of my heart to the world.

and so I stand
as naked as I have ever
been
with my breath
and my heart
and my grief
and my loss
and my fear
and my pain
and my hope

and with myself

with so much less
but possibly so much more
than before

and I remind myself to take
just one step
and to breathe just one breath

and I think that maybe
just maybe

I can do this.

I could not resist posting this. I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants. There’s more on youtube too….

and then there is this one…sent to me by a friends husband of all people!

October 11th was National Coming Out Day. 

I didn’t make any huge declarations to the world this year on October 11th (intended to tell my sister, but totally chickened out), but I’ve been taking baby steps in that direction every so slowly but surely over the past few months.  I don’t think I’ve ever spent so much time carefully considering my friendships and relationships, wondering who to let in, and when to do it. 

Feeling as vulnerable as I do, I feel the need to be careful right now with whom I invite to witness this first part of my journey.  At the same time, knowing this, and acknowledging this – there is a huge part of me that wants to shout it from the rooftops. 

It is HARD living this double life.  I have no idea how people do it, living in the closet for years and years – holding this all inside.   It has been less than three months for me, and I already find myself avoiding those who do not know.  At the same time, I feel myself clinging to the people that do know for dear life.  Without that inner circle walking by my side with friendship, support and love, I believe I would have lost my mind already.

It is so hard to go through life feeling as if only a small handful of people know who I really am.  I always strive to live with authenticity in all that I say and do – and for the past few months I feel anything but authentic in most situations.  The pressure of trying to be two different people is immense, and I long to integrate both parts of me publicly and be done with it.    At times, it gets so bad I feel as if I am crawling out of my own skin, and I hear the screams in my head “Just say it!  Just tell them already”. 

Somehow the reality seems a lot harder than it should – not because I am embarrassed or ashamed (on the contrary, I am proud and solid and so good with it).  Not even because I’m worried about how people will react (I have the most amazing people in my life).but because it seems so hard to find the right space in conversation to drop that particular bombshell.  Because I hate the idea of dealing with the inevitable questions.  Because I don’t relish being the topic of gossip until the next big topic of conversation comes around.

Who do I tell?  When do I tell them?  What do I say?  Do I set up purposeful meetings and explain in depth in a series of quiet conversations with the people who matter the most?  Do I find a space in the middle of playgroup chit-chat to say “Pass the peanut covered pretzels and by the way, I’m pretty sure I’m gay”?  Do I tell someone and just let the grapevine do its work?

I also worry about my husband, and want to do this in a way that is most respectful to the journey he is currently on – one he never wanted or expected to take.   I want my coming out process to honor him in the best way I possibly can.  He is a private person, and I know that knowing people are talking about him and feeling sorry for him would be very hard to take.  I don’t want him to feel uncomfortable or embarrassed around my friends – so that just adds another layer to an already complex process.

However and whenever it happens, it will happen.  This ball is rolling now, picking up momentum as it goes – and I wouldn’t want to stop it, even if I could.  I look forward to the day that everyone who matters to me knows everything – and I am able to step fully into this new person I am becoming.  Until then, I work hard to let this unfold as it should, to not hinder it, nor rush it along, and to learn what I can along the way.

I found this video by chance, on the front page of YouTube on October 11th.  I loved what she had to say, and wanted to share it here.