Resipiscence

Ever had something you really wanted to talk to someone about, just to have someone sit and listen to you bitch and cry and whisper as the wind of the monologue took you, and had no one to turn to but an empty screen?

The Internet is my solace. I can click boxes that say "bisexual," and visit Whosoever and Soulforce, and gan some measure of comfort that I'm not an evil, sin-riddled lust-ridden sexual deviant. But even then, I still have to keep one eye on the door to make sure that no one who walks in without knocking notices the big "GAY IS OKAY" headlines of the articles.

I'm tired of being closeted. I want to stop lying to people about who and what I am. I want to stop avoiding pronouns and conditional statements, I want to stop only telling half the story when talking about crushes to my friends at sleepovers, I want to be able to check out girls and guys alike without averting my eyes lest I be caught staring at a pair of slim legs or beautiful eyes...

I want to stop having to passcode these entries that refer to my bisexuality.

I'd like to think that if I did walk downstairs right now, and announced to my parents "GUESS WHAT! Your daughter is BI!" they would shrug, answer "That's nice, dear," and turn back to their TV show or newspaper or laundry. Ha.

I wish I could know for certain that I wouldn't be disowned, evicted, forced into therapy if I came out. I wish I didn't have to think about where I could stay if I did accidentally let something slip and had to leave home. I wish home was a refuge instead of yet another place I have to hide.

I wish I could know I could keep going to school and not have my name go from meaning "me, the artist, the debater, the outspoken girl, the talented, creative, intelligent, sometime beautiful girl" to "that bi chick" (or "that lesbian chick," seeing as Eastchester students generally don't make such fine distinctions). I wish I could know I could go back to school as myself, and know that no one would shrink from me in the hallways, or whisper about me behind my back, or give me strange looks because they've never been around many people they knew were going straight to hell.

I wish I could know that I could go to youth group without feeling like the only non-straight in the room-- which is why I no longer go. I don't even like going to church any more, because of the constant shroud of half-truths that hangs over my everday life. The only place I can feel welcome in church is choir, because Lewis, although he thinks no one knows, is gay, and somehow that gives me a little hope.

The sarcastic part of me, the part that never fails to see the humor in anything, points out that if I came out of the closet right now, I could probably get more scholarships. Somehow, I doubt my parents would see it quite that way.

Even Sorcha. Even my best friend in the world, the person that knows everything else about me, the person I'm closer to than anyone else. She doesn't know. And I think I hate that worst of all, that I'm lying to the people I love, because I'm not sure whether they'll keep loving me back if they knew what I really was. Because I can't deal with the idea that maybe they only love the mask they know, and not me.

I'm so tired of hiding.

Labels: friends, Teh Gay