Letter

Dear Reader,

I don’t know who will read this, or if I’ll even post this, but here goes. I’ve heard that writing letters that you’ll never send is good for your mental health, so I’m gonna let some things off my chest here and now. I’ve always been scared of telling other people that I’m not straight. I never had any interest in boys when I was younger, even in late elementary school. I started taking in interest in girls, but I thought it was just me wanting extremely close friendships. Being gay or anything that isn’t hetero has been looked down upon in my family. My view on the LGBT community the first chunk of my life was neutral. My mom always told me that gays were bad and would be punished for their sins, but I never really thought it was wrong. I didn’t really understand, but I always thought I was homophobic, up until a few years ago. When I grew fond of a girl after my first break-up with a guy, I got scared. Really scared. I started questioning myself.

“Am I gay?”

“But I dated a guy, I can’t be a lesbian.”

“What if my family finds out?!”

She asked me out, and my panic grew. I loved her, but I knew my parents would kill me if they find out. I thought I was bi for a while after we started dating, and I let it slip in front of my parents once. They had a weekend long talk with me which involved my mom repeating the same things over and over.

“It’s normal for women to become interested in their body parts.”

“Oh honey, you’re just confused.”

“It’s a phase, you’ll grow out of it.”

I kept dating her in secret, but I assured my parents that I was straight and I did grow out of my so called phase. She recently came out to her parents, and I freaked out. I had pushed all of my fears of my family into the back of my mind, but they came flooding back. I was shaking with fear, but she assured me that they supported the both of us. She.......told me that they said I was worth it. I-I was worth it! Our realtionship was worth it!

Maybe it was my school, but I slowly realized that I didn't really like guys. Half it may be that most of the guys at my school aren't good people, but it's mostly just that I'm not interested. I wish it were that easy to tell my family, especially my mom. Flat out telling your homophobic mother that you're a lesbian isn't very easy. It'll be harder for me since I already "came out" to her as bi, so she'll probably invalidate me even more.

But I've been dating since February and we're both going strong. It's even more special to me because she asked me out on the 10th, so we got to go to the Valentine's Day dance as a couple.

I feel like I just got quite a bit off my chest, so I guess this excersise worked. I might end up posting this, who knows? I just know that I feel quite a bit better about myself, but my fear is still profound. I'm trying little by little to push it back or eliminate it, but I'm still working on it.

- Sincerely -

Denim