MY QUEER JOURNEY

CONTENTS:

This is a long personal blog about my journey as a young, queer girl and self-discovery. I wrote this as I often find myself slipping into doubt about who I really am due to internalised homophobia, and I wanted a clear reminder that I am not pretending to be gay, which for some reason is a big struggle of mine.

Bro it's literally been less than a week since posting this and I'm still like "am i bi or gay" 😓guess i'll never know

Hey, welcome to my first blog entry!! 

So I turn 18 later this month, and sexuality is something that I've been struggling with since I was 12 years old. That's SIX YEARS OF STRUGGLE!!!! This is my story of realisation and acceptance, which isn't quite finished yet, as I still struggle with a lot of comphet and internalised homophobia. 

I was seven years old when I first learnt the term "gay". I was playing a game of football with my older brothers, they must have only been eleven years old at the time, and we lost the ball in the depths of our shed. As we looked around, the twins paused all conversation, and asked me, "do you know what gay means?". I shook my head, I'd never heard the term before. "It means when a man falls in love with another man", one of them stated. They stared at me, waiting for a response. All I could think to say was "cool". Because it was cool, I guess. It seemed irrelevant to me at the time; I mean, to a 7 year old who'd never been exposed to anything but love and acceptance, why would it matter if a man loved a man, or a woman loved a woman. I wish bigots would understand that. 

The next 5 years passed by normally. The biggest change was moving from my beautiful childhood country of The Netherlands, a place that I still miss on a daily basis, to England, where I picked up on the differences in culture and behaviour, and managed to mould myself just well enough to fit in. Then, when I was 12 years old, I met my "queer awakening", so to speak. A proud lesbian? My age?? What does this mean for me??? I'd hardly thought about anything "gay" in the 5 years since my brothers told me what it meant. But I was drawn to this girl - she was so interesting, so funny, I felt so...myself around her? We grew closer, soon becoming best friends. I would spend hours at her house, we would hang out in town, we would play football. And then...covid 19. Lockdown. 

Now, obviously, covid was a devastating time for millions of people, and I am forever thankful that my family, friends, and I all managed to safe throughout it. But in a strange, quiet way, those lockdown years gave me space to figure myself out, and to let myself grow, away from judgement that I might otherwise have faced. 

I was freshly 13 when I finally got my first device - a crappy purple laptop that I covered in stickers. Aside from doing my schoolwork and hanging out with my family, I would spend hours each day consuming content like Dan and Phil (my icons), and listening to music such as MCR, FOB, and P!ATD. I became obsessed with fandom and soon presented myself as a more alternative person, as many young teenagers in lockdown did. But whilst all this was happening, I was also experiencing one of the most romantic periods of my life - ironic and cringy, I know. 

I fell into a routine of emailing this girl every night. We'll call her Bea. We would talk about our favourite bands, quoting lyrics to each other. We'd talk about Dan and Phil, and the books we liked at that time. We'd talk about all the silly things that young people in relationships talk about. We'd gossip about people we knew, and recommend our favourite shows and musicals to each other. And more than anything, we'd talk about queerness. I soon realised, that, spoiler alert, I'M NOT STRAIGHT. And after a few weeks of consistent emailing at the dead of night, where I would sit on the ledge of my window sill and wait eagerly for my Gmail notification, she confessed that she had a crush on me. And I was so thrilled. And she said she loved me. So I said I loved her. 

Now, due to it being lockdown in England, we had to follow the social distancing rule in the rare occasion that we could see each other. But, being young, rebellious teenagers, we broke the rule as often as we could. We'd kiss whenever we met up, we'd hug and hold hands, we'd be so damn gay. And for a while, life was beautiful. And then my mum found out. 

She made me break it off immediately, telling me "darling, she's weird." Looking back on it, she was right. Bea had plenty of flaws that were getting me down, making me a generally nastier person. I remember, maybe a week or two after it ended, I was laughing with mum, and she went, "I'm so happy I have my daughter back". That moment broke my heart, and I vowed to myself never to let another person affect me in such a negative way again, no matter how happy they could (occasionally) make me feel. I won't go into the details, but you have to trust me on this - the girl was indeed weird.

Whilst I was with Bea, I was tiptoeing out of the closet - no one would mention anything, but the whole family KNEW I wasn't even the slightest bit straight. But I think when mum said she was oh so happy to have me back, I quietly dragged myself back into the closet and associated gay with weird.

And that went on for years. From 13 all the way to 17, I was afraid to call myself as anything other than straight. I would label any crush I had on a girl as a friend crush, I would force myself to like boys. Hell, I managed to shove myself so far into the closet that it wasn't just my sexuality that I was ashamed of - it was my interests too. I stopped watching Dan and Phil, I stopped listening to emo music. I became the most "basic" teenage girl you could imagine. I'd listen to Taylor Swift and One Direction, I even got myself a life sized cardboard cut-out of Harry Styles. Now I'm not saying I don't like this stuff at all now - I occasionally find myself jamming out to 1D - it just wasn't as me as it could have been.

In fact, I was in so deep that I even got myself a boyfriend. I'd just turned 16, and, as we do in England, it was time to leave secondary school and go to 6th form/college. I'd been writing in my diary for a while about my dream boyfriend - a vague description of an androgynous man with "long enough hair to pull back into a ponytail". Honestly, that in itself should have been a sign to lure me back out of the closet. So when I arrived at my college's open day, and I saw a boy that looked nice enough, I talked to him for a bit and got his number. I immediately wanted to kick myself. I didn't want him! He was annoying! He seemed stuck up! He wasn't all that good-looking! I should've waited, found a better one! Within the first hour of getting home that evening, I'd made myself a pros and cons list of this boy, with a heavily leaning negative side. Alas, my mother and best friends convinced me to give it a go: text him back, go on a date! So I did. 

That awkward first date led to a year long relationship with him. I'm still not entirely sure why I put up with it for so long, but I did. Under the surface that I carefully crafted for myself - a happy straight girl with a lovely straight boy - lay an uncomfortable year during which I justified my every emotion as, "oh, it's not that bad, we're just teenagers! We don't know how to love yet!", or, "oh, he's just a boy he doesn't get that he makes me sad!". Hundreds of excuses, hundreds of tears, hundreds of days where I was convinced I was straight. Until I finally broke it off, again, influenced by mum - she doesn't like seeing my sad. 

The few months that followed were incredibly confusing. I didn't miss him, yet I was upset and angry. I was hurt. Looking back on it now, almost a year later and less in denial than before, I can tell that I was upset at having been so vulnerable, trying to make this straight relationship work for so long whilst knowing deep down that I would never fit into it.

During these long, painful months, I grew closer to a new set of friends, in particular an obviously butch lesbian who we'll call May...you know where this is going. We'd all hang out, they helped me through the breakup - but somehow May knew that there was more to it than I let on. I mean, even for an emotional teenage girl, 5 months to be caught up over an ugly boy is dramatic. She could tell it wasn't just him that was upsetting me. So as the months passed, I developed a small crush on her. I was discreet about it, I could hardly even admit it to myself. But then she managed to break my heart without even knowing it - May got her own crush. A beautiful lesbian who looked nothing like me. I'd watch them talk for hours, hangouts with me would be replaced by hangouts with her. What chance did I stand? I still called myself straight of all things! She'd never want me. But I learnt to deal with it. I didn't care, not shouldn't care. 

And then came the most beautiful few months of my life to date. It was early December, I was at a friend's 18th birthday party. After a few too many drinks, I decided it would be a good idea to call May and introduce her to the small group at the party. But, obviously a few glasses too many with a phone in your hand is never a good idea. When no one was paying much attention, I slipped away from the group to talk to May alone, excitedly telling her, "I'm not straight and I have a crush on you". And then, thinking I would be too drunk to remember it, she said "I have a crush on you too. You're literally perfect". But I remembered. Yet she was the one to bring it up at college, telling me "you said you had a crush on me!". I was scared to ruin the friendship, so instead of revealing what I remembered, I brushed it off, giving a little giggle and saying "yeah, what lessons have you got?"

A couple of weeks passed and we only grew closer. Suddenly it was New Years Eve, and we were attending a party together, with plans to have a sleepover with one of our friends afterwards. The party itself was alright, a little dull but not the worst. It was the sleepover that did it. Somehow, once we got to her house, May and I ended up cuddling, with out friend scrolling on TikTok on the other couch, bragging about a New Years Kiss she received. Within half an hour she was asleep, and we were munching on sweet potato fries to sober up before spooning - I'm still not exactly sure how we ended up like that, but I wasn't complaining. We said something about our friend's kiss, and, with a little bravery from the vodka still in her system, she said something about kissing me. "Go on then", I said. So she did. 

You can imagine how tender that night felt - everything that I had been suppressing suddenly felt good, felt nice. Felt safe. It was six months ago now, and the heartbreak that followed it almost entirely ruined that relationship for me. But really, I don't have to dive too deep to find those beautiful memories we shared that night. I remember, after who knows how long of passionate kissing, quiet not to wake our friend up, that I looked deep into her eyes and asked her if she was sober. "Yes", she whispered. "Me too." I continued staring into her eyes; I couldn't drag mine away from hers. It all felt so incredible. And then I kissed her again, and she kissed me. And I would have been happy to stay in that moment for ever, and I sometimes still wish that I could go back to that night. I used to replay it over and over and over again.

The months that followed were the epitome of queer joy. We went on countless dates, made every excuse to hang out with one another. She knew everything about me, and me everything about her. She gave me hickeys so tender they hardly even felt like bruises, instead the embodiment of love and understanding.  It was more than just romantic - I felt genuinely safe and accepted. It didn't matter who knew or didn't know about us, all I wanted was to be with her. They were the best months of my life.

And then it all went downhill. A family drama on her side. A sudden fear of being discovered on mine. It caused tension over the relationship, to the point that even our acquaintances who didn't explicitly know about our relationship knew that something was wrong. Eventually she broke it off. We didn't speak much over the next few weeks. In contrast to the anger I felt over my ex boyfriend, I just felt numb thinking of her. Still, I plastered on a smile and kept my head up high. I didn't want my family to notice. 

But like magnets we slowly came back to each other. This girl seemed to enjoy micro dosing me heartbreak. Because as I managed to get over the pain, she decided it would be a good idea to tell me she missed me. She wants me back. She wants to hang out with me. She's sorry for ruining it. She'll sing my favourite songs while I drive us around beautiful country lanes. And the next day, she didn't mean it. She likes me but not that much. She doesn't want to ruin the friendship. She's going to chat shit about me to all of her friends. Ouch. 

But as I do and always have done, I forgave her and let her walk all over me. I'd tell she hurt me then she'd kiss me at a party. I'd tell her that upset me and she'd do it at another. A painful cycle of forgiveness and mistrust, which was, ironically, broken by her. I won't get too into the details, but it ended up with her pulling my hair and pushing me on a night out, and us screaming that we hated each other. Not the best night ever.

It's been just over a month since then, and we don't speak at all now. I cut all contact with her, ignored her whiny" "please can we talk", "please I miss you" messages, and try my best to avoid her at college. But despite all the heartbreak, at least she confirmed something within me - I am a homosexual. 

To this day, over 6 years since my first awakening, I still struggle with comphet and internalised homophobia, often asking myself "are you sure you're not just pretending?" That's why I wrote this blog. The past few days have been particularly tough, and I'm afraid of losing myself again. Those few "straight" teenage years that I lived were fine but they weren't me. I don't want to live my life like that. If queer love makes me feel so deeply, both hurt and joy, then that is what I want, and that is who I am. And I am determined not to forget it again. 

Thank you so much if you read all of that, and I hope that it resonates with you and makes you feel less alone. Happy pride, queers. Even if you can't feel it yet, as I can't, try your best to be proud of who you are. You are valid, you are beautiful, and you are loved. 

Madeliefx x