My Truth

I have no idea when I’m going to post this…Probably tomorrow, knowing me. Regardless, it’s Good Friday and I’m feeling all the emotions right now, sad, joyful, scared, nervous, happy etc.
The past two years have been insane, I didn’t think that so much could happen in two years. I’ve lost people, physically and spiritually. I lost my uncle unexpectedly, my mental health went down the toilet, went to therapy, lost thirty pounds, drama with my church, left the church, started going to college. I know that all seems simple to read but it was so much to experience and mentally process. I didn’t know how to deal with all that was being thrown at me because it felt like there was something new every single day. I didn’t know what to do so I did the first thing that came to my mind, I wrote about it. I wrote about every shitty, happy, sad and in-between moments. I know that I’m ridiculously honest on the blog but you have no idea how honest I can be in my journals. I have so many secrets and to be honest I probably will share most of them before I die. I don’t understand why people would want to take anything to the grave.

There is one secret that I never thought that I would able share or even understand. I don’t even know how to share it without just saying it.

I’m gay.

My heart is pounding a thousand miles an hour and I don’t know why I’m telling everyone this. I don’t know why I’m bearing my soul and sharing my story, I guess because I desperately needed that. I needed someone to tell me that everything is going to be okay and actually have it happen to them.

Here’s my story…

I think I’ve always been different, I guess everyone would like to believe that. I was a quiet/thoughtful girl that was born into a loud family, that was my first sign. I was the introverted kid that nobody would know what to do with. You didn’t know if I was sad or happy, I sat in chairs and stared out windows and just thought about everything under the sun while people partied or played with toys. It didn’t take me very long to realize that this wasn’t normal. People would stare at me or ask how I could possibly be my brother’s sister. When you’re a kid though, you don’t care about what other people think about you, you’re just this adorable little kid. Then you grow up and you have to be a certain way and most specifically you have to know who you are.
I had no idea who I was, just because I stare out of windows and think doesn’t mean I know a thing about myself. Of course, there were some things that I knew about myself and the rest was just gray area. One of those gray areas was my sexual orientation. I grew up being ‘attracted to guys’ because I had to…there wasn’t another option. I had no idea what attraction even was and I pretended to. I would write letters to my ‘future husband’ and it felt forced and weird. I just assumed it was the same for everyone else.

It wasn’t until freshman year that I kind of came to terms with who I was. Even then there was still denial because I would always write about how gay people were wrong and sinners. I didn’t know why it bothered me so much. I started texting a friend and asked her,

“What’s so wrong about gay people?”

“They’re trying to take marriage and make it sinful,” she answered.

This was 2012 when gay marriage was about to become legal in California.

That was good enough answer for me at the time…I mean it was an arguable point…not a good one, but still. So I took that point and ran with it and that’s what I started to write about in all of my journals. Not once did I ask myself if I was gay that year because I was in a pool of denial, I’m surprised I didn’t drown in that pool.

I didn’t even begin to acknowledge the fact that I could be somewhat gay until I was 16 and even then I pushed it away. It wasn’t until senior year that I finally came out to myself. At first I came out as bisexual, that felt comfortable. I wasn’t ignoring the fact that I liked girls but I also wasn’t straight. I started telling people about a week after coming out to myself. I came out to the people that I knew would be there…my people and those people showed up. I can’t even begin to tell you how much Fiona and I talked about it in my car. I was loved, I was somewhat safe. I could keep it a secret from everyone else. I poured my heart out in my journals but what I wanted most was for people to know. At the same time I was struggling with my faith. I had so many questions for God and no answers. Did he love me less because I wasn’t straight? Did he really only make straight people? If being gay is a sin how can Jesus forgive me for a sin that I am not actively trying to change? There were days where I would scream at God and then other days I would beg for him to hold me. I told him that if he wanted me to change I would do whatever it would take.

I never got an answer though.

Even if God did answer me, how would I know? What if it was me? What if I was getting in the way of God? I wanted to be right more than anything. I just wanted to be right with God. I was lost, vulnerable and scared. There were so many questions that I wanted answers to and I wasn’t going to get them. I couldn’t accept that. I couldn’t sleep at all, I would wake up in the middle of the night, sweating. I couldn’t pay attention in school. I couldn’t stomach the thought of God not being able to love me or send me to hell for being gay. I was changing and therefore my life was changing and I hated it.

My biggest problem was the church. What would they do? Would they kick me out? Would they accept me? No, I knew that much. I wouldn’t be able to get married in my church, baptize my children or be a normal family. I knew there would be whispers, gossip and opinions. Yet, I still went to church every Sunday. I was the youth president and the youth was in a shaky place. It wasn’t until right before our youth retreat that I couldn’t handle it anymore. I texted my youth leader one night and asked her if we could talk on Sunday. It was that Sunday that we sat in the basement of a church that used to feel like home, now it felt empty. I immediately started to cry and I couldn’t speak. Melissa grabbed my hand and waited for me to be able to say something.

“I’m bisexual,” I choke out.

“Oh thank God,” she breathed. “I thought you were going to tell me that you were going to kill yourself.”

She immediately hugged me and told me that she loved me. It was obvious that she didn’t completely understand it but that hug was all I needed. That hug said, ‘I don’t know all the answers but I’ll love you anyway.’ After that Melissa immediately became a mother figure in my life. She nurtured me, taught me about God and life and most importantly she loved me. Once again, I was okay. Someone in the church knew and she was okay with it, as long as Melissa was there I knew that I would be okay.

Then drama ensued and hell broke loose. It was on the youth retreat that Melissa told me the truth about what was happening behind closed doors. The youth group was changing and I knew that it was potentially for the worst. They had gone behind our backs.

“Are you okay?” She touched my shoulder.

“Yes,” I look down as my bottom lip began to quiver.

“No you’re not,” she pulled me into a hug.

I lost it, I completely lost it. Once again I was sobbing in her arms and she let me. It wasn’t until after the trip that I knew Melissa wouldn’t be coming back. I can’t even begin to tell you how much that stung. When Melissa left, it was like she took my secret and safety with her. I couldn’t blame her for leaving though, I probably would have done the same thing. It wasn’t shortly after that I almost left the youth group. Out of nowhere they started picking new people for ‘office’, meaning I wasn’t the youth president anymore. I should have seen it coming but I didn’t want to. I knew that I had different views than most of the people in my church but I didn’t know how bad. It was my job to be there for the youth group but it wasn’t my job to pretend to be happy with the choices the church made. I sat in youth group and stared at a bright piece of cardboard that asked, “What should a Youth President be like?” All of it was a slap to the face, everything that was listed was something I wasn’t. I stared at my hands and at the floor and tried to hold it together. I remember walking up those stairs and telling my friend Cole that I was going home, while everyone was staring. I didn’t even make it to my car before I started to cry.

I wasn’t loved.

They didn’t care about me.
They wouldn’t continue to love me until I changed.
God was doing this, God is mad at me for being bi and, he was going to take something away from me.

It seemed like reasonable logic at the time. I told myself that I was never going back until I got a message from my other youth leader, Blair. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I respect that man, he asked me to come back and I couldn’t ignore that. I went back and I kept going back. I wouldn’t end up leaving until the end of the summer. That summer was hard, really hard. I was confused with everything. I didn’t know if I was bi or gay. One night I was sick of it and just told myself that I was gay, I would figure it out later. All I knew was that I wasn’t straight and I just wanted a church to love me as I was. I thought when I left that I would be able to breathe and be okay. Swag and I started to go to Lifehouse and I felt like God wanted me there. I started attending a group there and was going to church every Sunday. I didn’t feel okay though, I was raw and hurt. I started to put up a wall and I wasn’t letting many people climb over that wall to be with me. I didn’t know if I could trust Lifehouse and, what if I couldn’t? I would be a ground zero again. One night, I emailed the pastor and told him that I’m gay and what the church’s stance was. He sent me back a long email with a sermon he did about gay marriage and his stance. In short: he didn’t support it. It was a respectful email but it was still a no.

“I’m done God,” I say. “I’m done with church.”

“Okay,” he tells me. “Just don’t leave me.”

“This is going to get worse, isn’t it?”

“I have a plan.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

After I left my childhood church, no one texted or called, no one asked my family where I was. It was almost as if I had never gone there in the first place. At the same time my family didn’t understand why I wasn’t going back. They didn’t understand why I wasn’t going to church period.
I couldn’t tell them. My biggest fear was that I would tell them and they would tell me to pack my stuff and leave. My anger began to turn into bitterness and I wouldn’t be able to heal until I came out and I knew that wasn’t in the foreseeable future. I was playing the waiting game and I didn’t want to play. I was angry with my family and began to distance myself from them and they didn’t understand. By that time everyone had left for college and I was lonely and upset. I couldn’t let anyone into my mess because I didn’t know if they could handle it. I was slipping into a deeper and deeper depression, I was having panic attacks and crying almost every day. I was right, it did get worse. I started yelling at God more because I knew that God was the only one who could handle it. There was a small part of me that knew God would always be there and that God would always love me.

“Things will get better,” I tell myself. “They have to get better.”

Then the election happened.

I knew Trump would win, I will never forget the night of the election. I sat on my bed with my laptop and Parks and Rec on the TV. I was watching the entire time, I wasn’t able to sleep. I watched as each state turned red instead of blue. I started bawling when he got Florida. I called Fiona, she was the one person I knew would answer.

“He’s going to win,” I tell her.

“You don’t know that, she could still get Pennsylvania.”

“He’s going to win.”

He did win.

It felt like the biggest nightmare of my life. Trump and Pence were going to be running our country. Pence, the guy who supports conversion therapy, The guy who will vote against me and the LGBT community every single time. The next day was absolutely hell, I knew who my family had voted for, they told me a few times. There’s currently a Trump sticker on my brother’s door and a Hillary Clinton quote poster in mine.

“80% of Christians voted for Trump,” my mom tells me.

“Where did you get that fact? Fox news?” I ask in my head.

My blood starts to boil and I know I will explode if I don’t leave the room. Then I realize, Trump’s decisions won’t affect her, my father, or my brother. They’re straight, white, and Christian, they’re safe. I want to scream at them that Trump’s decisions will affect me and my future. I don’t think that I talked to my family for a few days. I realized that I was in this on my own, I wouldn’t have my family’s support. It wasn’t republican vs. democrat, it was so much more than that. The election put a line in the sand.

Misogyny, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia etc. is real and we can’t ignore it anymore. The election was another a punch and a sign that nothing was going to get better. Nothing.

“I’m never coming out,” I tell myself. “It’s not safe.”

Fast forward to April 9, 2017…

My mother and I are in the car, driving home from Walmart. My heart starts to pound against my chest.

“I’m not ready,” I tell my heart.

“You are,” God tells me. “Don’t be afraid, I am with you.”

I start to reject it and then it comes out…

“Mom, I’m gay.”

Time just stops, my legs are wobbly, my heart is pounding in my ears, my hands grip the steering wheel.

“What?” she asks
.
“I’m gay,” I say again.

Then I realize, she has no idea. You know how some parents just know they have a gay kid? Mine didn’t.

“Why do you think you’re gay? You don’t like men?”

Oh my god, she’s asking questions. Why God? You didn’t prepare me for that part.

“You can’t be gay, you’ve never even been with a guy.”

I have a rebuke for everything she says to me but I can’t say any of it, I’m shocked. What just happened?

“You don’t want to get married? You don’t want to have kids?”

‘I can do both of those things,’ I think. Then I realize that she thinks that I won’t do either of those things if I’m not with a man.

“I don’t get it,” she sighs. “This wasn’t God’s plan for you.”

She doesn’t realize how much God and I talk. She doesn’t know that God just told me to tell her.
When we get home I don’t know what to do. I want to run and scream to the world that I’m gay. I text Sid and Fiona and tell them to call me as soon as possible. In the meantime I ran around the house with Colt, we literally ran around the house. After a few minutes of doing that I went back inside and went to my room. Sid ends up to be the first one to call me. I can barely breathe when he calls me, I’m laying on my bed, trying to catch my breath

“I told her,” I say in almost a whisper.

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah.”

“You did it.”

Then it hits me once again, I came out. It’s relieving and terrifying all at the same time.
I don’t know what’s going to happen, In fact I couldn’t be more clueless about what the future holds. I am still as vulnerable and raw as I was a few months ago, I just became more tough. This Good Friday is different than any of the others I’ve experienced. This one actually feels like Good Friday. I don’t know why we don’t paint Christianity as it actually was. Everyone seems so content to just skip to the resurrection. Good Friday was essential to the resurrection. Yes, it was full of pain and confusion. Peter lied about knowing Jesus, Judas betrayed Jesus for money and then committed suicide, Pontius Pilate ordered the son of God to be beaten and hung on a cross, Mary had to watch her son die a painful death, Jesus died and it seemed like evil had won. Yes, it’s not exactly a pretty picture but why skip over it? It’s an essential part of the story, without Friday there would be no Sunday.  Jesus knew that Sunday was coming but nobody else did.
I’m still in the middle of Good Friday and that’s okay.

God is with me and that’s what makes Good Friday bearable. I feel like I have made my peace with God. I know that God knitted me in my mother’s womb, I am made in the image of God and God makes no mistakes. Again, I don’t know what my future is, I don’t know. I know that this is just the beginning of a long road. I know that there is a lot to learn and experience. Through all of it though, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Being a gay Christian has made me a better and more compassionate person. Does it change almost everything about me? Yes. Did that scare the hell out of me? Yes. I am not the same girl or Christian. I couldn’t just walk back into my old church and join the congregation again. Would that be nice? Yes, it would. I’m glad it isn’t though, I can’t be a typical Christian anymore, I can’t own that title, I don’t want to. I want to help my religion get better, isn’t that what we should all do for our religion? Make it better? I guess in my case it would be to make it more tolerant. Maybe that’s my future or God’s plan.
God only knows, but I know Sunday is coming

Love wins.

DFTBA

-AB