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So. Earlier today one of the so-called gang came in my room and started completely pouring her heart out to me. All about how she's been going out with her boyfriend from home for five years and she loves him and wants to marry him but she met this guy here and... you know. The whole story. I knew most of it already, but still. The point.
She wanted my advice. Why she would think I'm the one to come to for advice, I don't know. Maybe because she thinks I'm the only person she can talk to who won't tell everyone else in the building within a day. (It's true- if you tell me something, that's it, it's just me, and I can't stand it when people tell me things that other people don't want me to know. If they don't want me to know, I don't want to know.) But that's not the point. She wanted my advice, and I tried. I started my whole spiel about when I fell in love when I was 13, I thought it was forever and if anybody had ever told me any differently I would not have believed them. I didn't believe them. And how I was heartbroken when it ended, and how I'm still not totally recovered, but now I think I really needed that to happen. And then I lied. I said, "I didn't know who I was without him, and I needed to figure that out." And I am so mad at myself. I have been deluding myself for months now, that if they ever asked I'd tell them. Have they scientifically proven yet that "don't ask don't tell" doesn't work? They should because I don't think it's possible. I always told myself that I didn't lie about it, I just didn't volunteer that information. Only now I have. I changed the pronouns, and I promised I'd never change the pronouns. The whole conversation was just awful. Besides the fact that I just about told her "I had always been "sarahandemily"" (uh, that's j.a. to you and it just doesn't work with pseudonyms and who really cares anyway?) I didn't tell her. I didn't say it. She has no idea and I hate myself for that. Why couldn't I have just said "She"? Because it's so much harder now. If I had just said it maybe it wouldn't've been that big a deal. (yeah, right.) Maybe it would've been sorta okay, though. Now... The thing is, I don't even want to be out as a lesbian. If I come out, I think I need it to be as bi, because I just don't know where I'm going right now. But if I'm not even comfortable calling myself that, how can I be comfortable with them calling me bi? The thing is, even if I had said "she" and even if she had just accepted it, it still would've been a bad conversation. I can think that it's all for the best. I even believe most of the time. But I cannot say it. Because saying "it's better this way" somehow undermines everything we went through to avoid saying that. Yes, I believe it. At that point in my life, I really needed to find out who I was without her and the only way to do that was- without her. I needed it to happen, even though it ranks right up there on the "Painful things Sarah has gone through list" (I will admit, though, it's not the top. I'm not sure what is, but I know that that's not it.) I think my mistake was in saying anything at all. I should've just said "You're talking to the wrong person" and left it at that. Because saying outloud "I didn't know who I was without him" was probably one of the most painful things I have ever done to myself. (okay, so there are others further up there- this one happened 20 minutes ago, it makes it harder to remember those.) I realized what I was doing in the middle of the sentence, and I didn't stop. Why is it so hard to admit that the only really intimate relationship I have had- the only really intimate relationship I have ever wanted- was with a girl? (I can say girl, we were 13, 14, 15, remember?) Really, what would happen if she came in here, saw me crying, asked what's wrong, and I told her? What would happen if I said "it was a girl" (and then explained to the baffled look on her face?) This is college, can it really be as bad as 9th grade? I think it can. I don't know if I ever told that story on here, and I know if I did it's been a while. I came out in 9th grade. It was the stupidest thing I've ever done. (I've done a lot of stupid things. There's a list in my brain of Stupid Things Sarah Has Done. #1 is coming out in 9th grade.) I shouldn't've done it. It was all me, too. I pretended for a while that it was as much her idea as mine, but I never believed myself. I talked her into, she knew what was coming. How it was I didn't know it is beyond me now, but I had no idea it would be that bad. The whole school knew within a couple days. emily didn't get it too bad, since she was quiet and she didn't argue. I got threatened, spit on, propositioned, harassed, and generally wore down. I wasn't expecting it. I was 14 and I was optimistic and idealistic (and I don't think that's redundant.) I didn't know what I was getting myself into. I think I could've dealt with all the kids hating me- they'd never cared for me much anyway. Then the teachers started hating me. I was 14, and very much convinced that teachers shouldn't take sides, and even more convinced that they wouldn't. They did. It was a small school, I think there were just over 100 people in the ninth grade when I was there and I know there will be less when that class graduates this year. The French teacher we had in eighth grade definitely had a problem with the whole thing. Walking down the hall, she'd walk right past someone who wasn't supposed to be there, and yell at me, even though I had a pass. (I always had a pass.) Once, em and I were working in in the auditorium (by ourselves) and that's where we were supposed to be for this independent study project. We weren't really working, though, we were kind of goofing around a little (it was 3rd period, I think, and there was no one supervising us and we were 14- who would've expected us to just work?) but it wasn't anything "normal" best friends wouldn't've done. We were just talking and giggling. (..i think that's the last time I ever really giggled. it was the last time I was alone with her...) and that (same) teacher burst in yelling "What are you two doing?!?!?" like we were committing a felony. The next week (the class we were doing the independent study for was only once a week.) told us she had orders from the principal that the two of us were never to be alone together. (really, what did they think they were preventing?) So we weren't. em's mom was on some kind of special ed board of directors or parent teacher thing or something. The teachers knew her. that same teacher called her up and informed her of what "Sarah is doing to your daughter" (it was never mutual, with teachers. Not with anyone else either, really. Is it really that impossible to believe that the quiet girl in the back of the room could've made a mutual decision with the one who was (equally shy) but not-so-scared? I know that's how it happened. I know what happened and I know it was at least as much her as me. (in terms of sex... I was a lot more scared than she was.) but nobody believed that. They all believed I seduced her and I still have not been able to figure out why.) anyhow, after that teacher told her mom what was going on... that was basically the end of it. her dad yelled at her for shaming the entire family, her parents went in and tried to get the principal to change my schedule (I never got over that- what made them think they had the right to change my schedule?) ...they couldn't change my schedule so they changed hers. We didn't do anything together but band (which they couldn't make me drop and I guess they at least recognized that it would've completely broken emily to make her drop it. they would've lost her right then and there.) We never talked, we never knew who the spies were, we were totally paranoid and had every right to be. But she didn't fight it. She didn't argue, she didn't talk back. She never had before, I don't know what made me think she would when it came to us. I guess I thought we were more important than the other things her parents had fucked up. yes, I'm bitter. I've never understood not fighting. I mean, when someone does something to you that is completely and totally wrong, how do you sit there and take it? How can you accept and truly believe "I have no control over it"? How can you believe that without ever even trying? It is beyond me. I left school not long after that. The thing about emily, is for as much as she let people take advantage of her, she had a much thicker skin than me. She could somehow handle everything that happened to her without letting it really hurt her. Maybe it come from having brothers. I could not do that. I still can't, and I doubt I'll ever be able to. I take everything personally and the slightest thing can sometimes be enough to make me shut down. Everything combined together (hating school in general and then coming out and hating everybody in in the school too) ...that was too much for me. I never could just play along. Yeah. So. that's why I don't want to tell anybody. I have had bad experiences coming out. and I am too scared to try again. and I think that's dumb, I think I need to get over it and try again. and I realize that this entry lost any and all sense of cohesiveness quite a ways back. I did have a sense of where I was going and then I lost it. Remind me never to write a serious entry before everybody else has gone to bed. It's midnight, but I've had three visitors in the past 20 minutes and it really makes it difficult to keep the train of thought going. I think i'd better just quit now before this entry loses any sense of effectiveness it had at the beginning. Really, I wrote this because I felt terrible about saying "I didn't know who I was without him" (and yet I can't stop typing it) and the longer I sit here trying to make sense of why I felt terrible the less terrible I feel. And I don't even like that. I want to feel terrible. My mind is telling me that I should feel terrible. It's saying that lying about something that important is awful and that even saying it at all ruins the whole "elsewhere" thing and I guess that part of me is saying there must still be some of it there to ruin. (archives, people. there's an entry called "elsewhere" it might actually help.) ...the thing is there is this other part of me in there saying that it's stupid to feel bad about it (and the parts of me call each other stupid a lot.) and that part's saying that I did what she asked. She asked for advice she didn't ask to learn more than she wanted to know. And that part has no doubt that the real gender of my ex-lover was way more than she wanted to know. I gave her advice (okay, so it wasn't very cohesive since I kept pausing before every sentence to make sure it came out right, but I doubt she even noticed. I'm the one who notices these things.) have we learned yet that Sarah is in a self-critical kinda mood (which is not at all unusual, believe me.) and besides that, there's an Urban Governments quiz tomorrow she hasn't even begun studying for and I just really need to go. |
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