ask me how I am and I'll scream

I'd always said rather gay things like, "Of course boys like sex better than girls do, THEY get to have sex with GIRLS." And, "Everyone knows girls are just objectively more attractive than boys." But I met a bisexual girl, as one does, and things clicked.

I figured that must be what I was: bisexual. I had a boyfriend, and I was attracted to girls. (Do you see the hole in my logic? It would take me 13 more years to see it myself.) I wanted to be with a girl so badly. But I had a boyfriend who had done absolutely nothing wrong, and I did want to get married and have kids one day. I'd always wanted a family.

I went away for the weekend with this boy and his friends. I got drunk and we played the game of Life. My drunken little self yearned, so badly. When I landed on the marriage space, I picked up a pink peg. I held it so only my boyfriend could see and I asked him with my eyes: pleeease?? Can I get gay married in this board game?? He shook his head "no." So I put a little blue peg in my car and tried not to cry. I didn't want to embarrass him in front of his friends.

Later that weekend, one of the guys in our group got all angry and toxic-masculinity about a problem with a boat. One of the other guys immediately started to appease him. My boyfriend and I made eye contact and he made a face like -_- at me. I decided yes, this. This is the boy I want to marry. Having been explicitly told one day prior that I was not allowed to marry a girl, not even in a board game, I looked around at my options and he was it. And I still stand by that! If I had to marry a boy, he is the best of all the boys I've known.

I kept my desires, my deepest wishes, buried in a closet of shame for years. I didn't want to embarrass anyone. I didn't want to hurt anybody. My thoughts and feelings were shameful and they were wrong. When I expressed them, I made people I loved sad and insecure. They weren't okay.

Over two years ago now, my girlfriend told me that those thoughts and feelings were right, and they were beautiful. That I am right, and I am beautiful. It took until I was 40 years old to start to understand this. Shame comes from sources we may not realize at the time. It comes when every time we express something about ourselves, we're told, with or without words, that it's not okay. Well, it is okay. I'm okay. You're okay.