#gray-pan

Shitt. I don't want you to actually touch me because I am not at that level with you and I have lots of levels but damn I wish I was at that level because I just want you to come hold me and play with my hair.

Sometimes I really struggle to understand why I've reacted so inconsistently to things in my life. When everything was broken with him, I felt like I didn't have a reason to be so broken. Even though he said those sweet things that sounded like promises and smiled at me like I created joy or something, we never really invested in each other. We were never vulnerable to each other, never close and honest. So when he left and I was broken and in love with him, I spent all of my time feeling invalid so I hung onto being in love with him as some sort of proof that we had been a real thing. When she shattered everything, it gave me a shitload of other problems, clearly, but I never considered the idea that it might have just been me in love. I knew, I believed, with every bit of me, that she had loved me. You don't hold someone through long, broken nights like that and not love them. So I don't ever sit and wonder if I'm crazy to think she could have loved me because she could. And oh, she did. It's not really that weird that I reacted to him like I would never love again. Like he was it and it felt real, even though the whole world could, and frequently did, argue that it wasn't. And when he walked away, all I had to hold onto were feelings and a few words that didn't run deeply enough. And it's not weird that I didn't feel the need to convince myself that she loved me. We had a relationship that was built off of broken dreams and promises and hugs and late night kisses and panic attacks and denial and hallmark movies and crazy families and everything that ran deeper than anything I had ever felt. My relationship with her was complicated. Denial is complicated and stressful. I feel sad for her, sometimes. She played the role of a girlfriend in a lot of ways, but she shoved that back a lot of times because we were "just friends" and my "just friend" held me through every time I cried over him and encouraged me when I was interested in anyone else. I know that must have been hell. It makes me sad that I put her through that. She knew, firsthand, what broken looked like on me because she spent so much time cleaning me up when someone shattered me. Also, in a very clear way, clinging to him was like clinging to my straightness. You see, she and I were very, very deep in the closet. Maybe she wasn't as much as I was. I don't know anymore. But we told each other, many tines, that we weren't gay. We were just special to each other and closer than two people had ever been before. And that even heart-deep in kisses and pussy, we were totally straight. It hurt us both a lot. I know it hurt me. I clung to him to prove I was interested in men. That I had really loved one. That I couldn't be gay because hello, male love interest. Just FYI, that's not really how it works. And shit, it makes me cringe to look back at it. God, she was incredible for enduring all of that. For spending all night with me and then hearing me say I missed him. It was pretty fucked up. I guess there are a thousand ways to say you're sorry about something, but I've never been humble enough to learn them. I wish I could fix all of the broken things sometimes. And I wish I could tell her that I've been figuring it out. Figuring me out. And I don't regret anything but I do want to apologize for everything that hurt because some of it I'm starting to understand. I wish I could apologize without it sounding like I want her back. They're not the same or tied together or anything like that. I don't want to fix our past to create our future, I just want to heal the wounds. Anyway, the way I muddle through life is complicated. And gay, for me, was very complicated.

I felt so alone. Even though I was less alone than I had ever been, even though I knew you were there and you loved me, even though I lost track of who I was separate from you, even when I’d never felt safer or more loved or happier, I felt so alone. I felt more alone than I had ever felt because I wasn’t alone at all and I didn’t know how to make sense of it. You were my best friend. But I also wanted to fuck you. And hold you. Kiss you gently. Kiss you hard. Spend the rest of my life with you. Spend every night with you. Spend every morning with you. Sleeping next to you, just knowing you were there, I slept so soundly. But you were just my best friend. That’s all I could label it, even when we played too hot, even when we tried the spider-man kiss, even when you shoved me against a wall and smiled because we were risking getting caught and it felt so dangerous and perfect. You were just my best friend. I spent nights, days, insurmountable amounts of time wondering if anyone else in the world could ever have possibly experienced what I was dealing with. I had myself 97.23% convinced that I was 100% straight, that you were just special and nobody would ever understand that but it didn’t matter as long as I didn’t lose you. It took me until a few months after I left home to realize that you don’t think about raising a kid with your best friend and a few weeks after she left for the thought to crash into my pelvic bone that you don’t dream of receiving her at your wedding with her converse on if you aren’t in love with her. I was in love with her. I was in denial so hard for almost three years that I was anything but straight. I even said she was my everything, she was more than my best friend, that I would love her, that we would have forever and always, that nothing could break us and holy hells how she made me “wanty” (that’s the word we substituted for horny. shuddup.) but never that I was in love with her. That was terrifying. And she said the same. She said she was straight. She went into panicked fits when I suggested she might not be. I should have known. I would have if I hadn’t been in my own denial. Those fits were the same as the ones she had when she denied her eating disorder. Her eyes would glass over and get big, she’d say the same thing over and over, and I’d have to whisper that I believed her and remind her to breathe. I should have known. I sort of did, but I didn’t acknowledge it. Not at a level that I could comprehend. Denial was a huge part of a lot of things that went wrong in my first same-sex relationship. I felt like nobody could possibly feel the way I felt. Nobody would believe me. Nobody would believe that she was my best friend and I wanted to kiss her. Those things weren’t supposed to go together. My denial had me feeling so alone. But I couldn’t imagine what alone would feel like if I said I wanted to marry her someday. If I said I was in love with her and I wanted to stay in love with her forever. I was sure she’d leave. Sure she wouldn’t want that. Sure she’d be hurt. Sure I’d lose her. Not only would I lose her, I’d lose my family. I would have been more alone than my most alone if I had been able to be honest which was part of why I couldn’t, wasn’t able. I remember being sprawled in my bed, motionless, staring at my ceiling, tears caught in my throat, knowing there was no way anyone had ever felt the way I was feeling. It wasn’t possible. It was too absurd. Nobody would believe me. I was so alone. It’s incredible to extend into the “not-straight” community and learn, hear people’s stories, absorb. I’ve learned that I wasn’t so alone. That I’m not alone. That I will never be alone. Even though my experiences are unique to me, there is always someone out there who doesn’t think I’m crazy, who knows that how I feel is legitimate. I have learned a lot of things about myself in the last year, but accepting the things I already knew has been the scariest, most freeing thing I’ve done for myself. Ever.