Worldly Chatter

There are days where you go back in time to remember something you went through, something that you thought at the time was uniquely yours. Today was such a day heading back to the time of my struggles, the issues I clung to secretly thinking that I was the only one who bore their weight. I was only a teenager when I struggled with my own sexual identity. I hated myself, tossed around the concept of bisexuality to “fix” the thing that was wrong with me. I went through school believing I was the only one with such troubles and I carried them around secretly, never even letting my closest friends know how much of a struggle being gay was to me. I still play down high school and the everyday dramas I experienced. It was not until I sat with a person who is struggling just as I was, talked so openly, and asked such hard questions in hopes of having the answers solve everything for her.

I grew up in NY and dealt with the reality that I was gay; I was different and had the whole school know it. I walked through the halls as best I could but knew that the silent stares hated that I was different, that I walked among them and dared to take in the same air as they did. I got the silly questions such as, what is it like to kiss a girl, is it that different. Men wanted to watch and girls were repulsed and threatened, uncomfortable and conscious of my very existence wherever I went. I received the statement that I chose this and it is my own doing that I suffer so. I had parents who struggled with it and siblings who had to walk in my shadow and bare the same name that now meant lesbian in the eyes of the classmates of the school we shared. The ridicule and hatred that I experienced I never wish upon anyone. Being told by the very teachers and staff meant to protect and guide you threw me in a tiny room to eat lunch alone because it made the rest of the students uncomfortable. Teachers who looked at you with a peculiar glare students who loved you for being brave or hated you for going against the grain and tainting their school. I tried desperately to fit in despite the fact that I found women appealing. I dated boys to blend despite my own revulsion and discomfort to appease people around me and to make myself unnoticed. It never worked. It all went to shit and I was the girl who was gay, I was the girl who stood out in the crowd and paid dearly for it. Did anyone notice? Did anyone care that I hated myself for being different? Did anyone care that I beat myself up for the sorrow, pain and drama I caused those I loved most? Probably not, I was simply the girl who was gay and made my sibling suffer, my parents question and friends squirm and throw rocks and comments my way.

That is what I was in school and trying to make a life outside of school in the real world is never an easy one, gay or straight, but definitely tough when you accept who you are and feel that no one else can. You chose things in life that are not necessarily good for you and settle into a life that feels all wrong. People still glared, still made their comments and felt uncomfortable in your presence. Being gay in America is a bitch and I thought that once I left America it would get better, it would somehow be different.

Here I sit in front a Dutch woman who is in agony, in a fight with herself over her demons and sexuality. She is gay but does not want to be gay, does not want to admit it and would rather suffer in a relationship she runs from rather than accept it. Here is a Dutch woman who is afraid to be gay to her family and friends for what they say or what they might do. Will they reject her or still love her just the same? Those very same questions I tossed in my own head. What does it mean to be different? What does it mean to be gay and throw away any form of normalcy that you once knew? Ah, it all comes back to me! Yet here is Holland, Amsterdam being the home of one of the biggest gay prides. This is Holland, the first country to allow gay rights and gay marriage! She struggles just as I did.

When I walk the streets with Dutchie, we hold hands, giggle and even give a little kiss now and then in public. No one turns his or her heads and glares. No one comments or tosses anything our way. The atmosphere is greatly different from that of America and you feel it and see it the moment you step out into the streets. It is so different and you can actually take a deep breath and feel that it is ok to be you. You can easily forget that there is hatred and a high level of fear and discomfort towards gays here.

When I watched her in tears and hold onto Dutchie for any sense of direction, it broke my heart! It also reminded me that it does not matter where you are, it does not matter if you are in the heart of America and homophobia or in the middle of Amsterdam where it is perfectly acceptable to marry; there is still the pain and anguish of being different. It simply does not matter; you are still battling the fear of your own self-hatred and the disapproval of others. In the heart of homophobia or in the middle of acceptance, those same struggles of being gay are there and I guess it was a revelation, a reminder that we all struggle to be gay whether others know it or not or where.

gay and lesbian, worldly chatter, homophobia, acceptance, glbt life