FEMMEliciousness

Dear diary,

I’m bubbling with excitement today. My girl had a big birthday this past Wednesday. She turned 40. That is enough to be excited about. We are now in our 40’s together. I feel like I waited forever for that although it’s only been a year and a half wait. But. On a birthday on a Wednesday is just dumb. Big birthdays should be on Saturdays!

I’ve planned a big day for her today. A treasure hunt. A clue for each step of the way, having a friend show up and take her to each location. A gift of alone time with her and each friend. Coffee, lunch, a massage, back home for a bath and cocktails…..all leading up to a birthday party with her closest friends and watch the playoff game. I got to incorporate football into her birthday! Her favorite! Aren’t I the best?

She is the best. So loving and sweet to me. She deserves a day about her. She is usually the one giving and giving and giving.

I’ve waited for this girl, my entire life. I am so grateful to have her.

I decided this year that I’m not gonna. I’m not gonna stress. I’m not driving all over town shopping. I’m not gonna participate in the crazy.

I’m not saying I’m not celebrating. We will have the two older kids over. The youngest two are out of the country for the first time this holiday. Ok. That causes its own stress. I miss them.

A few things have fallen into place to lower the holiday stress for me. My wonderful, thoughtful fiancé hopped online early and got the majority of the gifts for the kids. She and I do not exchange gifts. Which is a gift in of itself.

Here’s the kicker. The money shot. My family disowned me early in the year because I’m gay. Who knew that would make for a much less stressful holiday? Not me!

I wondered a few days a go if I was in denial about missing my family. Uh. Nope. Memories of past holidays pulsed through me. I wasn’t out. I was hiding myself from them. It was so much harder in hindsight than I thought it was at the time.

I feel free. Free to be with the one I love. Free to be me. Free from the crazy.

I ran across this today. See the full article here. I had to go and check out this PFOX group. Parents and Friends of Ex-gays and gays. Wonderful. (read with sarcasm)  You know, what? Good for them. IF we are talking about consenting  adults. BUT we are not. This is a direct result of the bill ( HB 1135) that is about to go to the General Assembly in Virginia. To ban gay therapy on minors. This is an attempt to gain support to stop this bill. California and New Jersey have already passed such bills.

This kind of shit just stumps me. The fact that we need a bill like this. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has already condemned such therapy, finding it abusive and stating that homosexuality is not a mental disorder. And ironically, they are headquartered in Virginia.

This gay therapy includes weekly sessions for several years. I, personally think that is overkill, can’t you just turn the impressionable in a shorter amount of time? (more sarcasm)  I had to look around to see what methods are used in this therapy and didn’t have to look far. Thank you Google. Below is a quote from the conversion therapy Wiki page. (put down your gavel, don’t judge me for using Wiki, I just wanted a better understanding.)

Psychologist Douglas Haldeman writes that conversion therapy comprises efforts by mental health professionals and pastoral care providers to convert lesbians and gay men to heterosexuality by techniques including aversive treatments, such as “the application of electric shock to the hands and/or genitals,” and “nausea-inducing drugs…administered simultaneously with the presentation of homoerotic stimuli,” masturbatory reconditioning, visualization, social skills training, psychoanalytic therapy, and spiritual interventions, such as “prayer and group support and pressure”

This is not “But I’m a Cheerleader”. These kids are being abused. Emotionally, physically and sexually abused. This bill needs to pass in Virginia and every other state.

As I thought about this today, I wondered that when I was young, what would I have thought when I passed this billboard? I already thought something was wrong with me but knew my feelings were real. I think it would have scared me; I would have wondered just how messed up I really was.

I now wonder how many kids are riding past that billboard and feeling like they are messed up or how many are riding past it and the hatred they have learned for gays is being fueled?

This all makes my blood boil.

Today I’m feeling a bit guilty. I have every day challenges of being a lesbian femme; I feel as if I am an invisible lesbian. This doesn’t compare to the challenges of those gay pioneers before me. Not to (or obviously to) mention those in other countries.

Uganda comes to mind. Today, in 2014, it is a crime punishable by life in prison or death, to be gay in Uganda. How can I be so insensitive to complain that I have to come out over and over, when there are people being beaten, imprisoned and dying across the world from me because they came out. Or, unfortunately are caught being gay. Homosexual acts. Or unfortunately, not gay and punished or killed anyway.

I do not have to fear for my life. I do not fear being beaten. I do not fear being sent to prison.

It gives me perspective. It makes me grateful. Yes, my fiancé and I walk into a restaurant, bar or grocery store and I see the looks. We stand out. Thankfully, that doesn’t happen in our neighborhood. We’ve chosen a liberal place to live, even in the Bible Belt. Fondly known as the gayborhood. BUT. Death? Life in prison? Beaten? That isn’t even close to my realm.

Last year in 2013, India’s Supreme Court overturned a 2009 decision and criminalized homosexuality. A country I have always wanted to visit. A country I think of as having an insightful take on life. So disappointing. If you are gay, and you are charged, you look at life in prison. “Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine.”

Or animal?!? Why is beastialilty likened to homosexuality??!!?? It really is the most barbaric and archaic way of thinking. And it’s still happening.

My family disowned me. It hurt. It still hurts and I assume it will always hurt. That also happens every day in our country. I am still grateful. Marriage laws have changed. Gay marriage bans have been struck down, even in the Bible Belt. I feel guilt. My heart aches for those fighting to be themselves. Even when the price to pay is so great.

I live in a country that has a long way to go to accept and embrace love. Love in all forms. I will continue to walk proudly with my fiancé, talk of my fiancé to people who can’t fathom me being gay and push people to become more accustomed to seeing beautiful love in their faces, regardless of sexuality. I’ll continue to break my invisibility. I’ll continue to come out over and over. I will be grateful that I have that freedom. I will be grateful that, by showing my love for my girl, my fear is rejection not beatings, death or in imprisonment.

My intent of this blog is mostly personal. Although I know there are others like me that may resonate with my experience in this femme path.

I love me. I accept me. I am a full-blown femme lesbian, in love with an extremely sexy butch lesbian. We have a relationship that I have dreamed about since I was a little girl.

The journey to get to this point has been a dichotomy filled with struggles and rewards. I knew as a child that I looked at girls in a different way than my friends did. I also knew from a very young age that I had been born into a family that was fundamentalist Christian and being gay wasn’t an option. I tried hard to suppress my feelings, I suppressed myself. I dated boys.

I am not a man hater although at times it may seem as if I am. Those boys I dated served a purpose in my mind. They threw my family off the trail. They provided friendship. They doted on me. I liked them. Even kissing them was ok but I wouldn’t let it go farther than that. The thought repulsed me. At 15 I told my family I was bisexual. I had convinced myself that I was. The initial reaction was no reaction. They assumed I was trying the pubescent shock value that teens are prone to. And then the religious talks started becoming more frequent. Hell was emphasized. My Christian brainwashing kicked in. I didn’t want to go to hell and I, at the time, was fully bought in to the concept. Negative comments about gay people increased. Those comments included “no child of mine would be gay” and when a mutual friend of the family confiding in my mother that her son was gay my mother stated in a resounded “I’d disown him”. I believed her. That was her truth. She focused her anger on me and told me to get out. She gave me one week to figure out my plan. A few days later I denied being gay. I was allowed to stay as long as I participated in therapy. (That was fun)

So. I suppressed. I dated more boys and then I married one. We built a life, had four beautiful children and I, at times, convinced myself that I was where I was supposed to be. But my mind would wander to fantasies of what should be. I threw myself into motherhood and found such peace in mothering.

There was always something missing. I knew when he spoke of retirement and grandchildren that I wouldn’t be with him for that. I played along. It all changed when I met a girl that I knew I had deep feelings for. I had an affair. She brought to me all that I had been missing. Sexually of course but also that emotional connection I knew I could only have with a woman. She wasn’t the woman who I was destined to end up with but I am grateful for our eye-opening experience together.

I stayed in my marriage for several years after that, always working on my exit plan. The kids were my main consideration. It wasn’t their fault that their mom was gay and rocking their world terrified me. I stayed until I just couldn’t stay anymore. I couldn’t live another day with him. The breakup was difficult for all of us but I finally felt like I was breathing. As if I had held my breath for 14 years. There was a lifting of weight off my chest that left me feeling as if I was floating instead of walking.

To be crystal clear, I didn’t come out. There were enough issues within the marriage that warranted divorce that I didn’t have to. Although he suspected and threatened a custody battle if I was gay. We live deep in the Bible Belt. I researched and learned that there had not been a case in my county where a gay parent won a custody case. So. I stayed in the closet. I dated but kept it out of sight from my children or anyone that could be connected to him or the children. I came out to my closest friends but essentially had only a foot out of the closet.

I had several relationships. ‘Mommy’s best friends’. Those relationships all had value and taught me what I wanted and didn’t want in a relationship. I had times of being single and hit my gay puberty, enjoying the local gay bars and one night stands. I struggled and struggle with not being accepted by the lesbian community, that is yet another blog post to come. I dated soft butch, very butch and femme girls. I learned from all my experiences. Every day being grateful to be able to stretch my gay legs. Breathing deeper than ever before.

Then I met her. She blew me away. So sexy, smart and kind. It took only a few weeks to realize she was who I had been looking for. Dark hair, dark eyes. She has a walk that made me want to follow her around like a puppy. My butch. Her appearance holds a masculine energy that I felt in every cell and still do. She opens her mouth to speak and out pours a sweet syrup that is deliciously feminine. She is my girl.

That’s the not so cliffs notes version of how I made it to this stage of my life.