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2002-08-25 - 4:41 p.m.

Sometimes I feel lost in the world.... not unloved, and not lonely.... but as though I have no map and no footsteps, no trail of breadcrumbs to follow. It is simply that I have never known of anyone to make the choices I have in life. And I would just once like to sit down with someone who would say, "I know....me, too." I don't fit into any of the boxes that people create to support their own existence. And I fully understand why I don't.

I am a woman who led a "straight" life until I was over forty. (And I put straight in quotes because I lived through a time when the word had a completely different meaning. It used to mean someone who didn't get high, and that certainly didn't describe me.) I was always a little bit of a maverick, but basically a regular kid growing up. As a teenager, I dated boys and had big crushes and went to the prom in a satin dress with dyed-to-match pumps. I expected and assumed that a relationship with a man would be some part of my life. I saw no evidence that women did anything else, except maybe become "old maids" and that was a pitiable state because it supposedly signified that you were unwanted..... and god knows, I wanted to be wanted. Along with becomming a famous artist and author, I thought the handsome prince would figure into my life somewhere.

I have had three serious relationships with men, two of them were marriages. My first husband, the man I married at eighteen and the father of my son, fell in love with someone else. The second man, with whom I lived, became an alcoholic and I finally had to end that relationship out of self preservation. (He later died of health complications relating to alcoholism). The third man, to whom I was married, is a decent man who turned out to be my polar opposite in almost every important way, and we lived in a state of constant irritation and/or withdrawal from each other before I finally made a break.

There is nothing so unusual about any of this. Like many women, I made some choices that didn't work out for me. I am also strong enough to make a change or get out of a bad situation if I needed to. I have always believed that being alone was far preferable to being with the wrong person, and I've never been afraid of ending up alone.

What I wasn't prepared for was falling in love with another woman. I met Skootie at work, and we developed an almost instant affinity for each other, which is quite strange for both of us because we are both socially reserved and hard to get to know. Since we both like to write (and I, in fact, write much better than I talk) we started our friendship by exchanging notes, which then became letters, growing longer and more eloquent as the months went by. In those letters, we painted our lives and dreams for each other in ways that we probably had never expressed before, and discovered that we had much in common, and that we inspired each other to new heights of creativity.

I can't even point to the moment when a powerful friendship turned to love, but I remember realizing that I could never bear to turn away and live a life that didn't include her.....realizing that I could never forgive myself if I was too afraid of what might happen. And, after understanding that she felt the same way, we began to accept the fact that we must be lesbians.

I almost feel like I should say that this brought about some incredible soul-searching, but the truth is, that label and all the negative connotations it had, paled in significance compared to the overwhelming joy of our relationship. In looking back at my life, I see the potential that may have always existed in me. I'd been emotionally attached to other female friends, and had always endowed those friendships with a lot of energy and mystery. But being a lesbian was never something I identified with or would have chosen in the abstract. Yet I was willing to accept this path if that was what it signified to love the person I loved. Germaine Greer (in her book The Whole Woman) says that many women never think of themselves as lesbians until they fall in love with another woman.

At first I actually thought this might not be such a big deal, because it just never occurred to me that anybody else needed to know. I always keep my personal life out of the office, and am not inclined to tell everyone else my business. I thought, OK, I don't need anyone's approval for my personal life. That's how naive I was. From my safely heterosexual perch, I didn't realize all the dozens of things that come up routinely in a life that need to be referenced, explained, defined. I didn't realize how hard it would be to go through life introducing the love of your life as "My, um....roommate."

To the extent that you try to stay under the radar, you also make yourself disappear. You become the person with no life who never joins in the conversation, who has "no" weekend plans, and apparently does everything alone. (An identity-- or non-identity-- I still maintain for my job.)

So, rather carefully, we let people in on our lives. And, predicatably some of them are rejecting. Some of them are uncomfortable and change the way they relate to us, so that we no longer feel good about them. And of course some people are completely loving and welcoming, and we have come to cherish those people even more than we might otherwise-- those few people who can not only "accept" us, but are able to see how incredibly good we are together.

It feels weird to have to be so afraid to let anyone into your life. We are so normal (well, as much as two artistic types can be) and basically so middle class. We have college degrees, responsible jobs and own a nice home. We are well-read, voting, tax-paying, letter-to-the-editor-writing, citizens. We exercise, entertain, shop, garden, cook, decorate. We draw and paint and write and take pictures and make music.

Sometimes it is hard to remember that there are so many people who would despise us, just because of the basic foundation of our lives.

I suppose every gay person has this experience: you develop a built-in bullshit meter. You start learning how to tell if someone is too religious, homophobic, or self-righteous to relate to, and then you just keep the shield up.

But.....We didn't exactly walk out of the straight world and into the arms of the gay community. There is just as much suspicion and rejection waiting for us there, because of who we are: straight-looking-and-acting women. Skootie, who is younger and more open, is somewhat more acceptable to this world than I am, but neither of us is really welcome. Because we wear skirts and shave our legs and have long hair. We don't want to get in anyone's face with our private business. We don't do public displays of affection. I am not ashamed of the relationship I have with the person I love. It is the most beautiful and sacred thing in my life. And for that reason I don't want to put it out on the sidewalk for the public to spit on. (And here in the biblebelt, that is not an exaggeration.)

I suppose I am looked upon with suspicion because I am not willing to adopt the kind of clothing, haircuts, and public behaviors that mark one as being "out." Truthfully, I don't relate to the whole "butch" thing... I don't want to look like a guy, and wouldn't have been attracted to a woman who looked like one. But I understand what is behind it: we don't fix ourselves up to be sex objects for men. And I can respect that as a political stance, and as an identity. In fact, I can accept about anything other people do..... which is why I am baffled at being judged so harshly. Is it required that I look unattractive to prove that I don't want attention from men? What about self-respect and a need to function in the workplace/world as a socially acceptable person? What about personal style, and taste and aesthetic appeal? How do I navigate the whole morass of what is supposed to be projected and be true to myself?

The truth, and the thing that just sets me apart from everyone, is that I don't really feel like I was living a lie for forty-two years. I have had an eventful life, from which I learned so much.....my life was full of all the things that life means: love, pain, sadness, joy, achievement, failure. I don't want to forget about it all, or rewrite it into another story. What I felt I was supposed to do as an emerging lesbian is to declare my past null and void, just an unfortunate string of huge mistakes on the way to discovering my "true" gay self. And I tried to think in those terms for a while, but it felt wrong to negate my entire history and tell myself I never really loved or desired anyone before. Because I did.

What I had trouble accepting is the social construction of "wife" and all the roles and expectations it carried. Because of my own stubborn independence, I could never really accept the secondary status, and always felt trapped and resentful when I was expected to perform the role of caretaker and helpmate. I have known many deeply good, intelligent, interesting men.... people I would want for friends or coworkers. But I would never again want to do what is required to belong to one. I have been through two divorces and changes of name. When I divorced the last time I legally adopted another name, (my grandmother's maiden name) one not given to me by any man. And promised myself: I will never again change names, or allow myself to be legally owned.

Is it possible that I just got tired of all the effort and sacrifice of being with men, and found myself ready to fall in love with a woman.....at the moment I met someone who inspired and thrilled me? Could it be I just changed? Could it be that my whole mind/body structure desired something different than it had before? If so-- what I believe to be my truth-- is a socially unacceptable construction. I have always suspected that human sexuality was on some kind of a continuum, with many people somewhere near the middle, and others on the extremes. But our society seems set up only for those who identify themselves at the extremes. So those in the middle are forced to choose a side. The world cannot seem to accept that an individual might come in on very different points at different stages of life.

At least I don't know of anybody else who has. I wish there was some other way to get to know people, besides this: What box are you in? But we look at the boxes, and only learn the most important things about a person long after we have accepted the superficial things. It's all backwards. Is there a secret symbol to let others know you are a "changeling?" I don't know. There is no book in which to look it up. I am finding my way through this life with no map and no trail of breadcrumbs.... no passport, no identity.

Pleasure is something which passes from one individual to another; it is not something secreted by identity. Pleasure has no passport, no identity.

-Michel Foucault

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