Coming Out to Myself.

Growing up, I was told endlessly that I couldn’t be gay because I was too boy crazy. Because I was a teenager who was hearing such words from the person who knew me best, I accepted that I was completely heterosexual. Keep in mind, this was the late 90s and early 2000s.

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To me, it made sense because I didn’t have a crush on any girls…yet. More importantly, at that time, you were gay, straight, or bisexual; the other terms didn’t exist in my world. At some point in time, I began to make little haphazard comments about breasts and the fact that I adored the look of them. Being a woman with breasts, I figured my intrigue surrounding them was in part related to my desire to have larger ones. I was not yet ready to acknowledge my curiosity to touch and explore the weight of them in my hands, until I was met with my first girl-crush.

I was barely twenty, and her name was Angelina Jolie. She was perfect. This woman was absolutely beyond badass who also kicked ass and didn’t apologize for its. In short, I was hooked! I’m not sure that I had fantasies quite yet; however, I’m positive that I wanted to feel her lips beneath mine because of how plump and inviting they looked. That, and she gave serious “Mommy” energy, which I was down to experience.

Image From: https://people.com/movies/angelina-jolie-faced-a-real-life-battle-to-win-the-role-of-tomb-raiders-lara-croft/

And yet, the possibility that I could enjoy someone of the  same sex in the same manner as I wanted the opposite sex seemed surreal. Even a dream, maybe? There was a clear dichotomy in how I viewed liking men and my interest in women, because I envisioned my interest in men as real, and my desire for  women as pure make-believe.

Again, I had been told I was boy-crazy, so why would I have entertained the thought of being gay? Some may ask, “Well, what about the label of bisexuality?” This is a valid question, but I truly believed that my curiosity and appreciation of women was part of the fantasy world I had created in my head.

I was not gay, and I was not  bisexual, because there were no women in real life to whom I was attracted. Let’s be real, the Angelina Jolie on the screen wasn’t real either;she was cinematic perfection; in my deluded mind, she didn’t count. So on went my commentary about the beauty of women, until one day I contemplated my options in the only way I really knew how to as a young woman:With a healthy dose of denial.

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Love wasn’t being kind to me in my early twenties, and as a virgin who was desperately unlucky with men, I was losing faith in meeting my “happily ever after.” Remember, I was a twenty/something-year-old who lived in Conservative America;I thought the end-game was marry to a man. In general, I also felt like I had to get married, and then I could finally be happy—because that’s what women did where I was from.  

In Conservative America, women were supposed to get an education, get a job, get married, and have kids. Even if I was raised by a semi-feminist mother, the drive to have a husband was so ingrained in me that I felt I would be miserable until I had one. Of course,. this is immensely unhealthy, especially when I was in direct conflict with the desire to be a strong, independent, bad-ass woman who didn’t “need no man.”  

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After a knockout round with dating, where my love life took a direct punch to the face, the first honest glimpse into who I am peaked out of hiding. I mentioned to my friends how maybe it would be best to date a woman, because men couldn’t be trusted. Again, not a healthy way of looking at my sexuality, but it was the late 2000s, and my mind thought I could choose to like being intimate with a woman. Because now, in my mind, being bisexual—or being with a woman—could be a choice. I was not informed at all,and I was hearing various theories that went around in those days on which to base my beliefs. Bear with me, I still had a long way to go.

During my twenties, I just didn’t grasp onto the fact that I could be anything other than straight or gay. Again, I reiterate that the bisexual label didn’t make sense to me either. So on went my delusion that I was boy-crazy and merely dreamed about a woman companion.

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The months after I contemplated finding a girlfriend, a very kind and giving man entered my life like a force of nature that both healed me and taught me what it meant to be a partner to someone while maintaining my independent, bad-ass self. I married that man, and for ten years, we shared the joys and the trials of moving countries, endured devastating bouts of depression, raised kids, and survived the COVID-19 pandemic.

Image From: https://reason.org/policy-brief/covid-19-lockdown-problems-and-alternative-strategies-to-reopening-the-economy/

During the lockdown, I escaped into a fantasy world of role playing, and an online friendship that shook me to my core. I’m not proud of the attachment I formed to this person, but she was the catalyst to my realizing who I was and embracing that who I had been trying to become for most of my life.

COVID was a dark time for my marriage. ; Both my husband and I were struggling with life, work, and problems neither of us were fully aware of. In response to my loneliness, I escaped into make-believe worlds with my friend and began exploring my sexuality through made-up characters and worlds. This was a safe outlet where nothing was “real,” even if my attachment felt more and more real by the day.

As we created these make-believe worlds and played these characters, I began to realize that maybe I did like women. Maybe I liked them a lot. Then, one night, we began to talk about it, and she used a word that I hadn’t heard before.

Pansexual.

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When she explained that the gist of pansexuality was falling in love with  someone forof their personality—not due to their gender—all of my confusion vanished. For a storyteller, this spoke to me on a soul-level because, for all of the times I had fallen in love with a person or a character, it was their personality that drew me in. I had gone through a few different internet relationships, and each time love came, not because of what they looked like, but who they were and the love they gave.

In my little make/believe world, where I was trying to escape the crushing reality of life, I found my truth.  

The night I “came out” to my husband was a reminder of why I loved this man.

It took all of my courage to say the words and explain what I had learned. I was so nervous!  What would he say?

He said the truth. There was a mix of confusion on his face, as though he couldn’t quite believe I was vocalizing this. He said  the words, “Yeah.  I know.” DUH Kaie. Then he said, “You didn’t?” My husband was incredulous at the fact that I had been in the dark for so long. My world was rocked. I was having this incredible epiphany, and he had known every step of the way.

That was a big step toward our healing and a turning point that reminded me how well he knew me— and just how much he loved me. Throughout all of our marriage, he has known who I was, even when I couldn’t even see myself. And he loved me for exactly who I was and who I am.

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Over the past few years, there have been many emotions surrounding how I figured out that I was pansexual, because it wasn’t my proudest moment. I crossed lines. Even if my husband doesn’t hold it against me, and I never stepped outside of my marriage, the guilt is still there. It took me a while to pull myself out of the downward spiral and toxic fandom relationships that occupied a good five years of my life. I lost myself even as I found parts of myself, and i’m still wading through the aftermath.  This year I’ll turn forty, and what I know about Kaie is that she’s flawed. She is loud and mouthy, especially when she shouldn’t be. She obsesses a bit too much and spends way too many hours daydreaming about worlds that exist only in her mind.

She is nowhere near perfect. She makes a lot of mistakes. But she loves—and loves hard.  She wants to help others and be a badass woman for her daughter to look up to. She wants to fix every little problem her kids have and shield them from an unforgiving world. She wants to be a safe space for those kids and remind them that Mama will always love them. 

Honestly, I’m ready to turn the page on the guilt. It’s time to embrace sixteen years of marriage with a man who never tried to change her, but only ever encouraged her to be exactly who she is: A woman who is too much and very extra.

And maybe even a bit ditzy.

Most importantly, this Kaie is someone who is constantly learning and accepting all parts of herself because she has been blessed with people in her life who have always accepted the parts of her she wasn’t ready to acknowledge or see.

If there is one piece of advice I would give to you, it is that you  should embrace your truth and let it reign. That’s where true happiness can be found.