...and that has made all the difference.
Nov. 5th, 2002 12:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
judecorpSometimes I wake up in the morning and I forget what my life was like two years ago. I know that when I run into people that I knew during that time, they think so much of me has changed, and it boggles me. To me, the drastic changes were then, and now is just a return. Apparently, the other day at my old job, my replacement (Melissa, whom I met in early 2001) was talking to Former Coworker Hope and asked something about my partner. Hope stammered something about how she was pretty sure that Jennifer and I weren't exactly using that term yet. Melissa warbled for a while, too. 'Oh, I was talking about A... I was going to say ex- but I wasn't sure' etc.
Sometimes it really blows my mind that I was ever married to a boy. I mean, I can't wrap my head around it. I'm sure people who have big breakups think these things because of the breakup, but it's really not about the breakup at all for me - I really have a very hard time imagining me married to some boy. (Any of you who have met me in the past year, come on, tell me: Can you imagine me married to some boy?)
I wake up in the mornings and things just seem... right to me. Like waking up from a dream and recognizing your room, I wake up and recognize my life. It's the life I thought I was going to have (except for the Columbus part). It fits me like my favorite pajamas.
When I met A., I had recently promised myself that I was only going to date women. Because I had so few female friends (and even fewer of them were into women), it was easier to date boys because they were accessible. By the time I was 19, I was beginning to decide that I was less bisexual than I thought, and that I needed to make a conscious decision to date women rather than proceed on the path of least resistence, which would bring me to more relationships with boys, boys who were my friends and I cared about very much.
So I tell A. that I can't date him because I made this promise to myself, and then in true Libra spirit, we are then together for the next 6 years, the last 4 being mostly out of habit, I think, or maybe stubbornness. I try to embrace the term "bisexual" or "pansexual" at this time, partly to affirm my relationship with A. and partly to affirm my queerness. Somewhere in there I buy a new car and put a bisexual pride sticker on it. (That sticker now drives me nuts.)
I'm hesitent, in a lot of ways, to give up the term "pansexual," partly because it's a beautifully accepting and wonderful term, partly because I believe in bi/pan rights very much, and partly because I hated all the "Bi now, Gay later" mockery I used to endure. I've noticed, though, that I have a hard time saying the word now in reference to myself. I try to rationalize it away by reminding myself that I don't feel particularly male or female, and therefore attraction to women is a combination of both hetero- /and/ homosexual, but, well, that's too confusing even for me.
So I'm kind of torn, at this point. I know in my head and in my heart that I like people thinking of me as a lesbian a lot more than I liked people thinking of me as pansexual. I know, too, that waking up beside a certain girl brings me fullness and wholeness and rightness that waking up beside different boys never did. I also know, though, that I don't think of my relationship with Jennifer as a "lesbian relationship," or as "a girl in love with another girl." It's simply Jude in love with Jennifer. (Besides,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
badadam says I'm not a girl, anyway.)
So where is this all going? As usual, I have no idea. I swear, if I didn't listen to my ramblings, no one would. I do know this, though: I have a peace in my life right now that I've never felt before, and that's pretty amazing. I remember looking over at her in Provincetown in March and blurting out, for the first time, "This is so right." I've probably said it 1,000 times since that day, and it's never less true. There is an elation and an inner peace in "rightness" that I had never experienced until my marriage ended.
Shit, who knew?
Sometimes it really blows my mind that I was ever married to a boy. I mean, I can't wrap my head around it. I'm sure people who have big breakups think these things because of the breakup, but it's really not about the breakup at all for me - I really have a very hard time imagining me married to some boy. (Any of you who have met me in the past year, come on, tell me: Can you imagine me married to some boy?)
I wake up in the mornings and things just seem... right to me. Like waking up from a dream and recognizing your room, I wake up and recognize my life. It's the life I thought I was going to have (except for the Columbus part). It fits me like my favorite pajamas.
When I met A., I had recently promised myself that I was only going to date women. Because I had so few female friends (and even fewer of them were into women), it was easier to date boys because they were accessible. By the time I was 19, I was beginning to decide that I was less bisexual than I thought, and that I needed to make a conscious decision to date women rather than proceed on the path of least resistence, which would bring me to more relationships with boys, boys who were my friends and I cared about very much.
So I tell A. that I can't date him because I made this promise to myself, and then in true Libra spirit, we are then together for the next 6 years, the last 4 being mostly out of habit, I think, or maybe stubbornness. I try to embrace the term "bisexual" or "pansexual" at this time, partly to affirm my relationship with A. and partly to affirm my queerness. Somewhere in there I buy a new car and put a bisexual pride sticker on it. (That sticker now drives me nuts.)
I'm hesitent, in a lot of ways, to give up the term "pansexual," partly because it's a beautifully accepting and wonderful term, partly because I believe in bi/pan rights very much, and partly because I hated all the "Bi now, Gay later" mockery I used to endure. I've noticed, though, that I have a hard time saying the word now in reference to myself. I try to rationalize it away by reminding myself that I don't feel particularly male or female, and therefore attraction to women is a combination of both hetero- /and/ homosexual, but, well, that's too confusing even for me.
So I'm kind of torn, at this point. I know in my head and in my heart that I like people thinking of me as a lesbian a lot more than I liked people thinking of me as pansexual. I know, too, that waking up beside a certain girl brings me fullness and wholeness and rightness that waking up beside different boys never did. I also know, though, that I don't think of my relationship with Jennifer as a "lesbian relationship," or as "a girl in love with another girl." It's simply Jude in love with Jennifer. (Besides,
badadam says I'm not a girl, anyway.)So where is this all going? As usual, I have no idea. I swear, if I didn't listen to my ramblings, no one would. I do know this, though: I have a peace in my life right now that I've never felt before, and that's pretty amazing. I remember looking over at her in Provincetown in March and blurting out, for the first time, "This is so right." I've probably said it 1,000 times since that day, and it's never less true. There is an elation and an inner peace in "rightness" that I had never experienced until my marriage ended.
Shit, who knew?
