How Does It Feel to be a Problem?

"Between me and the world there is ever an unasked question: unaksed by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of right framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round it. They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then, instead of saying directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought at Mechanicsville; or, Do not these Southern outrages make your blood boil? At these I smile, or am interested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion may require. To the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word." - W.E.B. DuBois

I'm taking an African American Lit course, and so far I love it. The professor is pretty fantastic, and I'm kind of a celebrity in the English department (and super modest too), so the professor loves me. My creative writing prof from first semester last year must have told her about me (my creative writing professor and I are biffs). I found this quote in one of the readings for this class and I think it's fantastic because it's applicable to any situation, or the struggle of any group. I'm not African American, but I do know how it feels to be made to feel like a problem by everyone around you. The quote just really spoke to me.

My statistics professor is completely insane (in a good way) and we get along really well. She's very... bouncy? I think would be a good way of describing her. She bounces from topic to topic, from thought to thought, very casually. It works, and she's a good professor, but the flow of her thoughts is remarkable to me. During the first class she was trying to memorise names and when she got to me she said I look "mature." I'm not exactly sure how to take that. I know I am mature for my age, at the same time I'm not always mature. I know when to have a good time and when to be serious (don't we all?). She also commented on my "marriage is so gay" t-shirt, saying that she hoped I didn't mean it in the derogatory sense. My friend turned to me and whispered "no lady, it just means she's wicked gay." She'll get to know me though.

I'm taking a pretty heavy course load this semester. Thankfully I'm taking these courses this semester and now next semester, because having 20 credits (from difficult classes) during lacrosse season would completely suck. School before lax, so I wouldn't play. I'm not even sure if I am going to play this year, as much as I want to. We have a new coach, and it's not going to be all nature walks and passing for fun and horsing around like it was last year. Granted we did work hard, but our new coach is going to run us into the ground this year. I need to get to the gym more and start being serious.

In any event, I have a lot on my mind in terms of school, music and lax as of late. There's also this girl and she is really cute, and I'm trying to figure out what to do with that. My issue isn't that I don't have confidence; my issue is that I don't know what I want. The interim between wanting the world and wanting to scorn commonalities. It's a scary place to be.

Comedians

Oh my gosh I saw the FUNNIEST comedians tonight. They were so incredibly funny, and my friends took up two entire rows (all the way across). Although I am the only lesbian in my group of friends (the only out one anyway...) we basically looked like the lesbian contingency of *insert my college name here*. Maybe it's because I hang out with softball players? Who's to say?

But all the lesbian jokes were directed towards us, more specifically me. All I can say is "dora the coochie explora." I was literally on the floor.

I made dinner for four of my friends (and myself) tonight. It was the first time I've ever cooked for people who weren't my mother and her friend and they LOVED it! It was such a big confidence booster for me. The entire hall smelt of the deliciousness and the love for hours. It was so nice to just have a meal with them, in the kitchen, all sitting around drinking TAB soda, eating wonderful pasta, laughing, talking, catching up, reminiscing. We really are the coolest people in the entire world.

I feel so much better than I did a few days ago, thanks to my friends and my school for providing me with awesome outlets. I've never laughed so hard in my life, or smiled so big. I see friendly faces everywhere I go, people know my name, they know who I am, what I stand for. They accept me for me, they know me. I can't get over how good it feels to walk across campus, and KNOW everyone you come across.

I haven't gotten used to not seeing the seniors, and seeing their replacements (the freshmen). I don't know many of the freshmen, the ones I do know are cool. There are like... maybe two out lesbians that I can see, probably ten closet cases. Nobody that I'm really interested in, which is disappointing to me.

She's out there though, I know it.

CAUSING???!!!

CAUSING???? What the hell! Causing is such a ridiculous word. I would like to cause my foot to be lodged in Sigmund Freud's ass. We don't know what "causes" homosexuality, just like we don't know what causes heterosexuality. Who the hell cares what causes it, it exists, we need to figure out how to COEXIST!

"Psychological and social theories
Early childhood seems to be the critical period in which sexual orientation forms, suggesting that learning plays a part in causing homosexuality. Freudians have traditionally held that homosexuality is rooted in early childhood developmental conflicts, particularly the Oedipal conflict. Freudians believe homosexuality develops in response to troubled family relationships, an overly affectionate and dominant mother and a passive father, and/or the loss of one or both parents. However, these theories cannot explain why homosexuality occurs in individuals not coming from these types of families.
More recently, researchers have proposed that social-learning factors may be account for homosexuality. The sexual preference may develop when a child engages in early cross-gender behaviors (behaviors stereotypical of the other sex) or when a teenager's sexual drive emerges during a period of primarily same-gender.

Interactional theories
Proponents of the interactional theory of homosexuality allege that sexual orientation develops from a complex interaction of biological, psychological, and social factors. John Money explains that prenatal hormones first act on the embryo's and fetus's brain, which creates a physiological predisposition toward a particular sexual orientation. During early childhood, social-learning factors influence the child, either facilitating or inhibiting the predisposition."

Home Again Home Again

Got back to school yesterday, and it was and continues to be ridiculously hot in all the dorms.

It's kind of weird being back, the lights are brighter and there is always someone to talk to, someone to hug when you need one, someone at your doorstep when you just want to be alone.

I was basically alone all summer except for hanging out with my friends in the evenings or when we were going on a road trip. Now I am constantly surrounded by life and people and emotions, never ending. So much sound all the time, never a quiet moment. It's weird, but I've never felt lonelier. It makes me sick to my stomach. I feel like something is wrong with me. I was so happy during the summer, with peace and quiet and nothing to do but endless opportunities. Now I am on a schedule and I have work to do, reading and writing and non sense. I just want to sleep, and it's not even the third day yet. I love school, and I love learning, and I love being here and being surrounded by people who I know. People who I all know. What is wrong with me.

I feel like I'm being fake here because I put on this happy facade and then when I'm alone, like now, I get to be me. No one else but me. Maybe I'm anti social. I really hate to say this, and it's so not me which concerns me, but if I could I would just go to my car and cry. Just cry. I'm not homesick, and I'm surrounded by people who care about me and who I care about, but something changed over the last two days. I'm still trying to figure out what it is.

Maybe I just need to settle in. Maybe it's this whole identity thing that I've been having trouble with as of late. I'm not the same person I was last year. Last year I had to tell everyone that I'm a lesbian. This year I tell them what? I still love women, but what I am now? I'm still a chick and I always will be, but there is something more. I'm not just a chick and I'm not just a lesbian.

I hate feeling like this. But I love college, and learning, and my friends.

I'm optimistic that things will get better.

Not Going to Turn Out Like Sylvia Plath

Still packing. I leave tomorrow. Part of me doesn't want to go, because that means having to leave my mother, and she will be lonely without me. The rest of me desperately wants to get as far away from here as possible. Just drive and drive and drive and never look back. Cut all ties, leave everything behind. I need to stop reading The Bell Jar, but I can't. It's too compelling.

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.

"From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out.

"I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."

Story of my life.

I'm Not Bitter

If I had a nickel for every time I was treated with disrespect because I am (clearly) a lesbian, I think I'd have maybe 10 cents, but that's pushing it. I don't really recall ever being treated differently in any respect because I'm gay, either better or worse.

I guess I never really expected to be treated differently.

All of my friends parents know (basically everyone knows except my mother, but she's not dumb) and they're all cool about it, very cool in fact. When I came out to each of them, nothing in that relationship changed, which is exactly what I had hoped for.

My roommate's entire family knows, and they're basically the best. I love my roommate and her family to pieces. Couldn't ask for a better roommate.

The whole coming out process for me was kind of like "whoa, I got myself all worked up over nothing?"

But then this has to happen, and I wonder to myself "what the fuck?"

The "this" I am referring to is something that one of my very best friends told me the other day. She and I hang out a lot, and a lot of the time we're hanging out with a bunch of our mutual friends. Some of the time we hang out just the two of us, for no reason other than the fact that sometimes it's nice to hang out one on one instead of having to deal with six people all competing for attention. I make one on one time for all my best friends.

Hope you don't mind that I'm telling your story, I know you're reading this right now.

Anywho, so my friend told me that her grandmother (a very old country Roman Catholic) found out that I'm a lesbian (because it was a big fucking secret, obviously) and doesn't want her to hang out with me anymore. "People will get ideas." What the fuck does that even mean? People will get ideas? If people wanted fucking ideas they would use their heads!

I've been friends with this girl for a very long time, I know her family and they know me. AND SHE'S NOT GAY. Does her grandmother honestly think that I'm going to change her? Or that I have any desire to?? And why the hell does she care what people think? The people in this town who know I'm a lesbian, the only people who would potentially talk about it, first of all DON'T MATTER, and second of all wouldn't talk about it because I'M NOT THE ONLY GAY PERSON IN THIS FUCKED UP TOWN.

And then, her little sister who is a friend of mine, basically asked her if she and I were together because we spend so much time together. Are you kidding me? Is this SERIOUSLY happening?

I'm not in high school anymore, I do not need to deal with this sophomoric bullshit.

I don't understand how or why things like this happen. I can't have friends anymore because obviously if I'm friends with a girl it means I'm in a romantic relationship with her? I can't spend time with the same group of girls I've hung around with since elementary school? I would have been a lesbian whether I came out or not, I was always a lesbian. I was a lesbian when I blew out the candles on my seventh birthday cake, I was a lesbian when I kissed a boy for the first time in the fourth grade, I was a lesbian when I walked across the stage at graduation. I have always been and will always be a lesbian. Would society rather that I stay in the closet and continue to suffer? I don't want the answer to that question, and I refuse to believe the truth.

It hurts so much to know that there are people out there who think of me differently just because I'm gay and just because I'm out and just because I am proud of who I am.

I will never regret coming out, I would have died if I hadn't. The pain of leading a life you weren't meant to lead is far worse than the pain of being made to feel "different."

I wish, more than anything else, that I could talk to my mother about this, and that she could tell me it's all going to be okay. But I don't believe that will ever happen.

I'm a damn good friend to ALL of my friends, the fact that I'm gay shouldn't matter.

I just don't understand.

And I Pointed My Dreams North

Packing sucks.

My room started out the summer looking rather like a storage closet, with everything I know piled up all over the place. Getting from the door to the bed or the closet quickly became impossible. I basically lived out of laundry hampers all summer, and never really gave a second thought to having to move back to school.

And here it is, the Friday before I go back, and piled all around me are boxes of clothes, sweatshirts for the Massachusetts winter, baskets filled with God only knows what, pens and pencils, computer stuff, instruments, a cat and a dog.

I wish they could come with me. Kitty has placed herself in the box for my desktop, and scrunched herself down so she is just peering over the edge and watching me type. She knows I'm going again, and she knows I'm probably going for a long time. It's hard to leave your best friends behind. Like most things in life, I wish they could comprehend how very much I love them.

Puppy is laying with her paws under her chin and looking up at me with her big brown eyes. She looks pretty pathetic, I'll admit. If I could find room for them in one of the bins and hide them away in my dorm, I so would. But they are happy here, where they are room to roam around, and all the treats and love an animal could ever dream of. They certainly aren't lacking for anything.

But it will be hard for them when I'm not here to go swimming on warm afternoons with Puppy, or lay in the sun with Kitty on my chest, or hold them both close when there is a storm. The three of us get along pretty swell. They grew up together in many ways. They're always growing up with me, and I was there to watch them grow up.

The madre and I will be happy to part ways for a while. She has her life and I have mine. When they intersect for too long a period of time, we tend to argue a lot. There are so many things about me that she doesn't know, and as I get older the things she doesn't know build and build, until eventually I feel as though we're strangers here. Strangers sharing a house, sharing a family, sharing a town and a little life we created. And yet, she is the person who understands me the best in the world. The silence between us isn't defeaning, it's a silence of understanding. We both know each other, but at the same time we understand that there are things about the other person that don't need to be discussed. The mystery in our relationship is good and healthy, for the time being.

I'm sure somewhere in her heart and in her mind she knows. She watched me grow up, she watched me struggle when being a tomboy wasn't okay anymore. She was there for every boyfriend, every failed relationship.

I remember driving in the car with her after I had recently broken up with some little boy. I think it was the seventh grade. I said to her "Mom, I don't think I can date one boy," and I tried desperately to articulate how I was feeling at the time. I always felt lost and confused, like all the girls were dating boys so I should do the same. No one ever even told me that how I was feeling was normal and okay, maybe it wasn't normal and okay. I had no idea that feeling the way I did was just the beginnings of trying to figure out who I was.

Being a kid is so hard. If everyone was just born a girl, or born a boy, and that was that everything would be so much simpler. But people aren't born that way. There is no ideal girl or ideal boy, and there never was. We're all different, whether it is due to nature or nurturing. Why can't people just accept us as we are?

Why couldn't someone just tell me it was okay? Why did I have to abandon who I was and who I would always be, and pretend to be someone I never was and never will be? Does society make us do this? Or do we put that pressure on ourselves?

I'm a firm believer that, at the end of the day, you and you alone are the only person in the entire world who matters. If you don't love yourself, no one can love you. How can we be expected to love ourselves if from every direction we are being told we are fundamentally wrong, we are being told that there is something wrong with us that we have no control over?

This is what I'm thinking about while I'm packing my clothes, my possessions, my memories, into boxes to be packed away in my car and hauled up to school.

It's hard to leave the ones you love behind, whether it's your dog or your cat, your mom, your friends, or the you you left behind so long ago. Some day we'll get there.