Memoir

Curiosity comes often in everyones life. We think, wonder, plan and dream of our future and what’ll become of ourselves. In my experience, I have debated with my curiosity since I could remember and tried to decipher what it really meant. Bisexuality is the attraction to both genders and is something I consider myself as. When I was younger I always felt like something was wrong with me, different. I didn’t know where I fell along with everyone else around me and I was uncomfortable with certain conversations, until I began opening up to the ones that accepted me no matter what the case.
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Going into the bright and dark blue colors of a new school brought new people as well. It was the first big step into growing up and the worst part of it in all honesty. The moment I walked into my ELA class on the second day of middle school, I knew I found a friend. Lindy and I became close the second we wore the same forest green shirt with a giant, be-jeweled flower pin and denim skirt that day. “Were twins!” we always said to people; same straight brown hair, same height, same obnoxious and crazy personality. Lindy was very much “boy crazy,” claiming she had so many boyfriends in elementary school and was interested in many of my male friends. She always wanted me to date her “boyfriends” friends so we could all sit together at lunch, since it was middle school and any relationship that occurred was only during school hours. Before that awkward stage was hitting hard, I was always obsessed with boys; whether it be a fictional character in a Disney movie or my neighbor that I always pretended to get married too when I was little, but I was shy as hell and wanted no part in the dating of a random 12 year old boy. Soon I realized that I liked the fact that I knew Lindy, we shared everything together. She held my secrets and weaknesses and I knew they were safe, she was someone I felt comfortable enough to even see myself in a relationship with. During that age hormones tend to take over and that comes with spurs of emotion. One of the first nights sleeping over Lindy’s house, we were playing Grand Theft Auto in her sister and her joined, small pink bedroom laughing over a guy that recently broke one of our hearts and how great it would be to just date each other since we were joined at the hip. I began enjoying the idea of a relationship with her and felt the overwhelming feeling in my stomach to confess to her my feelings. “I care about you more than any guy, I like you…I think.” I said in complete red-face, looking back at the TV screen. Silence. I was beginning to regret this, I said something weird, oh my god what have I done? I apologized so fast for causing a weird tension that she eased quickly. “I feel that” she said with a reassuring smile and a hand on mine and we went back to playing the video game.
Going back to school, I was confused on how we were going to act now, what were we even at this point? We never established exactly what that was over the weekend. I sat next to her in class and she never acted different from before the exchanging of those words. I wasn’t going to say anything to her though, maybe I missed something and was just wrong on how she felt, we just acted as best friends and nothing more.
After some time of not mentioning our last situation, I started feeling doubt. “Am I just overreacting all this?” I thought. Maybe this is just what having a real best friend feels like and I was mistaking it for something different. Lindy would come to me and go on about a new crush in her life and I felt jealous, “That’s not how you feel with just a friend” I thought to myself.
As the year went on, the two of us turned into a whole group. We all went over Lindy’s every weekend and late night chatted about rumors and new flings happening in the school. One early Saturday morning in the middle of spring, we all stayed up a little too late and thought it would be silly to play truth or dare. It was harmless at first, making each other call a boy up and yell something stupid or eating a mysterious concoction someone would whip up, but it started to turn into something else. A friend dared Lindy to kiss me…on the mouth! I felt nervous and I didn’t know how to feel about it, I was just talking about crushing on a boy in my math class now I’m about to kiss my best friend? Lindy didn’t even flinch at the dare, we were about to share our first kiss with each other and I was sweating bullets and she was so carefree. I take a huge breath in as she gracefully leaned in It was a quick peck, but it was just like in the movies. My heart was racing and I could feel my face blushing with embarrassment, as she leaned in I could feel the softness of her full lips and as she pulled away the familiar smell of her perfume and a tickle of her hair on my cheek trailed behind her. Someone shouted “ooohh!” and giggled our success of the dare. We never spoke of it after, but having my first kiss with her always stayed in my memory.
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Ever since my first kiss, I contemplated what I really was; straight? Gay? I wasn’t sure anymore. It drove me crazy, I’ve had boyfriends, but that moment years ago always stuck in my head. I was afraid that if I was gay, how would people treat me? You hear horrible things all the time about bullying and suicides that it backed me in a corner of where I was. I did research one night to help and understand the concept of bisexual as a sexual orientation. I heard of bisexuality, but only in episodes of Sex and the City when they labeled it as being “young people being selfish and asking for attention”. But the concept of it made so much sense to me, it almost was a refreshed feeling like a snake shedding it’s old skin and becoming new again. Without my past feelings about Lindy, I wouldn’t have been able to understand that it isn’t what media and shows interpret it as, it’s a true feeling that many people struggle with in their life.
I hid my attraction to females and focused on only allowing people to see me as straight. I wasn’t sure how my parents would feel, they are supportive people and have raised me that everyone is equal and is born a certain way, but never shared the possibility that I could be anything other than straight. I was so concerned with how others treated me I never opened up, until I met Andrey.
Over the last three years our relationship has grown into something very special and him knowing and accepting my past has made me be able to better myself for the future. Because of him I am able to be comfortable with the conversation of my sexuality and how curiosity in life can help open our eyes to a much bigger picture. My life has been a journey and is still going and I look forward to learning more about  myself and seeing where I end up.