Ara Ara’s Mind

{AN: Another Creative non-fiction. It is so surprising to see how much this memory weighed on me at the time. I was just a baby queer when I wrote this. Thinking about the things that led me to make the realization I did. It’s also surprising because it’s one of the few memories I have of elementary school. So for this moment to stick with me for years and years until I had to write about it for my class is a testament to my mind and how long things stay in there. Enjoy.}

It had to be fourth or fifth grade. I just know I could not have been more than eight or nine, around the point of being a kid where you learn cuss words and you know what can hurt people’s feelings. It was early on in the day probably our second class. We had broken off into groups and I was with two girls, whom I would have considered my friends before this moment, in the back corner of the class sitting on the blue-grayish carpet, close to seats and a table we could have sat in but didn’t. 

Being gay was something I never thought about before this moment. I never got that talk from my parents. They probably have never even thought about having that kind of talk with me or my brother. Most parents probably don’t think about having a gay talk and if they did, they don’t deem it as necessary or as a positive thing. Most parents never think that it’s a possibility until it is. 

We started talking, nothing to do with the assignment at all, and then one of the girls says “I feel like my butt is out.” I didn’t even think when I checked behind her. It just seemed like that’s what friends do. They check and make sure their friend is good and feeling comfortable. I reply with a “You’re good.” I was expecting “Thanks” or “Ok that’s good.” I never thought the reaction to me checking her backside would have been negative. Even in the brief awkward silence, I did not think the reaction was going to be bad. I thought “Oh she must have never had anyone do that for her before.”  So I just sat there with my legs crossed on that old carpet and waited for at least a “thank you.” Then, as if she figured something out, she asks “Are you gay?” My stomach dropped as soon as she asked. I quickly responded with “What no!” The other girl hadn’t said a word. She just laughed as the other continued to torment me. She might have just been following the lead of her friend because she didn’t want to end up like me. 

I couldn’t understand why she would say that. To me, no less, a girl that hadn’t done anything to her before this. So being told I was gay, when I didn’t even have the chance to question it, made me panic. I do not know much about her side of the story, or the other girl for that matter, but I would like to believe that she didn’t know what she was asking. I mean, who knows what kind of talk those girls got? The only thing I know from that situation is that that moment affected how I viewed myself for my entire educational career.

After that moment, it was like her question had spread like wildfire across that school. People were making fun of me in the middle of the hallway and anything I said was false. Fury and annoyance filled my head as the other girl asks me if I was actually gay and later her trying to reassure that it was ok if I was. I didn’t think about my sexuality for a long time after that. 

I spent a lot of time believing that it was something I couldn’t be. That stalled my growth in terms of sexuality and in terms of me knowing who I truly was and am. I never told anyone about that moment. It has become just apart of my elementary memories that affected the way I lived. In middle and high school my friends began to find their sexuality and preferred gender and in all that time I never thought to question myself. I didn’t have to. What I knew for sure was that I liked boys. Girls were cute, fun, and nice, but I didn’t like them like that. I never realized that I could be anything but straight or gay.

While I considered myself straight, in high school I began to be an ally to everyone who wasn’t. I started to be very vocal about this much to my parents demise. My mother and I were upstairs in the open space trying to figure out what to fill the space with when I started on a tangent about gay rights. As I finished she asked: “Why do you care so much about the gay community? Are you gay?” Her words dripping with judgement and confrontation. The carpet under my feet started to feel different, my presence felt different. I felt confronted, but about what. 

“Are you gay?”. I hated that question. So what if I was. That shouldn’t change the way I am perceived. When people continue to ask you things about yourself that you haven’t discovered. It takes a piece of yourself away from you. I didn’t realize that it had been taken from me until I had to ask for myself. “Am I gay?”  It felt good to ask, it felt good to question. I was proud of myself just for asking the question. But, asking was just the beginning, I forgot I had to answer it.

“No. Just because I support the community doesn’t mean I’m in it.” I stood firm in that response every time she asked me. I wanted to make her feel bad for asking. I wanted her to realize that she had a lot of assumptions pre-made. Eventually, she realized and stopped asking. Her realization allowed me to stop talking and thinking about my sexuality for a bit longer.

College came and showed me how wrong my view was. It was way easier to see all the things I missed about myself from high school and way easier to accept. This was specifically helpful in finding myself. I began to hang out with even more queer people and started to notice how similar we were. Specifically my dorm neighbor freshman year. She was very open about her sexuality and we had a lot of conversations about how she came to find it for herself and what she had to go through to get there. I realized I had never seen the aftermath of figuring out who you are. I was there to see the questioning stage, I envied it, but I never saw them living it. But, there I was witnessing it in a dirty, probably moldy, dorm room. I saw me in her. She made me comfortable. She changed how I viewed myself. I figured it out but, I never said it out loud for fear that it would become real and I would have to deal with it.

I laid cuddled with my boyfriend in an Airbnb with a shitty twin bed, watching “Skin Wars”. And through a random comment I made towards a model, he asks “Are you bisexual?” There was no pause. I knew the answer. “Yeah probably.” I finally just knew. I smiled after I said it knowing that I had just come out. “Okay.” His nonchalant answer fills me with even more happiness knowing that I was accepted. We continue to nuzzle into each other as if nothing significant had happened. 

“Are you bisexual?” is the question I prefer. It signifies person recognizing person. Community recognizing community. This question coming from that person was specific, precised, almost planned. As if he knew I had the answer. It felt comfortable like he was asking for clarification. I had never said it out loud for fear that it would become real. With reality comes with dealing with the opinions of others.

 Before we slept that night, I cried, while I was happy to finally come out, it was the fact that I had to deal with the consequences. Telling friends and family that this was who I was. It scared me. To this day I am nervous to fully show who I am. But what matters the most to me is that I know who I am. I always think about eight-year-old me, never even having the chance to figure herself out. I wish I could tell her what she missed.