BIG FEELS ABOUT BEING INVISIBLE, EVEN TO MYSELF:
I didn’t know I was bi — at least “know” it in a way that I could speak it — until I was 28 years old.
Forever the most frustrating part of coming out later in life is the question — how did I not know??
But, then again, how could I know something that did not exist? I grew up in a conservative, evangelical setting in rural Saskatchewan. Being queer in any capacity was not an option. I mean, there were definitely people who we all knewwww were gay, but also no one we knew was gay, you know?
When I was growing up, my family hosted a “bible study” every Saturday night. I put that in quotes, because it wasn’t an official kind of bible study approved by one of the churches in our community; it was a misfit, sprawling kind of bible study, for all the rejects who didn’t like the official bible studies. My parents would make the main course of a meal every weekend: roast chicken and homegrown potatoes or lasagna or split pea soup with homemade bread. Everyone who came would bring a salad or dessert. We would eat and visit, and sometimes get around to singing worship songs or reading a chapter of a Christian book together. The kids would run wild while the parents visited. People often didn’t leave until past midnight. We would play hide-and-seek or jump on the trampoline or hang out in the basement, or other kid kinds of things.
During the time my siblings and I were homeschooled, this was often our main social interaction of the week. I remember one such evening having an intense conversation with a boy who was a couple years older than me, basically calling him a baby for not being able to admit to which members of the same sex were attractive or not. To his credit, he was like, “Yea, you’re right. Of course we can tell who’s attractive or not.”
Now I can look back on this and realize it was a VERY GAY conversation to have. I can also look back and realize that I had a crush on him and I had a crush on the girl he had a crush on and she had a crush on him too—and neither one had a crush on me. SAD.
I was in university when I remember hearing the word “bisexual” for the first time. Truly, did not know it existed before that moment. My sister told me in passing, “Oh yea, he’s bi.” I asked, “What’s bi?” She always knows things before I do.
It was ten years later that I first noticed a heart-beating, butterflies-in-my-stomach crush that I had on a woman. I was in a music class for adults with disabilities, singing folk songs and taking turns doing the limbo with my client. This woman was one of the volunteers, had short, curly hair and blushed a deep fuchsia any time she pulled out her guitar or sang loud enough for someone else to hear. It was strange how natural liking her in a like-like kind of way felt.
My therapist said, “This is normal, this constant unfolding of yourself. Your body is allowing this now because you have created a life that is safe enough to know.”
There is, of course, much to say about purity culture and shame and my own unique experience and our collective western experience around being bi and closeted and invisible to myself and others. In short, I hardly felt safe in my own sexual body, I hardly felt safe feeling attracted to men - of course I couldn’t be attracted to other genders too.
I remember wondering out loud to an adult when I was young,
“It’s so strange, all the other sins - adultery, murder, lying - it’s all something that you do. Being gay is just something that you are.”
I don’t remember getting a satisfying answer.
This is all still relatively new, and yet, it is deep in my bones, a truth my body held in safekeeping for me since I was born.
A couple years ago I came out to some of the people in my life who still hold fear where there could be love. It was really hard and very sad, and sometimes still is.
My therapist says that when we live in the flow of our life, when we live our truth, we challenge others to do the same. Sometimes I think that’s a nice thought, and sometimes I think it’s an annoying thing to say and maybe not true.
The feeling of invisibility is one that catches my breath in my throat. Now, when there is something that makes me feel like I’ve disappeared, my body responds by freezing or breaking down—the sounding of alarm bells to say, “No, not again, absolutely not.” Invisibility is not a way of living that I can fold myself back into; and though I am also learning a new balance in my comfort level with personal exposure, it will never be in an act to eliminate myself from my necessary existence.
Happy belated bi-visibility day to my fellow bis, and to anyone who insists on being seen fully.
Talk soon,
Natahna
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