I want the world to know...

You would think that, at 32, I'd have my shit together and at least a few things about myself figured out. You would also think that I'd be more confident with that shit and those things. After all, I'm a grown-ass woman with supportive friends and family, so there's no reason to be anything but confident. It's not like they're going to up and leave (and if they do, were they really worth it?).

Here I am, getting ready for this year's Capital Pride Alliance Parade and wondering if I should be going as an ally or as an official "coming out." I didn't think this would cause so much consternation, but the more I vacillate between the two, the more I come to terms with... yeah, it should probably be the latter.

But I still find myself nervous, almost anxious, about it. Will people believe me? Hell, do I believe me? Is this me trying to be different or unique, to fall in a certain category because it'll ruffle feathers? Or is this just an attempt to fit into a group when, really, I have no experience, so what the hell do I know?

I've put this "confessional" off so long for fear of these questions and more, but I'm doing it anyway, fears be damned. So let me start here. Put it black and white. For, you know, the whole world to see. Because that's not nerve-wracking at all.

*huge, deep breaths*

I'm bisexual.

(That wasn't so hard, now, was it?!)

(Nah man I admit I'm shaking a little. Chickenshit!)

Okay, I'll admit. I've said this aloud to a small handful of people before. I've even posted about it on Facebook, I think. It's always felt flippant, though, almost defensive, like I should deny it because I'm in my 30s and shouldn't I have known this ages ago? Or... basically, regurgitate those previous questions until my brain is literally spinning in my skull.

Thing is, I'm pretty sure I've known for a while, potentially as early as puberty. This, I've never told anyone before, so buckle up, bitches, we're taking a trip down an oft-forgotten destiny path on Memory Lane.

(And now the nerves are really kicking in!)

When I was around 12 or 13, I hung out with this girl friend. Our parents were music colleagues, she was in chorus, and I was starting out on violin. I honestly don't remember other details of how we met or how we got to hanging out -- were our parents meeting regularly and we came along for the ride? -- but suffice it to say, we were around each other frequently.

At that point, I had maybe had a crush on one boy, a classmate in elementary school, who made my hands sweat and my heart race, like all school-age (and, let's be real, adult) crushes do. I remember asking my fourth grade teacher to pass a note torn from my notebook to him (why did I think I could trust her with that??), in which I basically poured my heart out. I'm not sure if he got it, but he did invite me to our Fifth Grade Dance, for which I was sick and unable to make it. Cue abject disappointment!

Other than him, I hadn't had any other crushes up to this point (and, learning much later in life that I'm also demisexual, how few crushes I had growing up no longer surprises me). I don't even know if I had a crush on this girl, but it was obvious she had one on me, and I was both attracted and more than complicit in experimenting.

But I had so few experiences -- okay, I had no experience! -- that I didn't know what this feeling was or any idea what to do with it. I honestly let her, in her relative infinite wisdom, take the reins and lead us to wherever the path was going to lead us. She appeared much more confident than I did, more willing to show me the ropes, but she also realized it was probably taboo, even in a pretty liberal, "out" musical community.

So perhaps it was blissful irony that my first kiss, my first time touching another person and being touched in a way that made me quiver from head to toe, was with a girl... in her bedroom closet.

... I feel like this needs to be a longer piece at some point, maybe as a project for my master's program or something (because I need something to write about!). But for right now, just digging up that memory is enough, especially considering the residual feelings of conflict, feelings I haven't processed yet and therefore can't vocalize.

Unfortunately, this lovely woman passed away a few years ago, and I feel terrible that I had never reached out after our parents parted ways in our mid-teens. I don't know what I'd say, how I'd feel, or what (if anything) would come of it... but she was, for all intents and purposes, my first foray into sexuality and in truly experiencing feelings for another person. I really hope, if she hadn't by then, she found herself before leaving this world.

This year, in addition to honoring this newfound (or new-expressed) part of myself, I honor her memory. Not as someone who was LGBTQIA+, because I honestly don't know how, if anything, she identified, but as someone who was confident enough in herself to reach out in every sense of the world, and who ultimately reached out to me and opened my world, too.

I'm not quite sure how to end this. I don't think there is an end, really, so maybe absentmindedly trailing off is apropos. I'm excited to attend this year's Pride Parade, nervous to do so as someone officially "coming out," and still taken aback by how this memory bubbled to the surface literally as I was writing this post... but I know this is just the beginning.

Thanks for all your support. <3