Chapter 4

I remember when I first started dating. A boy came out to the house one day only for a moment and he left. My dad saw him leave and the next morning when the boy called dad grabbed the phone out of my hands and ordered him never to call back again. The boy called because he wanted to know if I would like to go to the zoo with him. It was a Sunday morning and an innocent enough invitation. I was once again mortified and felt dirty and guilty even though I was perfectly innocent.

I was eighteen or twenty when I went out with a guy who was 28 years old. Of course he wanted me suck him off. Gross! I didn't so we didn't go out again. But, my mother knew his mother and when he broke his leg skydiving my mother told me to take him a six pack and visit him at home where he was living with his mother. Once again I was mortified. Here I am a lesbian acting like a straight woman. Once again I wished I was dead. I took release and rescue in music and in nature and daydreaming about woman. Most of my life I have loved a woman from a distance. She never knew I loved her. I never had sex with a woman until I was past forty. I got so sick of men before that, I thought that I would rather be asexual and do without then to go on living a lie. My life was a lie. I was not my authentic self because of religious social norms and government and anti-media attention against homosexual. Whenever homosexuals were seen on TV news they singled out the most flaming flamboyant queers and extreme butch dykes. I would see these butch dykes and thought to myself.. I can't be a lesbian. Only in recent, very recent years have I gotten to know woman who are lesbians who looks like other feminine straight women. Why in the past lesbians thought that they have to act like men, I"ll never know. All I know is that I it was not my cup of tea. So, bottom line was was born too soon; about, twenty years too soon.

I kept my promise to myself to never marry and to be self-sufficient. The universe blessed me and granted me a good paying jobs with wonderful benefits. I thought I died and went to heaven after working as a hairdresser and when I couldn't take that anymore, working in a bank. The communications job was the best yet and a keeper as long as they would have.

In the early nineties, I went to a channel who channeled Ezekiel, a friendly spirit. He said I would be the one to choose when I wanted to leave my job and that I wouldn't lose it before I was ready to leave it. And that prediction turned out to be true. I was legible to retire and take a buy out when my job did finally move to another state.

In my heart I wanted to be a psychologist, a counselor and work with young people. Ezekiel said that I would be good with young people. When I was young I was not encouraged to go to college; while my parents barely made it through grade school and so decided that I wasn't college material. I was interested in art, writing and loved to read. My mother hated that I read so much and in recent years said she wondered how my lesbian partner could stand to live with me. My mother wanted to keep me down there with her. Yes, I was with my partner for fifteen years.. we were the best of friends and although no longer a couple we are still good friends.

When I first began dating guys I thought well maybe the right one will come along and change me. It never happened. I was always in love with one of my close girl friends at the same time. And of course, they never knew it and of course they were straight and in love with men.

I have to say that I dated many guys and most were gentlemen; well otherwise I would not have gone out with them. When I was younger we group dated which was the best of both worlds because even though I was on a date with a guy usually my best girl friend whom I had a crush on (unbeknown st to her) was usually along with her boyfriend. And group dated was fun. I was fine as long as there were troubled dating and split-ups and the group pretty much consisted of single people But, when I neared the age of forty most of my friends had already gotten married and so I was very much alone. And so I simply got into myself with running, playing tennis, bicycling and working-out. I wanted to be the best I could be at the age of forty and I believe that I was.

Then I came out to a friend at work and soon we hooked up as a couple. We were together for fifteen years. And together we met most of our mutual friends and they remain my closest friends. I wanted our split up to be friendly. I just needed space. She was my first lesbian partner and my only one. Maybe I was experiencing a mid-life crisis; maybe I just wanted to spread my wings a bit before I got too old; who knows?