Community Rainbow Waves

THE WAY TO YOURSELF BEGINS WITH LOVE

Love for a woman is the most beautiful thing that happened in my life.

I’ve always been a weird kid who wasn’t interested in relationships. I didn’t like boys and I didn’t like girls. I was fascinated by my inner world and the mysteries that fill my life. But I confess: “All my life I have been looking for a friend with whom I would like to share my discoveries.”

At the age of 16, I went to another school and met a girl. It seemed to us that we were once very close, which amazed us. One accident helped me become aware of my feelings. Unfortunately, they were not reciprocal. I was able to suppress these feelings in order to move on.

From the very beginning it seemed so natural to me. The only reason I tested myself for a long time, trying to be normal, is our legislation. Most likely, I will never have a full-fledged family … But it is easier to accept this than to pretend all my life.

None of my relatives know about this. I don’t want to lose my only family. And I don’t want to hurt them. But with close friends, I am absolutely frank. This gives freedom to me and to them. Very soon I fell unrequitedly in love again, but chose a new path.

Once a persone I loved said: “Unconditional love is possible only for God.” And I smiled …

I think that to love a person whom you don’t hear, don’t see, don’t know whether he is smiling now or sadness fills his heart … and even more so you don’t have the opportunity to be near, to bare yourself in front of him … This is the same as to love God.

After all, all you know is that he Is. And at some point it becomes enough for you.

My soul has always resisted the understanding of Love as an internal state. After all, I was sure that love is, first of all, a manifestation … without which any important words lose all value. And these feelings (be it inspiration or immense emptiness) without action are most likely nothing more than a need for acceptance and recognition. Since you feel so important because of the other. And this is actually enough for many people.

But when you Love, one state seems so little. There is a growing feeling of overcrowding. It’s like a cup inside you, which will soon overflow … Or a growing tree, directed upward, which is blocked by a stone roof, not allowing it to become even larger and more powerful.

Subsequently, a moment comes when you lose the meaning of life… It’s scary, hard, and aimless.

Every day the same question: “Why? What is the meaning of everything that happens to you, what is born in you, changes you, inspires you, but also throws you against a concrete wall? ” Even if you do not even have the right to say “I love you” … In any case, in the sense that is genuine.

But you don’t want to get rid of it…

It’s so easy to erase someone from your heart, stifle it in yourself and move on, continuing your search. But only weak people do this. This is the path of those who expect love from others but don’t love others. You know … When you do not want to give up on anyone, consciously dooming yourself to loneliness, the appearance of that very only person gradually dissolves. His figure slowly disappears, but the feeling remains with you.

Now I look into the eyes and find God in them, I see a blurry silhouette, behind which the whole world is.

I was finally able to feel that everything in the world exists as a whole. One soul that knew nothing but chaos until it incarnated in the material world. That is why when you meet a person who seems similar, understandable and so familiar to you, you get the feeling that you have returned home.
It always seemed to me that to be spiritual means to be in such a state of consciousness in which you identify yourself with everything living and nonliving that exists in this world or another.

Now I also identify the people I love with the Universe. They are an integral part of it, just like me. This means that we are all small parts of each other.
This gives so many opportunities for my Love that I have not found before. And if I want to show my feelings, I can do it at any moment, under any circumstances, and wherever I am. Then the world, albeit imperceptibly, will change.

In this moment, I realize that I love life like I never did before. And I so want to know her. Since life itself is Love. Now I listen to music differently, I read books differently, my fingers touch the strings of the guitar in a new way, my arms hug my relatives differently, and my eyes look at the stars in a different way.

These feelings are so pleasant. Something warm and bright shines inside me.

The body seems light, and complex things seem surprisingly simple.

It’s incredible how beautiful everything around me is, and it deserves the greatest love.

So one person becomes the whole world.

I will go my own way and sow seeds, in the expectation that the most beautiful buds will bloom in those places someday. And you will feel their wonderful scent, or you will even be able to enjoy the dazzling colors and amazing shapes.

And I still believe that I will be lucky enough to meet someone who is as in love with life as I am to love it together.

After all, when I am gone, the world will continue to exist. And I want that in this world there would be more Life!

Queer

I think I’ve always known I was part different, but growing up in a very small town I did not grow up with anyone in the queer community around me, or at least they were not open.

When I was in grade 8, my mom moved us to the next town over which was slightly bigger. There I fell in with a bunch of misfits, some of which were exploring their sexualities.
At the time, I was still dating guys, although I was tossing them aside before anything could become real.

In grade nine, I finally worked up the courage to tell one of my then bisexual friends that I thought I might also be bisexual. She then went on to dismiss me and said, and I quote “you’re our straight friend”. As you might have guessed this pushed me even further back into the closet, when I stayed until after I graduated.

It wasn’t until I moved across the province to the big city of Vancouver for school, that I actually allowed myself to start to come out to my new school mates. There I met this older Brazilian girl, who was my first relationship with a girl….and wow, eye opener.

Since then I have been dating women, identifying as queer as gay/lesbian/bi/pan feel too restrictive for me. I am pretty open with my friends that I have made since college and new people I have met, I am still not out to my family and a lot of my childhood friends back home.

I’m pretty sure my parents know, I mean I basically dressed and acted like a boy from the ages of 5-11. But I became rather famine during high school. One moment I feel ready to tell them and think they will be fine, and the next I remember and old comment they made or something they said recently that makes me hold back.

I’m 26, and I’m still a bit of a hot mess when it comes to relationships. But working on it.

I am a lesbian

i have always known i was different but could never understand why, untill i watched pretty little liars. it was not a really gay show, but watching a gay character come out on tv made me really question myself. do i like this? yes i did, but i shoved it down. growing up in a conservative home and being gay is not easy. so, i was straight, i totally like boys. in fact, i loved them. i forced crushes on a lot of them and was always into some boy. when i started having feelings for my best friend (a…girl), it got worse. i was so depressed, and to make thinks harder, i was getting bullied. i just couldn’t like girls. so, i have a crush on ‘random boys name’. it was a cycle. it wasn’t untill i switched schools that i started accepting myself. (it’s harder to come out to you childhood friends). anyways, at this new school, i met this girl. she was so pretty and we liked the same things. i really had a crush this time. it wasn’t just someone i decided to crush on, i really liked her. it was an intense feeling, admiting it to myself. so, i started coming out. i told my new friends i liked her. and they didn’t care. it was normal and it felt SO GOOD. i was still figuring myself out, so i kissed A LOT of men, but it never felt right. at this point, i haven’t kissed a girl yet.and when i did, i felt those butterflies in my stomach. my first thought was “wow THIS is what it feels like” and it just hit me like a bus. yes, i am a lesbian. so i started owning it. i like girls and that’s okay. and i started just telling people, mostly when i was drunk. and nobody cared. it was okay. i’m still not really out to my family, but i did told my mom and she supported me. she still says some stupid stuff or makes some hurtful comments but she is learning and that’s all she can do. and i am grateful for that it’s okay to be yourself. it’s okay.

I am Chelsey. I am a girl, a lover, a fighter, a wife and I am bisexual!

My story starts when I was young, about the age of 10, though I did not realize until more recently, and I am approaching my 26th birthday. When I was younger I had a bit of a struggle with my gender identity. I was a “tom-boy” and between the ages of eight to thirteen, I refused to wear clothes from the girls section, in favor of baggy “boy” clothing, and wearing short hair. I just felt more comfortable that way, but if anyone mistook me for actually being a boy, I got angry, and couldn’t understand why it was so hard for people to get that girls can like boy things too! To be fair, I did look like a boy so I didn’t have much of a right to be upset, and now I look back on those years and laugh a little. It was also around this time that I found myself becoming more and more infatuated with female icons or characters in movies and T.V. Moulin Rouge was my all time favorite movie at age 12, but instead of being obsessed with Ewan McGregor, I was in love with Nicole Kidman. I thought nothing of it besides admiring a great artist, who just so happens to be gorgeous, I didn’t think anything of this behavior, but my uncle, who lived with my mom and I at this time, and who is gay as well, clocked this behavior and starting making comments about being gay or a lesbian, and poking fun at me about it. This of course made me furious because, for one, his words rang true to me, but I am suborn and would not stand for someone else telling me what I was, or who I liked. And two, because I would get flustered and confused and thought that there was no way he could be right about me. That wasn’t what society said was right, and surely a whole group of people would be right and he, as one man alone, must be wrong. So I did what many many people do, about all conflicting and scary feelings, and I buried them away, deep down so that I wouldn’t have to confront them myself, or give anyone else to opportunity to tell me what my sexuality was again. Besides, my family already had a gay member, there couldn’t be more than one to a family, right? Isn’t that how it works??

When I reached puberty, I started to feel much more comfortable wearing more feminine clothing and became a lot more comfortable in my own skin, which as I’m writing this, I realize that is a little ironic because puberty is when most people feel the exact opposite… non-the-less, I was feeling more like “myself” despite having an occasional moment or feeling of attraction to my friends, the female friends. I told myself that those feelings were just there because we were so close and such good friends, and like in all relationships, it was normal to feel a little jealous when you had to start sharing your time among other friends or an occasional boyfriend. Except, I wasn’t feeling jealous of their time being spent with others, I was jealous of the boy holding my best friends hand, or talking all night with her on the phone, and getting to hear her profess her love for him. And when they would inevitably break up, I would feel a little bit relieved, and all too happy to through my arms around her in support and wipe her tears. But again, for years, I would lie to myself by saying that I was acting as any friend would, and that there was nothing more to it because there couldn’t be.

So, I fell in love with men out in public, and women in my mind. And for many years, I was content with this being my reality. I met an incredible man to whom I am now married and it has been with him and the security of our relationship, that I was finally able to start letting my feelings and attractions to women come to the surface to explore. There is a small part of me that wishes I had come to that point much sooner, and before we were married, especially given that I was quite young when we did so, and at twenty-two years old, there is so much life left to live and years to spend figuring out things like sexuality and love and attraction. But we were firm in our decision to marry and it was the best decision I’ve made.

I am not a particularly spiritual person, but I have truly been blessed with finding my husband who loves me for exactly who I am, and for being there to listen to my ramblings and vocal realizations about being bisexual. He created a safe place for me to talk about my feelings, when I had not created one for myself, and for that I am very thankful. Eventually I felt more comfortable talking to friends about my realization, and my sisters who are nothing but amazing and supportive, and honestly didn’t have much of a reaction to my confession, besides making it seem like there was absolutely nothing different about me to them. And I mean that in the very best way. I was still the same “Chelsey” that they grew up with, I was still me, only with a very big realization, which to be honest, some of them knew before I did. I became more and more comfortable with this as my new truth over the last four years that this discovery process lasted, but through all of it I was certain that I would never be comfortable telling my mother. I didn’t think that she would be angry or upset about it, I just didn’t want her to make some kind of snarky comment or mention the fact that I’m married to a man and the obvious complexities of sexuality and marriage. These were issues I had been navigating, quite gracefully with my husband for years and I wasn’t yet ready for her input.

Now I find myself in a strange position, along with the rest of the world, where I have not left my house for anything other than walking the dog and taking out the trash for twenty-one days. During my time of self-quarantine, I have been finding ways to stay creative. I am a writer and a photographer, which are mediums I have used quite frequently to express myself and other issues dear to my heart, but the topics of sexuality, lgbtq, gender norms and freedom have been taking up more space than anything else in my mind. I have written poetry and done a couple photo shoots with myself eluding to my sexuality, to use as my own full coming out to my mother. I don’t exactly know what shifted in my mind or in my heart about it, but I have come to a place where I would just so much rather be completely out and free to express and talk about who I am with everyone in my life. So when my mother asked to read my poem, as she is my biggest fan and I love her dearly for that, I sent it to her happily and without reservation or fear. It is as follows:

In all the land of milk and honey,
when all the land was warm and sunny
there stood a girl, and in her eye
she saw the long day pass her by.
She stood and stared, then sat to cry
for there was none to hold her high.

She had in mind the arms that would,
forbidden as they were.
For in those arms her heart did lie
though there was one thing more.
Their lives had parted long before,
still, longing filled her soul,
to hold the one for whom she’d die,
great love must come with a tole.

Devoted she was to someone new,
though torn, her mind had split in two.
With one for him and one for her,
but in the end with what to do,
she knew not who to choose.
For if she did, the choice she’d make,
well surely two would stand to loose.

But in the night, her dreams held true,
the love it was her heart went to.
Though with the dawn her sadness grew,
the warmth she felt was gone, she knew.

And though she woke, she could not rise.
Her mind was lost beneath her eyes,
instead it soared beyond the seas,
and weaved around among the trees.
It fluttered to the place she knew,
this place it was where her heart grew.

It found it’s way and hoped to stay
into the arms where lovers play.
And in those arms she loved so dear
her eyes began to shed a tear.
She wasn’t sad, or mad, but glad,
for it was her she’d wanted so bad.
And as it was her that her heart had belonged
she knew from the start that it had all along.

So I sent the poem off to my mom, and awaited the questions I knew that she would have for me. And she did have questions, and I answered them by explaining my journey to figure out who I am and who I want to be, and how I want to be seen and fit into the world. I explained that I have come to realize that I am bisexual and I am married to a man, and I would not change one second of this life I have been given to figure out. Her response was very simple, and to the point, and not what I had expected. She said “I thought so.” and added the “thinking man” emoji to her text. I am thankful to say that her response made me feel so relieved, and seen, and loved, and I will never take that for granted because I know that there are many other people out there with stories similar to mine, who do not get the same warm feelings in response to their coming out. I love my mother to pieces, and everyone who has been there to support me in everything I do in this life. I will take none of them for grated, and I will be living my life, doing the best to spread love, understanding and light to those dark sides of society as I go.

Thank you so dearly, from the very bottom of my heart, and from the depths of my being where I had been hiding away my true self for so many years. Everyone living an out and open life, and everyone who is trying to get there right now, you are all my heroes, and you are not alone in this crazy world!

All my love to you,

Chels

Dyke lesbian gay women

I realised that what I was feeling towards girls was attraction when I was 11 but was still convinced that I like guys. When I was twelve I started coming out to my friends as bi. There were all supportive (albeit some more than others) and I continued to identify as bi all through high school even though by my final year I was properly aware that I wasn’t attracted to men. I’m currently in my first at uni and am now out as a lesbian with two great new lesbian friends. Last night I came out to my dad who was super chill about it and I plan to come out to the rest of my family within the next two weeks. I’ve been out to everyone except family since I started high school but didn’t realise until I made gay friends that were out to everyone everyone that I realised that I was still restricted somehow. Even if it is just one family member, being out to my dad has let me breathe a little better. Being out really is freeing and I’ve never felt better.

Out really is the new in xx

14, Louisiana, United States

I’m fourteen and not fully out to my family. I’m gay and I live in a small town in southern Louisiana where church is everything. There’s not much I can do physically in my community, so I help out through the internet. I use the internet to educate myself and learn strategies to fight against prejudice and cruelty against the community. I love to write so I write stories of inclusion and happy endings for LGBTQ+ people especially when I enter writing contests. I use my artistic abilities to depict non stereotypical people of the community. I try hard to unify and support others when I come across them on the internet. I support and reach out to other, especially younger, people in the lgbtq+ community. I’ve had several people come out to me because I was the only gay person they knew. I tried my absolute best to reassure and to give hope to them and point them in the right direction. Being that person, the person who others feel comfortable to come to with such an important part of themselves, is one of the highlights of my life. A lot of the time I feel alone, but helping others makes me realize that I don’t want others to feel that way, I want to be the person that changes that for them. I’m proud of the person I am and the people I’m helping others become. The internet can be a scary and cruel place, but I hope to make it a little bit better one step at a time.

Still figuring this out

I’ve never admitted it before, ever, to anyone… I’ve spent 15 years feeling like there is something wrong with me! I am brand new to this world and to earpers and I’m blown away by the community feel. I was introduced just a few weeks ago after reading Dom’s birthday post and after reading it I related so much. I was so inspired by her words. I related to the feelings of suppression and putting the part of me I knew to be true to the back of my mind to pretend it didn’t exist. The part of me that I know is also attracted to woman. I’ve got that feeling where my tummy is doing flips by even just typing it. Because I’ve never faced it until now.
I’ve been in heterosexual relationships my whole life and have been in my current relationship for the last 10 years. I have young children who are my everything. This is part of the question that runs through my mind, how can I be in a long term relationship with a man, be a mum and still know that I do have an attraction to woman too? Does it make me a bad person? Or a bad mum? My partner would also likely feel betrayed that I never talked about this. I don’t even know how he would feel about it. There are so many scenarios in my head.
I’m still not ready to verbalise what I am but at least I have finally admitted it to myself. Maybe over time, meeting the right people and continuing to be inspired within the STW community I will one day be at my bravest. But for now, all I know is that Dom sparked something within me to be true to myself. I’m a thirty year old bisexual.

An almost married Lesbian

I first acknowledged I was into women in the 5th grade. As a kid I was pretty sheltered so I didn’t actually know what gay/lesbian was, but I did hear about the word bi – so that’s what I called myself. When I told my mom she explained that all women know that other women are beautiful, but that it didn’t necessarily mean I “liked” them. Now, I can acknowledge a good looking dude, don’t get me wrong, but I knew I could never love a man the way I could love a woman. By the time I hit middle school I came out to a few friends who were incredibly supportive. And when high school rolled around, I finally accepted myself enough to openly live as a lesbian. I got very little flack about it thankfully (IMO it’s because of how much larger I was than my peers) but I never truly accepted the part of myself that could be attracted to men. As confusing as this sounds, I still identify as a lesbian because of my previous statement about falling in love. I am lucky enough to love a woman who understands what this means and accepts me for who I am. Unfortunately, our wedding was postponed because of COVID-19, so although I can’t quite call her my wife, we have proudly and affectionately adopted the title of “almost-wife” for each other. Because of my family (who is extremely supportive btw), friends, and the love of my life I am enthusiastically proud to be a part of this wonderfully supportive and kind community. And I am so friggin excited that Start the Wave has joined with the LGBTQ+ community so we can grow and learn and love one another the way that we all deserve!

No rainbow without the rain – Queer sunshine

My story isn’t the saddest or the most unique one to tell but it is my story. And in the LGBTQIA+ community it is all about representation, so here I go.

Lucky enough for me, when I first discovered that I liked girls it didn’t scare me or terrify me (at first). It was just the way I felt – I recognised it as a part of me, like an inherent puzzle piece of mine. I didn’t judge it as something that needed to be addressed or spoken about, rather, I didn’t think of it much. Almost like breathing: you breath without thinking – in and out – every day, every minute, everywhere. That’s how I felt about being interested in girls, it’s just a part of my nature.

I was about 13 years old. And part of why it came to me so easily, without struggling about what it may or may not mean, was due to the Russian band t.A.T.u. Okay, now, we all know it was for show, BUT and that is the important part: I felt represented, I felt like I wasn’t the only one, and even though it was a controversial topic back then, most people discussed it in a very open-minded way. The topic was present in the media. With 14 I had my first girlfriend, and my Dad was totally cool about it. We never needed to talk about it or address it any way – just like me, he never needed to wrap his head around it.

My mom, however, was different: She somehow suspected something, so she went snooping through my things and found a letter of my girlfriend at the time. It was after her telling me that she was disappointed in me, that no child of hers would behave in such a way that I realised being gay or being queer, or whatever label describes you best is maybe not just like breathing. It was the first time that I felt ashamed of myself, that I started thinking about what it meant to be different, that I didn’t feel accepted for who I am. It was within these struggles that I broke up with my girlfriend and that I didn’t have any kind of relationship for the longest of time.

After high school, I went abroad to Canada: learning about myself, working for the first time, living in a foreign country, speaking a different language, and just trying my best to find my authentic and true self. And it was the way people openly accepted me and my queer ways, that I understood that whatever I feel, whomever I feel something for is okay, is valid. I’ve never in my life encountered people who were more open-minded than Canadians, like ever! I’m forever grateful for my Canadian (host) family, for making me feel at ease with myself, for accepting me with all my queeriness.

Today I’m married to the most wonderful woman in the world, we are proud of our relationship and of our love. That doesn’t mean that we do not struggle anymore, or that everyone just accepts us. On the contrary, even though my mum was at our wedding, she does not accept us 100%, she still thinks that the way I live my life is wrong. BUT I know that nothing about love is ever wrong. I know that love and human beings can have a million different colors, and another million different shades of these colors – and that is beautiful. Maybe, just maybe, the more we are willing to stand up for ourselves, to be loud and proud, the more people see that, indeed, love is love, that this precious feeling, the truest of them all, is a wonderful thing and that instead of being ashamed of it we should embrace it with both arms as strong as we possibly can. And when there are moments – and we cannot deny that there are – when people do not accept us, say that homosexuality is a sin, call us names, then we must remember that it is exactly this rain that, together with our inner sun rays, becomes the world-encompassing rainbow we all want to see one day.

Simply me, Giulia

So, here I am. It took a while to write because english is not my mother language, i’m italian. My name is Giulia and I came out many years ago when was not so easy. I mean, is not easy at all, but in a small city of a Catholic country, believe me, it’s hard, most of all if your father is a public officer known in the city.
At that time I was living my dream with the only girl, till now, I really loved with all my heart and my senses. I was young, 24, thinking that I was living was really special; I never thought that something was wrong till the first and dramatic fight I had with my relatives.
That reaction scared me a lot because my thought was : if my father and my mother react in this way, what can I expect from strangers ? So I totally close in my self. I was still sure that what was going on was not wrong, but I was not able to talk with anyone and when the story ended I was totally alone. I could not show my pain because I did not know how to justify it.
I spend many years alone but during these years I started to open my self with friend. At the beginning was a total state of anxiety talking about being gay, but as soon as I talked with my dear friends, I noticed that for them it was normal, no problems at all. I was shocked about that!
Many years later I took again the argument with my relatives, they love me, they always have, but they were unprepared at that time, they were scared for me and was hard for them to manage it.
I told my father only one thing, when he apologized (btw he didn’t need to do it) : I was happy and you didn’t notice that.
Ya, that’s the point, being happy , being happy of what you are and who you love. I truly think that if we all together show our happiness, our consciousness, our strenght, that day in which you do not need to say Yep, I’m gay, is near. I’m a human being, a precious one, like all of us, I’m a lover and I don’t need to be identify in a scheme.
That’s me, Giulia, from Italy!