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Gay
I remember the first time I was gay.
Well, maybe it wasn't the first time I was gay, but when I look back on my memories, it was the first time I did, what they call, "gay shit". I had, what we call, a little routine. I'd just been pulled out of the public school system to be homeschooled and I was coming to see homeschooling has some benefits to it. I always found a way to ask that, if it'd be alright, could I possibly do my math homework, which was on the computer, in my bedroom? An odd request, but my mom always obliged, at least til she realized I wasn't getting any real work done in there. This was my time. I would search up "Britney Spears before and after", unsure exactly what the before meant or what the after was, but sure that I was attracted to both, but especially the after. This is how I learned I have a taste for disaster women.
I remember the first time I said gay.
Gay was becoming an elusive word to me around the age of 11. While I'd read it many times in books, mostly from the 19th century, I only had a vague impression of what this word meant, of course. In my mind, gay unequivocally meant happy. So when I called my sister gay, I meant really nothing by it, but I think perhaps I knew it meant a little more. My parents infrequently watched the news, but this was around the time that gay marriage was legalized in the US, and I'm sure I heard rumblings.
I remember the first time I felt gay.
My freshman year of high school, my sibling came out, or at least tried to, for the first time in our house.
It started with my parents asking what we were doing going to a pride parade. A fair question.
We had the choice at that moment to come out, or to find an excuse or to back out. I remained neutral, yet my sibling took the bold step to come out as a sophomore in high school.
The text "Im Bisexual" sat heavy in the house - we stood up stairs while my parents were downstairs. For a long moment, nothing happened.
What proceeded was a mess, and I honestly can't remember half of it. I remember spilling cat food all over the garage floor and crying, and next thing I remember my mom yells "If you want to finger women's pussies that's fine by me!"
I was shocked by this, of course. How did she know that that meant if I even didn't?
I've learned a lot since my sibling came out, and not just about fingering, but about my own identity and who I am apart from my family's conception of queerness. Maybe it wasn't til this year that I knew what me being gay meant.