Momentary Bilss cont.

            After that, I met another girl through a mutual friend. I’m sitting here straining my brain trying to remember how we met, and I just can’t quite remember. At that time, I still didn’t think I was attracted to women. This girl hurt me, conflicted me, confused me, and I couldn’t get enough of her. I knew she was emotionally unstable and bounced quickly in and out of relationships. Of course, I thought I was the exception. It didn’t help that she told me our song was “The Only Exception” by Paramore. I fell for her hard. She would lead me on then disappear. I would come back every time.

            She came to my apartment to tell she joined the army. We talked on my porch about how this would affect “us”. I was hurt that she would make such a drastic decision without consulting me. We eventually ended the conversation with our first kiss. All of our back and forth and sexual tension lead to this moment, and she tasted like stale cigarettes followed by a disappearance.

            She finally reconnected with me and told she had gotten married to a man. I was so confused and hurt. It was just a few weeks ago we were making out and discussing “us”. I thought we had something. I thought I was the exception. I thought she was a lesbian. She told me it was just so she could cover up her homosexuality and not get discharged from the army. I asked, “So it’s not physical at all?” She said it still was physical. I was done at this point. I was done with the back and forth.

            I didn’t talk to her for a long time after that. She mailed me letters from boot camp. I never responded. Eventually, she called to tell me she was honorably discharged from the army. When she returned, she admitted to being dishonorably discharged for a psychotic disorder.

I spent most of my adult life trying to find validation and identity in the ideals of others. I wanted so desperately to feel loved, no matter how toxic the relationship. I was searching for a satisfaction that could not be fulfilled, but I kept trying to find that bliss in the validation of others. There’s so many faults in this. My biggest fault is that I fall for broken people. I see their potential and fall for that instead of who they are. But I was never a strong enough person not to lose myself in them.

I’m not ready to write the next part of my story, and I’m not sure I ever will be ready. I spent the last two and a half years trying to overcome and forget you. The truth is you’re the largest and most deceitful part of my story. I can start with the rehearsed story you told people about how we met.

I appeared on a speaker panel for the LGBT group on-campus. I had been identifying as transgender for about six months and had already fully thrusted myself into its lifestyle. She instantly saw me and whispered to her friend, “He’s cute.” Her friend responded, “I think I went to high school with him.” I then go on to describe my attraction to men despite being born female and self-identifying as male. She left the meeting with disappointment.

Months go by including a summer living on the empty campus. I was eager for my friends to return from their homes, and decided to throw a party with my friend. I had rekindled my friendship with Vanessa over the course of the summer. Sam had graduated and moved back home. Vanessa and I remained on-campus that summer. We were throwing the party together at her apartment. Unknowingly, she invited her. My summer was spent with conflicting ideas about my sexual identity. I spent the summer hung up on a girl who went off with a real man.

The theme of the party was “My Life is Bro”. Vanessa and I liked to pretend we were heartless douchebags only interested in hooking up. I had never had sex so that couldn’t have been further from the truth. For our party, guests had to dress like stereotypical frat guys. If someone dressed life a woman, they had to stay in the kitchen all night making sandwiches. I proceeded to play beer pong and do all those regrettable things done at college parties.

I was standing in the parking lot, drink in hand, and rambling about the conflict of my sexual identity. I look around to my friends and say, “I think if I just made out with a girl I would know.” She was standing in the parking lot and says, “I’ll make out with you” then grabs my face. I got that tingling feeling in my stomach that is described in every romantic movie. I pull away and look to my friend, “Yep, I like girls.” I drove her back to my place that night to begin the next four years of my life.