It's over

Two years. That is how long my first serious relationship lasted. Two years and two months. Plus a few days. So many things to say, I find it hard to even put one thought into words.

I am currently feeling all of the following: sadness, anger, depression, madness, relief, very, very, very cautious optimism, more sadness, more anger, and some jealousy. My girlfriend broke up with me, and this time it is for real. I know so in my heart. She doesn't love me anymore. She fell out of love with me. And it is so, so hard to accept.

There is somebody else, somebody new in her life, who she gave her heart to. A straight woman who doesn't have any use for her heart, not that that matters. Hearing her talk about that woman non-stop was one of the things that made me realize that this is it. No "I didn't mean it", no "I still love you."

I'm trying to not bargain with myself, to not hope for something that won't come. I deserve someone who loves me. Fully, 100%, all of me, all the time. It seems my ex-girlfriend is not that one person. No matter how much I want her to be, no matter how hard I fought for her to be. She's not the one for me.

Now I'm trying to regroup, let go of all the dreams we had together, build dreams of a future on my own. Like typical lesbians, we will probably continue to be friends and in each others lives, but right now I am trying to separate myself from her. Which is hard to do since we live together, in a studio apartment, which doesn't offer too much space for privacy. But we will manage, as we have.

Luckily, I am still in therapy. However, my therapist is trying to wean me off, so to speak, and is having me meet her only every other week. The day after she suggests that and I agree, my girlfriend breaks up with me. I decided to take the challenge and not go see my therapist without the appointment, since I have to get used to not having her.

I love my therapist to death (in a completely non-romantic way). She is amazing. She has helped me see many things, things I don't necessarily want to see. And she is trying so hard to make me see the good in myself. I panic when I think about the fact that I only have about 6 more meetings with her. We talked about me journalling/blogging to deal with difficult situations and since I am having a completely sleep-less night, I actually found the time to write something.

A start. A beginning into my new single life. Accompanied by many tears, but the hope that one day, the pain will go away and an amazing woman will come into my life, a woman who can give me what my ex-girlfriend couldn't.

Great friends = great support

Having seen almost all of my friends by now, and talking to them about some of the difficulties I face in loving a person with a horrible past and emotional problems, I was reminded by how good friends they were. They didn't judge, they didn't tell me to get out of a relationship that was at times difficult and the one thing Ms. K and Ms. L both said was 'As long as you are also looking out for yourself and you're still taking care of yourself,...' It is easy to judge other people. It is easy to think you know better. But both of them, and also my other friends, know that I didn't need/want their judgment. I wanted someone to talk to. And I really cherish the fact that while they had things to say about what we were talking about, it wasn't about how they felt or what they thought I should do. They showed that they cared about me and about my relationship and that while they couldn't really imagine what it was like, they understood me. I was a little afraid that they would judge my girlfriend or tell me to get out of a relationship that is at times difficult, but luckily neither of them did. And I am really thankful for that, because I don't want out of this relationship. At all.

I sometimes compare what is going on with my girlfriend to someone having cancer. It's not their fault they have cancer, but it an extremely difficult and painful thing to live through, not just for the person who is sick, but also for the partner/friends/relatives. Obviously, is someone becomes sick, you don't think about getting out just because it is hard. My girlfriend doesn't have a physical illness, but a mental illness. Yes, it is different in some ways. Yes, sometimes she hurts me because she is sick and can't help it. Does she hurt me on purpose? No! Does she regret hurting my feelings? Yes! Have I hurt her feelings before? Unfortunately yes.

It is always easy for people to judge other people's relationships. But I don't believe that a relationship in which no party has ever hurt the other party exists. My gf has hurt me and made me cry and there were a moment or two in which I had to gather myself and take a break before I could go back and accept her apology. She doesn't hurt me on purpose and when she apologizes, I always know she means it. Most of the time she feels worse about what she did/said than I feel afterwards. I have forgotten most of our fights and even the ones I haven't, I have forgiven. And I have hurt my gf too, I'm far from being a saint! I have said thing that I regretted later on, which I apologized for and made amends. I have knowingly said mean things once or twice, because we were fighting and I was mad. Does that make me a worse person - because I said something just to hurt her? Probably. But it's not really about who is a better person. Because we are both pretty good people. It is about the fact that no matter how hard it is, so far we have always managed to make it work and for the most part, we are both happy.

My gf is a great person, who has lived through horrible things and therefore has unique challenges. And as hard as it is sometimes, it is also totally worth it. Because she loves me and she cares about me and she makes me happy. Even though my friends don't experience that, because they haven't met her yet and probably won't for another two years (except for Ms. L, who might come visit soon!!! *YAY*), they don't criticize us or our relationship and I'm really thankful for it. It gives me strength to have their support.

When it rains, it pours

And in my and my girlfriend's lives, it seems as if when it doesn't rain, it drips. Constantly. We can't seem to catch a break, at all. Even though I am enjoying my summer and am able to de-stress a little, there are still constantly small things going on that don't allow me to completly de-stress. Trouble with the storage unit we rented over the summer. Worries about the possible new appartment. Money issues. Fights with siblings/parents. Friends bailing out and therefore leaving her with no place to stay for too long. More money issues. Worries about friends who are sick.

Right now, I feel like with all the progress we have made and all the work we put into our relationship, something always happens that makes life in general harder. I'm handeling being away from her fairly well and even though I miss her like crazy, I don't overreact when I don't hear from her for two or three days. We haven't really had a fight yet, which I think is really good and important for both of us. We rely on each other for support and help. All of those things make me proud of our relationship and the fact that even though it sucks that we are so far apart for so long, we deal with it fairly well. At the same time I wish we could just, for once, have it easy for a little while at least. We might both work starting next semester, so things will get super-busy and stressful really fast, and we could just both really use a break.

Lets just hope when I get back and we have two weeks together before school starts, we can use this time to really enjoy each other's company and enjoy our relationship. We both need it.

Memories from a time long gone, yet still so close

Being back in my home town puts me into a weird mood sometimes. A friend of mine, who I visited twice by now, lives right across the street from where I used to go to school to for nine years. Every time I visit her I drive by the building that holds so many memories. Memories of madly falling in love with someone completely unattainable. Memories of friendships forming, but also falling apart. Memories of conversations as deep as the most private thoughts and also as eye-opening as therapy. Since I moved twice after I graduated from high school, my time in middle and high school in that same building seems so long ago. It doesn't feel like just three years ago. I'm still fairly young, yet I feel so much more mature when I think of the person I was then and the person I am now. And intertwined with these thoughts are thoughts of the people who help mold me into the person I am today.

I have a special relationship with my first love. She was not just my first love - who ever has a first love who *just* was that anyways? - but she was also a person who helped me get through my teenage years and influenced me heavily. Let's call her Mrs. Teacher, since she was my teacher. Yeah, that old cliché. I started getting to know her better in my first year of high school, when my mom fell ill. None of my friends understood my fears, so I felt like I had to talk to an adult. Since she had told us to talk to her if we had problems, I took her up on that offer. She actually listened to what I had to say and made me feel like I wasn't a child anymore, but actually a person with valid feelings and thoughts. I felt like she saw me, the real me, not the child many people saw in me. Yes, I was only 15, but I felt more mature than that and I know I was more mature than most 15-year-olds. So after talking to her a few times, I started falling for her more and more. She was way too old for me, straight and just in general completely unattainable, but that didn't stop me from having fantasies about our lives spent together. I knew that she was divorced, but in my second year I found out that she was in a relationship. That revelation broke my heart. I cried myself to sleep for days. But, since she was completely out of my reach before I knew about her boyfriend, my feelings for her didn't change much. She was not any closer to being mine than she had been before. Time went on and we continued to talk after school sometimes, forming a teeny tiny bit of a friendship, as much as we could given the whole student-teacher relationship. In my last year at high school, a lot happened between her and my class, so the friendship that could have been after I was done with school was no longer an option.

Since I needed some documents for my college application, I saw her once last year. We talked a bit and she said things that only someone who really knows me would say. We also talked about staying in touch. I wrote to her, but hadn't heard back from her. Since I'm going to apply to universities soon, I will need more of the same documentation I had already gotten, so I called the school and asked her for it. I can still vividly remember how I felt about her. I know and cherish how she influenced my life. But at the same time, the feelings towards her have changed so much. Now, I have a girlfriend I love more than I loved her, and a girlfriend who loves me back. Now, I can't imagine living without my girlfriend and feel so deeply about her I sometimes almost can't handle it. Now, I feel more deeply than I had ever felt for this unattainable woman. Back then, I thought I loved as much as I could love. Now, I know I am capable of more, even without teenage hormones.

I wonder if all people who fell so hard the first time feel that way about their first love. Or if I'm different because of the circumstances and the fact that my first love was in my life, actively, for five years. I still know so well how I felt about Mrs. Teacher, yet the feelings are somehow removed from my emotions today. I still want to know her and I still want to talk to her. I still cherish her as an influence on my life. But now, I want to tell her about my girlfriend, and how being in a relationship has change me. Now, I want to tell her about my dreams, about the dreams I have when it comes to getting married and having kids. Now, I want to talk to her like we're even, the way she made me feel back then. Like we're friends.

I know one thing for sure: whenever I form a deep bond with a person, which I don't do easily, they remain in my heart. I'm loyal and I don't trust easily, but when I do, I do so fully. She has gained my trust a long time ago and even though I wasn't on her side when I felt she was wrong, I still feel loyalty towards her. And even if I'm not in touch with her, I will never forget how I felt for her a long time ago and how she made me a better person.

Clarification on "Breaking Up..."

Based on the two comments I got on my last post ("Breaking up is hard to do"), I thought I had to clarify what I wrote. My girlfriend breaks up with me when she is at her lowest. She always means it when she does, it's not something she 'uses' to get her way or anything like that.

She grew up in one of those families where Social Services didn't got involved because she didn't go to school covered in bruises, didn't have her bones broken frequently or was completely mal-nourished. However, she did not grow up being a loved, wanted child. She was the oldest out of four siblings and the black sheep, she was always blamed for the adult's mistakes and they took their frustrations out on her. Because of how she grew up, she doesn't feel like she deserves love. In her mind, she didn't do anything special to deserve to be loved. She doesn't see how funny, loving, caring or smart she is, all she sees is what she has been told all her life by the people who were supposed to love her... That she is fat, lazy, stupid and worthless. Her mother sees that they have a horrible relationship and naturally, 1) blames her for it, and 2) thinks she has to fix it. My lovely future mother-in-law recently complained about the fact that my girlfriend never calls her just to talk and find out how she is doing. She completely ignored that fact that my GF had been trying to get in touch with her for 3 weeks and had been leaving messages which were completely ignored by her mother. She never calls to ask how her daughter is doing, so why should her daughter call her. My girlfriend has also left messages with her father a number of times by now (probably since shortly after Christmas) and has yet to hear from him - she didn't get a call at her birthday.

My girlfriend grew up in a broken family full of abuse and neglect and she is only now learning how to have healthy, loving relationships with anyone. While she has a decent relationship with one of her sister, few people in her life had ever cared about her. She doesn't break up with me because she thinks she is so much better than me or because she thinks she would be better off without me. She breaks up with me because she thinks *I* would be better off without her and that *I* deserve someone better. She has problems, which is not really surprising, and she hasn't had any time yet to deal with her issues. So far she has always been in the situation where she was dependent on people who were being abusive towards her. Even when she lived with her dad, who was nicer to her than her mom, she lived with a step-mom who treated her like a piece of sh*t and it was very obvious that her dad cared more about his new wife than he ever did about his daughter. For the first time in her life she is in the situation of living with someone who doesn't abuse or mistreat her. She is in a safe place and it brings out a lot of the issues she had to deal with on the inside for a very long time. If she had tried to deal with her issues when she was living with either of her parents, she would have gotten kicked out, because they didn't care about her well-being. They only cared about themselves and their spouses/boy-friends/current flings.

It is hard to understand or know all the things that are going on inside of her on any given day. I don't know or understand everything she is going through and I don't know of all the horrible things that happened to her as a child. Without knowing her history or her current issues, it is impossible to know her motives for her actions. She isn't trying to hurt me when she breaks up with me. She is at an extreme low point and doesn't know what to do, so she tries to remove herself from a situation that in that moment causes her further pain.

I write about her and us in this blog because I don't have anywhere else to talk about it. I don't want my friends to know because they wouldn't understand and I can't tell them what happened to her as a child because it is her story to tell and very private. Here, I can be more open, because nobody we know reads my blog. But I don't want to be judged by people who only know part of the story and I don't want her to be judged. Life is hard enough for her as it is and I don't need people telling me what I'm doing is wrong either. I am committed to my girlfriend because I know what an awesome person she is. I also know her at her low points, even though I can't and don't always know/understand what is going on inside of her. All I know is that I want her to heal and get better and she won't heal if she doesn't get the chance to now. If she doesn't have someone to rely on, someone who will love her and show her that she can break the cycle, that she can get better and have a happy life - unlike her mother - I don't think she will be able to heal enough to have that life.

She has shown me a lot of incredible things. She accepts me the way I am, she reminds me how important it is to love every day and she made me more in touch with my feelings. I don't feel empty inside anymore. Sure, some days she makes me cry, but most of the time she makes me incredibly happy and I can't imagine my life without her. And I won't let anyone say that we aren't supposed to be together just because it is hard sometimes. I complain sometimes, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth it. I know of a relationship which is "perfect" - no fighting, no disagreements - and this relationship is completely empty. Those two people are together simply because it would be too difficult to break up. I choose my relationship over that any day.

[Comments are turned off. I said what I had to say and I don't feel like having a conversation about this topic.]

Breaking up is hard to do...

When the Girlfriend and I are having a bad day relationship-wise, I can sometimes see and experience the full fight-or-flight reaction in my girlfriend. She has broken up with me multiple times by now, too many to count (honestly, I really don't want to count). Here are some reasons why she broke up with me:

• I deserve to be with someone who isn't "broken", or just generally better - smarter, prettier, funnier,... - (her words, not mine!)
• She can't handle the stress of us fighting - she realizes that over the long-term, our relationship decreases her stress more than it increases it, but at that point in time she cannot see it
• I haven't stopped making the same mistakes, which leads to her stress levels being increased (see above)
• and other things I can't think of right now

Until two nights ago, I have always put in quite a fight to make her not break up with me and was always able to convince her that we are meant to be together - something we both believe in. However, two nights ago, we had a generally bad night - partially because of my behavior - and when she broke up with me I didn't stop her. I couldn't. I felt like if she really wanted to be with me, if I was worth the hard times, she wouldn't keep breaking up with me. Many things were said, I said things I regret saying, but in the end I told her it was up to her. I still loved her and wanted to be with her, but she needed to want to be with me too. She managed to get out of the pit she was in and tell me that she wanted to be with me and so we are not broken up. However, the whole thing showed me how much my behavior affects her behavior and how much I can influence whether she sinks really low or just low - in her emotions, not in the different sense.

I think it was good and important for me to see that she was willing to fight for me too, because I did somehow feel like I wasn't worth fighting for. I realize that she has special issues people with 'normal' childhoods don't face, but sometimes it is hard for me to act accordingly. I am only human and I make mistakes. My mistakes just have more of an impact on her because of the issues she deals with every day. I'm learning, but sometimes the learning experiences include really low points and lots of tears.

That's all I really have to say about that right now. We're not broken up and I think we are really meant to be together, if we can navigate our lives and the issues that are there, if we want them or not.

Honesty and Guilt

The girlfriend and I had a bad Sunday, mostly filled with fights about homework, housework and going to bed at a decent time. I didn't quite understand what was going on and why she was procrastinating all day, but it drove me up a wall a little. Okay, quite a lot. I wanted her to do the dishes or at least clean the bathroom counter/sink, but she wouldn't do it. I offered help, tried asking nicely, got mad, but nothing made her budge.

After having a fight about it Monday morning and another one Tuesday morning, she finally told me that she had been having a really bad day with her issues, mainly the depression, but that she didn't want to tell me because she already puts so many of her issues on me. I told her that it was way easier for me to deal with her issues if I knew what was going on, because I honestly thought that she was fine. She told me that she is never fine, which I sometimes forget because she has her good days, or because she can keep her bad days secret from me well enough.

We had a talk about it and I understand why she doesn't always want to tell me about her feelings. She feels guilty because I take care of her and because she "puts so much on [my] plate", and then the guilt makes her feel even worse. It's a vicious cycle that I haven't figured out how to break yet. In her mind, I should be with someone "better", who can take care of me - which she does, she took care of me really well when I was sick last week - and who doesn't need the support that she needs. I tried to explain to her that if she had cancer, I wouldn't leave her either, just because that is hard to go through. She has an illness and it is hard every single day, I won't lie, but it's not her fault.

I make the conscious decision to be there for her and support her the best I can, even though I clearly fail some days. While I didn't know how bad some of her issues were when we started dating, I have since not changed my mind about her being the one for me. Yes, it is hard, but I love her and I want to be there for her so it can get easier. Not to sound full of myself, but I do think that without me, it would be even harder for her to get better. She thinks I "deserve" someone better, but I think she deserves better. The people in her life, the people who are supposed to love her unconditionally, have so far done very little for her and continuously keep hurting her by being irresponsible, mean, absent and all kinds of other things. And while she thinks I will eventually end up hating her because of her issues, it is truly the people who have caused her issues that I hate. I just wish I could erase her guilt and make her understand that I love her, no matter what issues her past bring up.

A summer apart

On friday, both my girlfriend and I had somewhat of a meltdown. This summer, I'm going home to see my family and friends and I will be gone for exactly two months. Since the first months of our relationship were spent apart and since we are a bit co-dependent, we really don't look forward to spending two months separated.

Now don't get me wrong, I look forward to seeing my friends and family and I really can't wait to spend some time with my nephew. I'd just rather either have her by my side or not be apart for that long. Since my mom is going to be working for the first month I'll spend at home and since I plan on going to visit friends in the town I used to study in and other places, I will actually be quite busy. Especially since I'm also taking an online math class, which is 5 units, and therefore almost fulfils the 6 unit requirement of being a full-time student. So I will be more than busy. But, I know I will still miss my girlfriend terribly.

She will probably miss me even more, because she won't be as busy as I will and she will probably spend most of her summer living with the family she used to babysit for. She knows those people fairly well, but it's not really the same as staying with family, not that staying with family in her case would be that great. She will get to see her sister, with whom she is close, but she won't be going on 'vacation' the way I will. We both have already cried about spending our summer apart and on Friday we had a real meltdown about it. It sucks, because even though we do spend essentially all of our time together, most of it is spent with doing schoolwork, cleaning, cooking and other chores. We don't have a lot of quality time together, and when we do often we are working through issues and things like that. We both just rather spend the summer really enjoying each other's company, since we have not been able to really do that over a longer period of time since we started dating.

A fellow blogger, Maria, is going through something similar and is waaaay better at expressing the sentiments, so please go read her story here and here. See, the things is, as much as I love my family and parents, I would rather stay here with my girlfriend. Especially because I know that I will be going back to Austria for Christmas already again and that my girlfriend can't come with me, like we had originally planned. And even though I used to love being alone and having no responsiblities towards other people, now I don't want to give up the right to care for my love for two whole months. It just seems too long.

Why you shouldn't mix work and romance

Or in this case, homework and romance. My girlfriend and I are taking two classes together, one of them history. We are supposed to work on a project, in which we have to write a paper and present it in class. We have known about that for about 2 months now and as you can probably guess, have not really done that much work yet. It partially has to do with the fact that my girlfriend keeps telling me that she has so much other stuff to do, for other classes. It drives me up a wall. I want to just sit down and do the project, and she keeps pushing it back and back. She doesn't want to do it by herself, which is an option, but she also doesn't want to do it in my time frame - and that time frame is pretty big!! I don't even know how often we have fought about this stupid project so far, but definitely too many times.

This is a perfect example of one big difference between her and me: she likes to do everything last minutes, as she needs the pressure to get motivated. I prefer doing projects earlier rather than later, because in my opinion, it is the one thing in school I have complete and total control over. I would not accept anything other than an A from myself when it comes to projects, because you get to choose the topic (most of the time), have enough time to prepare it and there is relatively little stress involved. With a test, you never exactly know what the questions will be or sometimes you have a blackout (happened to me yesterday, but I was able to get my brain to work again, thankfully). With a project, you're in control. So if you don't get a good grade, you probably didn't put enough work in. Which is ok, if you don't care.

So anyways, I will write what I want to write about this weekend and then we'll see if we will do our projects separately or together. I just want this whole thing to be over with. We really have enough other problems...

Therapeutic Blogging

I want to get back into the habit of blogging for a certain reason. Even though I'm so busy with life, I need an outlet and since I already have this blog, I will use it. I haven't quite figured out exactly how much of my daily life and struggles I want to tell, because I don't want to dishonor (I looked for the right word, but really, could not find it. aarrrggg) on my girlfriend's privacy. But I guess we'll figure it out as we go along.

Being in a funk

If you follow me on Twitter, you might have seen the following tweets on your feed:

I gained so much f*cking weight in the last two months, none of my skirts fit anymore. Not a single one! Aaaagghh... I will stop eating now

Thinking about @UhHuhHerMusic 's Leisha Hailey' and Alice's obvious superiority makes me sad. Only thing I've going for myself in comparison?

My boobs are nicer. I'm 16 years younger, so obviously that will change too, probs sooner than 16 years. Very depressing thoughts... If I

didn't look up to Alice so much, might not be quite as bad. And yes, I know she's a fictional character, but Leisha still f*cking rocks!

A couple of things happened today that made my self-esteem sink to a new low. First of all, the weight issue. I've blogged about weight before, because it is something that is often in the back of my mind. Today, I took out my summer skirts and tried them all on. None of them fit. Not a single one. I knew that I had gained weight because my pants were fairly tight, but I hadn't realized that it was so bad. One skirt I was particularly upset about because I only just bought it last summer and hadn't worn it very often. Yes, when I bought it it was tight, but I figured it would be a good motivation to stay at my weight at that time, because I really love that skirt. Guess eating my stress doesn't exactly help with that, does it?

There is so much going on in my life right now and my life pretty much revolves around my girlfriend and school. I haven't made any real friends here yet and I'm having a hard time staying in touch with my friends in Austria. I don't want to/can't tell them about all the bad stuff that is going on here, because I don't want them to think I'm unhappy about my decision to move here - I am really not. I also don't want them to think I'm unhappy in my relationship or that they get a wrong picture of my girlfriend.

The thing is, she is depressed, has anxiety issues and very likely posttraumatic stress disorder. She is starting to heal, but it is a long process and we are just at the beginning of it. We both know that everything that is going on with her is taking a toll on me and it makes her feel even worse. I love her and don't want to be without her and I want to help her get better, but there is only so much I can do. And I'm not going to lie and say everything is great, because it is hard. Really, really hard. Will I give up on our relationship because it is hard? No. Does that make it any easier? Again, no.

With all of that going on, and the fact that I gained all that weight I was already not feeling great tonight. Then, I was finally wearing something I liked and I thought I looked hot, so I asked my girlfriend to take a few pictures. She's a pretty good photographer and knows how to handle a camera, but she's no miracle worker. The pictures didn't turn out great, because I can't pose or make my face look less stupid, so that just added on to my general mood and now I'm just in a real funk.

Happy first birthday!

Happy 2010! Yes, it is already February and therefore a teeny tiny bit late for that, but oh well. I haven't been on here in a while and I apologize. Things are hard, every day. I don't know what to blog about, since I don't want to sound completely depressed, because I am not. Life just shows how you have to fight for what is worth having right now. If you are following me at twitter, you'll know that I moved! *YAY* Finally! Into a small apartment, with a bedroom, kitchen/livingroom and bathroom. I am really glad that we found something that has two actual rooms for this price, because my finances are very limited and everything else we looked at had at the most a separate kitchen, but not anything where we could have sat in a different room than the bedroom. Due to the fact that my girlfriend's parents can't/won't support her enough financially, we don't really have enough money. In a perfect month, we should have $100 left over at the end of the month, but since we constantly still need stuff for the apartment we have problems even having enough money for groceries. I have never had to worry about money. EVER. Even though I didn't get a lot of pocket money or was rich per se, I always had enough to not worry about it. I was always able to just go to the movies if I wanted to. Or to go out to eat at a decently priced restaurant with my friends. When I moved away from home three years ago, I easily managed to live off the budget my parents gave me because I am naturally careful with my money. I saved up quite a bit of money, enough to almost fully pay for a trip to see my girlfriend for two weeks. All my parents paid was part of the flight, which was only the smaller part of the cost of the vacation. I never thought that I would be in the position where I had to worry about money, because even though my parents are not rich by anyone's standards, they know how to handle money really well and passed that on to me. Whenever I needed something (a jacket, new jeans, school stuff), I just asked and they paid for it. Yes, sometimes they would say no, especially when it came to T-shirts and things I didn't really need, but more wanted. But I never lacked anything I needed. Now things look quite different. There are a number of things we technically still need for the apartment we simply cannot afford. After rent I will have about 10 dollars left until next week, when my gf's mom gives her grocery money. And even then we have to be very careful what we spend our money on. I don't have a problem being frugal, none at all. But it starts weighing down on you after a while if you don't have money to go to the movies or to go out to dinner for Valentine's day, or even to buy a curtain for your bedroom. Because of my visa status, I can't even work, not that anyone would hire me in this economy. It doesn't seem like this situation will improve much anytime soon, which just worries me, because my girlfriend and I both suffer from the constant worrying about money. She constantly fights about it with her mom too, who thinks it is perfectly fine for me to support her since we are one couple, and doesn't understand that my parents pay for me to go to college here, not for somebody else to do so too. She doesn't get that my parents give me more than 3 times the amount of money she gives her daughter and that I am not willing to give up all 'amenities' of having money (such as healthy food like fruits and veggies, which she says we shouldn't buy because they are too expensive) just because she doesn't know how to handle her money. I can't really talk to my friends about this, because I don't want them to think that my girlfriend is using me or something like this. I know that this is probably not exactly what they would think, but I think there might be some weird feelings. Anyways, this is weighing down on both me and my girlfriend and it sucks.

Now, the title of this post is 'Happy first birthday!' Wonder why? Because one year ago today, my nephew was born! He is such a cutie-pie and I miss him so much, because I can only watch him grow up through pictures. I can talk to everybody else, but not him. And he will have no clue who I am once I go visit in the summer. That is the only downside of having come here, but I guess not everything can be positive. Anyways, he is such a big boy to me already, standing and, I think, walking a bit already, saying two words. Yes, 'Da' and 'Ui' are words, believe it or not!! Anyways, this was a year ago:


And this was a few weeks ago:


Perfectly healthy and happy, despite the fact that he came to us two months early! So happy birthday, favorite nephew!

I need a holiday!

I wish I could say life is good. Life is busy, that is what it is for me right now. For thanksgiving break, my dad came out to visit. If you follow me on Twitter, you'll know that we went to Las Vegas and Los Angeles, among other places. It was nice to see him, but I did not miss him that much beforehand and would have probably been able to go till June without missing him too much. I skype with my parents on a fairly regular basis, so I don't really miss them all that much. Which I see as a good thing, I am old enough to not emotionally depend on my parents anymore, even when I financially do. And then again, I am most certainly a mommie's girl, so I probably would have enjoyed her visiting more. So I spent part of my vacation with him wishing he hadn't come so that I could have stayed at home, done all of my homework and spent some quality time with my girl.

What really bugged me is how he was trying to get into my business, telling me what to do. I have written about it before, my living situation more than sucks right now. Technically, I could afford to live in a room of my own with roommates, but then I would not be able to live with my girlfriend. He basically told me that me having a nice room is more important than living with her, as I don't *have to* spend all my time with her, according to him. I told him that first of all, it was my business, and second of all, I want to spend all my time with her. I told him that I had been alone all my life and that I did not want to be alone anymore, even if my girlfriend and I fight from time to time. Okay, more than that, but that's not the point. I think he totally did not understand what I was talking about. I think he has no idea how hard it was for me to be all alone and how I secretly hoped and wished for someone to love me the way I am. Anyways, basically I told him that it was my choice and that I would do what I think is right for me. What my parents probably don't realise is that with trying to get into my business and decisions, they just distance themselves way more than any ocean could ever distance people.

My parents only want the best for their children, which unfortunately translates into them not letting us make our own mistakes, or what they view as our own mistakes. They still try and get into my brother's business all the time, when he is 31. They tell us it is our choice, but they make damn sure that we know what they think we should do. I don't want them in my relationship, I have never talked to them about people I liked before and I will not consult them for advice now either. I would not tell them if I had a bad fight with my girlfriend or if something was up, so I will also not let them tell me what to do when I specifically never asked for their advice. I think I am old enough to make my own mistakes. I don't think that I am making a mistake, as I am weighing the pros and cons very carefully and the pros outweigh the cons by A LOT the way things are right now, but if I were making a mistake it would be my right to do so on my own. The worst that can happen is that I don't feel great living where I am and that I would be looking for a different place to live, but I highly doubt that that will happen, even if the situation is not great.

As of right now, we are still living with my girlfriend's uncle, but we found a nice place we like. We will probably move in with my girlfriend's mother, which is something I am not necessarily exited/happy about, but that way we can have our own bedroom, our own space, and we will be together. I am fully aware that this situation is nowhere near perfect, but it is the only solution right now. I don't want to not live with my girlfriend, so having to live with her mother is more than worth it. Now let's all cross our fingers and toes that we will actually get this apartment and then we'll see. Until then, I will tell my parents that it is infact really, truly, my choice and that I don't want to hear what they have to say because they have said it before and it is getting old.

I'm still alive!

Hard to believe, I know! My live has been so busy, I don't think I have ever been this busy in my whole life.

I flew to California over 7 weeks ago. I had to look for a roommate, which was one epic fail, as I did find one but a crappy one. Right now, I'm staying with my girlfriend and her uncle, which on the one hand is a good thing because I'm living with my girlfriend, on the other hand I don't really know how long I can stay here. So I'm looking for a room again. School started four weeks ago and so far I really like it. I'm taking a class called 'Introduction to Cinema' and I love it! We watch a movie each week and even though I didn't like the movie's we have watched so far that much it still is a really interesting class.

Things with my girlfriend are going great, we have our ups and downs but we are definitely happy with each other. It has taken us some time to transition from not seeing each other at all to seeing each other almost or all of the time, but we're getting into the groove now. We're both really busy with school, so we don't always have that much quality time to spend together, but at least we see each other every day.

That's pretty much it for now. Sorry if this seems jumbled and that I haven't posted for so long, but that's life, I guess.

20 days

In 20 days,
I will hug her
I will kiss her
I will hold her

In 20 days,
I will study her face while she talks to me
I will fall asleep in her warm embrace
I will see her face light up as she laughs

In 20 days
She will hug me
She will kiss me
She will hold me

In 20 days
I will hold her hand again
I will look in her eyes again
I will feel her presence again

In just 20 days
My life will be complete again

Taking care of my parents. Or not.

I spent 4 whole days at home this weekend and I'm honestly glad to get back to my apartment tomorrow. When I arrived Wednesday night, both of my parents were stressed out and not in a good mood. Thursday night was the good-bye event with former pupils at my parents' school since my dad is retiring. Friday afternoon I asked my parents if they wanted to go to the movies, because my dad had mentioned wanting to go see 'State of Play'. My mom completely exploded, complained about how she was so stressed out and just wanted to enjoy her evening at home and how she still had so many things to do and so on. The only reasonable thing I could do was get up and leave the room. Lateron, my dad came into my room and asked if we were going to go to the movies, because he had time. So the two of us went, as so often before, because my mom is too stressed out to watch a movie she isn't much interested in anyways. On the way to the movies my dad complained to me about how much my mom is stressed out and how he has to suffer from it, ultimately. I had to literally stop myself from saying something mean about it, so I just basically said nothing. I don't exactly remember, but somehow we changed the subject.

I know that I'm on the verge of adulthood and part of adulthood is seeing that your parents are only human too and not the superheroes we believe them to be when we are little. I know that having honest conversations about how they are doing are part of adulthood. But I have a lot going on in my life right now and I honestly feel like I'm doing a pretty good job at everything. I don't want to complain, because I choose to do what I'm doing and I'm really happy that I get to do this, but it's not easy. I haven't felt very supported by my parents, my mother repeatedly expressed her disapproval for my plans to emigrate and they did not help me plan any of this. My mother's support was to ask me if I had taken care of this, this and that and put pressure on me to do this and that, when I told her that I had everything under control and had already taken care of everything I could. Not very supportive, if you ask me, but rather getting on my nerves about things that are none of her concern anyways (eg I told her that I had taken care of my room in the town I study in and that the next tenant would sign the contract next Thursday. Today, she asked me about it, asking if I had talked to the landlord and so on. I had to explain to her again, that yes, I had, because we would all meet at the lawyer's office next Thursday. She has nothing to do with all of that and she shouldn't even think about it, because I already told her that I had taken care of it, yet she worries about it.).

My mom clearly isn't happy that I'm planning to move 4,500 miles away, but she has realised that she can't stop me. She can, however, make it clear that she disapproves and she did make it clear on numerous occasions. From what I gathered, she worked A LOT this year, partly to keep herself occupied so that she wouldn't think about me moving away. The thing is, I cannot take care of her. She's not that old yet and I'm not quite an adult yet and I can't have responsibility for her well-being. I just can't carry that load on top of everything else. When my mom was ill, I was just 15 years old and I felt like I had to do everything in my power to help her get better and to take care of her. For a very long time I was too considerate of her feelings. But now I'm making these huge changes in my life and it will be hard for me too. I will move to a different country with a different language and culture and I will miss my friends and family too. It's not like I'm moving away to get away from my family, I'm moving away because I cannot achieve my dreams here.

I don't even stand a chance saying how hard it will be for me because there is an 'easy' solution for that. If it is hard then wouldn't it just be easier to stay?

I don't want my mom to pretend that she's fine when she's not, but the way she is handling everything right now is just too fucking hard on me. Most of the time I don't even tell her when I'm not feeling well, I'm the one who pretends that I'm fine when I'm not. I get that she's stressed out, but she is the one who chooses to do all those projects that she doesn't have to do. She can just not do them or only do one and the only person who would notice the difference would be her. It is her choice and her decision and if she feels so stressed out then she should maybe take medication or go to therapy. Complaining about it to me will not change one thing about the situation. There isn't anything I can do. I know that I'm not causing that much extra stress. I avoid causing her any further stress as much as I can anyways already. I will move my furniture back home all on my own, just because she worried about it so much already that I got tired of it and said I'd do it while they are on holiday. That way she doesn't even have a chance to help and worry even more about it.

I also cannot worry about my parent's marital problems. When we were little my mom would ask us with whom we would want to live if they ever got divorced. Looking back I feel like that was just a cruel thing to ask. When my sister was going through a really difficult phase during her teenage years, my parents' marriage almost broke apart. I experienced that first-hand. I was about 10 years old when it started and while I had seen them fight before that, I wasn't used to those huge blow-ups. On some days I truly felt that they would be better off divorced. Sometimes all I could do was go to my room and turn up the music so that I didn't hear them scream at each other. Now I'm at the point where they will directly talk to me about their problems and I can't deal with that. What do they expect, that I can help them with their problems? I always tried to stay out of their fights, because I feel like no child should take one parents' side, unless there is violence or infidelity or something grave like that. My parents both make mistakes and I don't want to get into the middle of their fights.

I've talked about this a little in therapy and my therapist encouraged me to take care of myself and to say 'Stop!' to my parents, but so far I have not been able to. Tuesday will be my last therapy session and I'm scared because I feel like therapy is part of my support system and it was one hour that revolved only around me and I could talk about whatever I wanted to. I know that I will miss it and I don't know where I can get therapy again in America, especially since this therapy was free.

I know that my parents are getting older and I notice the changes and it hurts me. It hurts to have to watch certain things get worse, but there is nothing I can do about it. My mom will retire in three years and I hope that things will get better then. I just know that I cannot take care of them yet. They are not that old yet and I'm too young. I realize that since I still 'live at home' sometimes, I experience things first-hand that my siblings probably aren't even aware of, but I'm the youngest, by far, and I feel like I'm carrying the biggest load. Yes, my brother has a son now and his own family to take care of and he lives far away and my sister is still very much in the process of growing up and taking care of her own life, but just because I'm doing a good job at taking care of my life doesn't mean I can take on more.

Not one person in my family has asked me if I miss my girlfriend. My mother keeps asking about her, but not in regard to my feelings but things like 'Where is she now', 'Does she have a job',... My mom clearly isn't excited or happy about my relationship, for one because it's just one more thing that ties me to America. Secondly, my relationship makes her very aware of the fact that I'm gay and she clearly doesn't want anyone to know. I asked her who I wasn't allowed to tell about my girlfriend and basically she wants me to tell everyone what I have a friend in America. I am supposed to keep mum about my relationship to everyone they know. I don't know if my mom realizes that, but in the next 5 years, I will very likely get married to a woman. I will not lie about my marital status and I just don't get what difference it makes if I wait another 5 years to come out to some of their friends. They are friends with a woman that I'm good friends with too and I had to tell her that I have to keep things from her because my mother doesn't want people to know. I want to invite that woman to my wedding. My parents wanted my brother to think about inviting that woman. I hate lying to her. Yes, technically I'm 'just' keeping something from her, but I'm keeping my relationship and a big part of what makes me me from her, so I feel like I'm lying.

It hurts me that they are treating my relationship so differently to my sibling's relationships. Being so far away is really difficult, which is something my mother should know because my father studied in America for 9 months too when they were engaged. She must know that it's hard for me. Yet, she has not once asked me how I'm holding up. No, she wants me to deny and/or lie about the existence of the person I love.

Yes, I am somewhat glad that I can move away. I cannot take all of this anymore. I cannot be responsible for my parents' well-being. I cannot help them with their marital problems. I'm sick and tired of finding out about problems through other people. Why does everyone think it's okay to tell me about my parents' problems? I know that my father is forgetful and that it's getting worse the older he gets, but I don't need to be told about it. I don't need to be told that my mother is burying herself in work because she's unhappy about my decisions. I can't come home for the weekend because my mom is worried about my nephew and having me close soothes her. I have to take care of myself first. At 21, I am definitely too young to take care of my parents, especially since they are not actually sick. There isn't anything I could to to help them, except give up my own happiness. And I have been doing that for too long now.

[I didn't proof-read this post, because I'm already crying. So sorry for any mistakes.]

Sensitivity, family and friendship

Danimo left a comment on my previous post about my oversensitivity that got me thinking:

"oh, darling. ♥ i really feel you on this one. *BIG hugs*

i used to be very overly sensitive too in many of the same ways. to this day a quiet remark said in jest can leave me feeling blue for days, and if i'm apart from a loved one (especially the boyfriend) for long periods of time without hearing from them when i expect to, i feel like they aren't thinking about me or somehow don't love me as much.

i'm glad you can admit that sometimes your reactions are a little too sensitive -- not because there's anything inherently wrong with that, but because i can see that you understand that it can be very difficult on a girlfriend to have to constantly quell their significant others' fears, etc. one of my exes was the same way, calling me on average 50-100 times per day and obsessing over remarks i said under my breath; it was just too much to handle.

i'm not sure how but i've become much better, much less overly sensitive, over time. i've become less jealous in general and more confident and all that good stuff, but how exactly i lost my oversensitivity i don't understand with certainty so i can't share the secret with you. :/ i think moving to the states and spending most of your waking hours with the girlfriend should help a great deal. has this happened with previous, more local girlfriends, if there are any to speak of?"

I've never been in a relationship before and I've been thinking about this, but I couldn't come up with a similar situation, or similar behavior on my part. I have been hurt by other peoples' indifference towards me, but it actually takes a lot to hurt my feelings in that way. I'm always more open to talk about my friends' problems and pay more attention to them than the other way around. I have a really good friend, who I would consider to be my best friend here, and we sometimes don't talk for a week. When either we're both busy or one of us is extremely busy, we don't talk on the phone or meet. But after that period we always find a way to get together and talk for a few hours and that week doesn't hurt our friendship at all. We have actually talked about this before, we both know that we're there for each other should there be an emergency but we also both realize that we're busy people with university and it just works. Now obviously, I don't worry about her when I don't hear from her for a few days. I don't think about all the things that could have happened to her (accidents,...). I don't really know why, I do care about her a lot, obviously, but these thoughts just never cross my mind. Maybe it has to do with the fact that we live so closely together or the fact that I don't feel responsible for her well-being.

Writing that down actually feels kind-of weird to me. I'm not really responsible for my girlfriend's well-being, but in a way, I am. It doesn't even really make sense to me, but I feel like I should take care of her. Actually, I want to take care of her. I want to protect her and make sure she's fine and I want to support her in every way, emotionally the most. But doing that from 4,000 miles away is pretty much impossible and it kills me that she has to go through difficult things without me being there. There have been so many times we have talked on the phone during which I just wanted to hug her and take her pain away. That doesn't have much to do with my oversensitivity, though.

The only situation that might be vaguely similar to that one is with my mother. That might sound weird, but as all people with siblings know, when you have siblings there's always rivalry. My feelings do sometimes get hurt, especially because I have a better relationship with my mom than my siblings do and I'm hardly ever the center of attention when we're all together. I am in a way the one who still 'lives at home' the most, since I do spend at least 4 days a month and most of the holidays at home. My sister lives in the same town, but I doubt she visits often and my brother lives even further away than I do now. So whenever I see my parents with another sibling there, attention is on that other sibling and I do sometimes really hate that. Especially since my nephew was born, I hate going to visit him when my sister and my parents are there too. I hardly get the chance to hold him and conversations mostly revolve around topics I don't really have anything to say about. Then there are always the comments about how he 'flirts' with my sister and I just get bored, really. My nephew is really cute, but he is 5 months old and about as active as a 3-months-old baby, because he was so premature. So you really can't play with him that much yet. I don't see my parents that often and when I'm at home we often talk about my parent's work or family or politics. It's just really hard having a conversation with my mother because I'm living my own life now and I don't need her to tell me what to do anymore and I don't want her to tell me what to do either, because I'm doing a great job of taking care of my things. It's just really difficult, all in all. I just don't feel like I fit in, even with my own family that consists of 4 relatives and 2 (almost)siblings-in-law.

I have noticed that whenever I talk/write about these problems that I struggle with, whether here or in other safe places, I seem to be able to cope better. Even though I knew all those things before I wrote them down, writing them down and talking about it seems to help me realize the problem more and seems to help me deal more. In the last three days, I have dealt with no/very little communication with my girlfriend way better than I have in the past. Not only do I not have the need to text her that much, I also don't have those thoughts/feelings of 'Does she think of me? Does she still love me as much?' that much anymore. Yes, I still would like to be able to talk to her more and I still miss her a whole lot and the situation still is very hard, but I seem to be able to cope with it better. I don't really understand why, but I'm glad that it is the way it is. I hope that it's not just an improvement that will already be forgotten again next week and I hope that it's not resignation, but I'm glad that I'm feeling slightly better. Or I should say that I'm feeling slightly less bad.

I realize that all of this might seem a bit random and it doesn't really fit together that well, but it just poured out of me this way and so I'm going to leave it all in one post. The part about my family made me really sad, almost crying sad, but it is the way it is. Maybe I'll write another post about it some day, we'll see.

"Mimose, scheißt in die Hose."

Since I was very little, I've always been very sensitive. I cried a lot as a child and was easily upset by other's behavior. Growing up with an older brother, I was forced to learn to not show how he was affecting me. So I started building walls early on and over time I got really good at putting up a facade. Despite all that, I'm still very sensitive, too sensitive even.

I often get upset over other people's inconsideration for my feelings and remarks about how I look, dress or act sometimes haunt me for days. I get very defensive when someone tries to change how I dress because I'm at a point where I am comfortable with my appearance, most of the time at least, and I'm not willing to give that up. I'm not willing to move out of my comfort zone to either adhere to society's ideals or to impress/please other people. I do sometimes put on makeup, but only when I'm in the mood to. Which means that I've gone out to parties or clubs dressed in jeans, a shirt and no makeup on because I just didn't feel like dressing up. I don't care either way if other women dress up, but I feel like I have enough going for me to not need dressing up if I don't feel like it. I don't mind that I blend into crowds and can go unnoticed, because I don't want attention from men anyways and I've been the center of unwanted attention because of how I dress too often - not in a good way.

My appearance and other people judging it is only one thing I'm too sensitive about. My feelings get hurt when my girlfriend doesn't contact me in any way for a whole day. I want to be taken care of and because things have been the way they are - namely, that we are too far apart - the situation has been really hard on me. I haven't been posting much lately because I just didn't feel like communicating. There is only one person I want to talk to and when I can't I don't even want to 'talk to myself', which is how I mostly regard this blog. I am very romantic at my core, even though I will probably deny that in certain situations. I like taking care of my girlfriend, just as I like doing nice things for my friends once in a while. I like to show that I appreciate the people in my life, at least I try to show that. I like sending my girlfriend flowers, just because I know how it will make her feel, I like just randomly buying little things for her to show her that I'm taking care of her, stuff like that.

All the things that I like doing for other people, I naturally also enjoy it when people do things for me. Now the situation is as it is, plus I have a credit card and my girlfriend pretty much is broke all the time and that makes everything even harder. She simply can't afford to do certain things that I can afford. I completely understand that and I don't want her to spend what little money she has on me. But at the same time I still want to be taken care of and paid attention to.

I think it's really hard for me because I will have the worst day and sleep badly when we don't talk in some way or if I wait for her to contact me and she doesn't. She seems to be able to deal with that way better than I do and it just doesn't seem to matter to her as much. We had a conversation about this the other day and she didn't know what I was upset about because it was only ONE day to her when I was completely heartbroken. See what I mean with over-sensitive? I haven't figured out how to deal with this yet. On the one hand, I'm telling myself that it's only two more months, probably less (if I get accepted). Then we will live in the same city or at least very close to each other and we will be able to spend a lot of time together. On the other hand, I have to learn to not have those negative thoughts in my head. I always automatically assume that she's not thinking about me, when I know that she is. But it feels that way to me and that's not fair towards her and just stupid.

I also don't want to ask for her attention. I can clearly remember a story we talked about in my German class. A mother was cooking dinner for her family every night and her kids and husband always just ate it and took it for granted. Until one day she asked them if they enjoyed what she had cooked and they praised her for her cooking skills. The mother should have enjoyed the praise and felt great, but it wasn't the same as if they had just told her without her questions. It shouldn't matter whether someone does/says something nice because you asked them or not, because they still mean it the same way. But it does matter. It matters a great deal. Now there are people like me who are very sensitive when it comes to stuff like that and there are people who will probably never understand what I'm talking about and that's okay. It still doesn't change anything about my feelings.

[My mother used to call me 'her little mimosa' because of my sensitivity. The title says 'Mimosa, poops in the pants', which is something she used to say a lot too. I guess that means that sensitive kids poop in their pants out of fear. Google didn't know it, which surprised me, so I'll have to ask my mom where that saying comes from.]

"You are family"

So far, the plan for my future was me going to California to study there and, as my girlfriend was going to live there too, move in with her. She has lived there before, with her uncle, and we were going to either be roommates with him or get our own place. Last night, she told me that her mom had decided to go to Cali too and that they wanted to get a big place all together. I have to say that I was really surprised and shocked by that news. My first reaction was to say 'Great, but I'm not moving in with your mom'. My gf living with her mom would/will make it way easier for her to go to college and I'm really supportive of that idea.

BUT, do I really want to move in with my girlfriend and her mother? What they say is that we would be just like roommates and that my gf and I would have our own area. I'm still not sure if I really want to do this. I mean, yeah, I can always look for my own place and move out if it doesn't work out and that will be easier than looking for a place while I still live here. At the same time I know that me moving out when I've already lived there for a while is going to be really hard on my gf and therefore on me. Anyways, this will be a decision I have to take on my own and I'll have to think about it some more, but what I wanted to write about was the conversation that took place last night.

I was on the phone with my baby, talking about all of this, and she got frustrated with me and gave her mom her phone so that she could talk to me. I basically told her that I wasn't opposed to them moving in together AT ALL (not my place to be anyways) and that I thought it was great that my gf could go to college then, but that I just didn't know how I fit into that. What she said in response to that completely shocked me and left me pretty much speechless.

"You are family." When I was out there, my gf's mom and I didn't talk much, she didn't seem particularly interested in me and I tried staying out of her way. Obviously, it's pretty complicated because of my gf's relationship to her mom and I'm not going to go into detail, but all in all I did not expect her to say that. She then also said that my gf loves me and that I make her happy, which I knew, but hearing that from her mom was completely different. She pretty much acknowledged our relationship the way we see it, as a serious one, and not just some internet fling. And she acknowledged me as something good in my gf's life, as opposed to 'the girl who turned her daughter gay' or something along those lines (For the record, she never said anything like that, I didn't turn anyone gay, but there was some uneasiness about me being a girl at the beginning).

I moved out of my parents reach and supervision less than two years ago and it took me a while to get used to the independence and freedom of living on my own (with roommates). I think moving in with my girlfriend will be a big step, one that I'm very happy to take and fairly certain that it will work out well, based on us not wanting to kill each other after spending 2,5 weeks together non-stop, 24/7. But her mom being there is still going to be different, because I know I can't just view her as a roommate. I can't pretend that she's not who she is.

Coming out story - Part One

I read FosterEema and FosterAbba's coming out stories at their blog, Navigating the Maze: Foster Parenting and Life and that inspired me to write down my coming out story. I'll split it up into a number of posts, since it's been a few years.

When I was a little girl, I was always way more drawn to women than to men. I had crushes on the girls on 'Baywatch' and on real women in my life, even though I didn't realize that that was what it was. I can still remember having a huge crush on my parent's co-worker when I was about 13 or 14. At the time I thought that I wanted to be LIKE her, not be WITH her. I also wanted Chris and Cory on 'Pacific Blue' to date when they moved in together, even though their relationship clearly was only a best friends friendship. In junior high school, aged 10-14, I always felt different. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I just knew that I was.

I did have two 'boyfriends', but we were really only best friends. I liked them a lot, but looking back I think it was more about the experience of 'being in love' than actually being in love, if that makes sense. I held hands and cuddled with both of them, but with the first it was clear, at least to me, that that was all that was going to happen. With the second, I felt like I wasn't ready, when in reality, the thought of kissing him made me want to literally throw up. I guess I did really think that that meant that I wasn't ready for kissing, I don't think that I was aware of homosexuality or its existence (Meaning that I might have known about it in abstract terms, but it never crossed my mind).

Things started to make more sense to me when I entered high school and completely fell for a female teacher at 15. I was going through a rough time and didn't have anyone to talk to and she had told us that we could always tell her about our problems so I did. My mother was ill and my friends didn't really understand how I felt and her adult view on things helped me a great deal. The way she treated me was new to me, because she actually listened to what I had to say and she took me seriously. I wasn't used to being treated that way by an adult and so I fell for her, hard. When I came out to my friends later that year, the difficult part wasn't that I was gay but that I was in love with her. It took me a while to tell all of my friends (not that I had that many, but still) and there were times where they did react in a negative way.

I can remember one specific incident that happened in the second or third year of high school. We all went out for Halloween and got drunk. A friend of mine brought a friend that I'd only met once before and I crushed on her. It seems that I flirted with her and played footsies, even though I have no recollection of that because I was drunk and not aware of what I was doing. Two of my friends went back home with me to stay there for the night and one of them freaked out on the bus. She told me that I couldn't just flirt with our friends and that that was different to being in love with a teacher and that she was our friend so she was off-limits. Which I guess was weird because we all only knew her very loosely and had just met her for the second or third time. I guess that that friend of mine wasn't as cool about me being gay than she and I both had thought. After that, we never talked about it again and I wrote it off as her being drunk. She did though, two years later, accuse me of trying to steal her BOYfriend, after she had broken off most contact because of him (We still went to school and dancing lessons together, which is where I apparently flirted with him). Yeah, still not sure if she really understood the concept of me being gay, even though she did think that gay's should have equal rights and shouldn't be treated any different (or so she said).

Throughout the 5 years of high school I always had an unusual relationship with my teacher crush. I adored her and talked to her when I felt I couldn't deal with something on my own. I also followed her around on field trips and was way too much into her for my own good. During my last two years, when I tried really hard to be over her, we were almost friends, as much as teachers and students can be. She told me about a few things in her life which to me meant that she trusted me. When I finally wanted to come out to my parents, I told her first and she helped me a great deal. It was weird talking about being gay and how I had fallen for a women when the women in question was sitting right opposite of me, but I highly doubt that she ever had any clue. She knew that at times, I overstepped certain lines and she firmly reminded me of them. Her 'rejection' hurt a lot, but it also taught me a lot. Having known her had a great impact on me and even though things didn't end the way I wanted them to due to an issue between her and my class, I will always remember her as someone special. Not only was she the first person I was really in love with, but she also taught me a great deal about life and love and forgiveness.

Part Two