Chapter 1: Finding One’s Place
What is reality? What is fiction?
Isn’t all writing ultimately autobiographical? At least, shouldn’t good writing seem that way?
In the end, does it matter as long as it’s a good story?
My wife and I made love this morning, and afterward she brought me a cup of coffee in bed. (Have I ever mentioned that she is wonderful?)
While we snuggled together, we talked about our young loves and the hopes and dreams of our youth.
After she got up, I picked up my computer and my fingers tore this story out of my heart.
The idea of “finding one’s place” is one of my favorite themes (as you can tell from my other stories), and this is about one young woman’s search.
I hope it doesn’t seem long-winded, but young Kate had a lot to sort through. Be kind to her-she did her best.
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Over the years, I have learned to ignore most of the bullshit that comes from being a lesbian, but it still bugs me when people ask, “When did you become a lesbian?” I usually reply, “about the same age you ‘became’ straight,” which leads either to awkward silences or interesting conversations.
The important question for me was, “When did you stop trying to pretend that you weren’t a lesbian?” That moment came in 1990 in Vienna, Austria when I was 23 and living away from a lot of influences that kept me closeted. My Christmas present that year turned out to be a remarkable woman who compelled me to stop lying about who I really was.
One might say, though, that I came by my dishonesty honestly.
I was raised in a conservative, southern, Christian family, and was taught to be a good, morally-conscious, Christian girl by a loving-but-very-controlling mother. My father died when I was young, so mother took on the role of raising me and making a career for herself (and this in the 1970s when it was much more difficult). She did this successfully enough that she became noted in our small town and a leading figure in our church.
I had two aunts who I adored who also helped raise me. Aunt Kathy, my mother’s sister, was my “real” aunt (our family has great fondness for variations of the name Katherine). She lived with “Aunt” Gail (who was no relation), and they were inseparable. I loved being around them and they delighted in my visits—I even got to spend the night a few times. But mom never really wanted me to have too much to do with them.
The “aunties” were welcomed at all of our family functions, but were treated somewhat coolly—nothing overtly unwelcoming, but there was clearly a distance between them and other family members.
In retrospect of course, I know that Aunt Kathy was a lesbian. The concept of “two aunties” was our “Christian” family dodge that kept her and her partner marginalized without actually disowning her. Kathy and Gail, however, were unfailingly accepting of everyone and everything, and always seemed to be at peace. Their small house was immaculately maintained and they had excellent careers. They were, in fact, an embodiment of the “Christian family values” that were so highly prized by the rest of the family. I admired them and wanted to be just like them. Who could have known?
I went to an all-girls Christian school, and was one of the jocks. I had always been a tomboy and understood neither the fascination with clothes and makeup nor the feverish conversations about boys. I did try to play up, though, because of the venomous whispers about a few girls who were suspected of being “lezzie.”
The worst insult imaginable was to called “Lizzy Lezzie.” I never thought being “lezzie” was such a horrible thing, but I certainly didn’t want to be “mistakenly” identified that way—it was the fast track to becoming a total outcast. I only knew that I loved sports more than romance.
I went away to college. Getting to a more cosmopolitan place was good for me, and I began to become more open and relaxed about many things. I soon realized that I was not a person who cared to live with all of the “thou shat nots” of my childhood faith; though I held on firmly to my Christianity, I began to focus it on spiritual matters rather than on church-going and rule-following.
I had always been comfortable being “one of the guys,” and I loved to hang out and watch sports and drink beer with my male jock friends. Eventually, with the help of some beer, I began having bumbling “petting sessions” with a few of them. I think I held up my end decently, but between lingering Baptist anxiety, their clumsiness, and my overall lack of interest it wasn’t very thrilling for me and I remained a virgin.
As my senior year wound down, though, I had a couple of nice encounters with men and finally bid my virginity adieu. From then on, I started to think more and more about “being with” someone. The prospect of having a mate who was a good friend seemed like a worthwhile thing, and I was confident that, although I was not very highly sexed, I could handle the physical part of marriage well enough to keep a man happy.
But before I worried about a family, I had some career ambitions that I wanted to fulfill.
