Thursday, September 1, 2011

... and I feel fine.

What I have figured out so far...

All my life I have wondered what those tingly feelings were when I looked at certain women... Maya Angelou, Sigorney Weaver, Lynda Carter, my RA junior year, my first creative writing teacher in college where some women I can readily think of who I assumed that they just had some magical powers that they could wield over people.  People like me... me.  

They wielded nothing.  It turns out that that “power” was some chemical response within me.  In other words -- they were merely crushes.  I did not fall under the spell of some secret attribute that I could never put my finger on.  I was just attracted to these women, and I just had no clue what to call “it”.  Mystery solved.  the mystery was physical attraction.  Now I get it.  Now I don’t have to worry about “spells” or charisma or something they have and that I am missing and crave... .

Now it is so obvious, but then it was so uncomfortable because I couldn’t put a name to it.  I knew I was supposed to like boys, but my thoughts drifted to the girls.  I liked movies like Aliens because they had kick ass women in them.  I like the Terminator because Sarah Connor became a kick ass woman in it.  I liked Wonder Woman because … well, what’s not to like.  

For a person who has always been mired in self-examination, I was surely dense about my own sexuality.  Now as I have had a year to grapple with this newly discovered truth about myself, I have seen my past in a new light.  Some of the uncomfortableness of my childhood have been put to rest.  Not some of the dark and evil things.  No, I never asked for it, and no I don’t believe that any of us does.  What I am talking about are the feelings I had that didn’t match what my immediate culture was telling me that my feelings should be.  I pushed down my natural feelings and observations and desires and raised up the one I was “supposed” to have.  It wasn’t my sexuality that made me uncomfortable.  It was my inability to recognize my true feelings because that wasn’t what my culture was telling me I should have.  My God Mother tells me that I shouldn’t “should” on myself.  I am telling my culture to stop “shoulding” on us too.

This past year I have looked at what I like not what I am supposed to like.  It is amazing how just acknowledging what my heart wants makes me feel fine -- not normal like the setting on the washing machine, or ok, or “right” whatever that is, but fine.  

Deep breath in.... long cleansing exhale out...
I feel fine...
Posted by Layla Proudfoot at Thursday, September 01, 2011 0 comments

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