Surprise! I'm Bisexual

So, I guess this is my coming out story.

It is currently 3 AM and I just finished watching Love, Simon (Yeah, I know I'm a little late) and frankly, I've never been more inspired to tell my parents. I'm scared, though, and I'm not even sure how I would do it.

I can't pinpoint a time, or a place, or a person that showed me I was bisexual. It was just living, walking around, breathing, meeting new people that slowly built up to the realization. One of the earliest examples I can think of was in fourth grade. There was this girl, I remember seeing her sitting in the hallway, reading this massive book. Looking at her, I had this inexplicable emotion. I didn't know exactly what it was but I just wanted to be with her; and I told myself as it was as friends. It's not even that I had to convince my little fourth-grade self that I wasn't gay. I just automatically assumed that I could never be anything other than friends with a girl. I didn't have any idea that sexuality was different from person to person. There are countless other examples of this. I do believe in love at first sight, but I don't believe it's reserved to a single person. I believe we fall in love with a million different faces every day.

Looking back I realize I had the same feelings for that girl as I did for the blonde-haired boy who was shy and sat by me in math class. I had the same feelings for other boys and girls through all the years of my education. That's why I call bullshit on every person who ever tries to say that children are taught to be gay. We aren't. At that time I wouldn't have even known what being gay meant, much less identifying as it.

My next story is that of my best friend, my only friend, for a long time. We became friends in 5th grade, and we did everything together. She was my first real love. I was in love with her for years. I was in love with her until a few months ago even. My sisters knew before I did. They would talk to each other about their theories that she and I were secretly dating. I remember being ashamed when I heard that for the first time. I became desperate to prove them wrong. To talk them, and myself, out of it. To make sure I wasn't a lesbian. Well, they were half right.

For a long time, almost as long as I can remember, I have liked girls. I remember always trying to dress my best when my sister's friends were around. I always wanted to impress them. I had huge crushes on several of them, but I would never have called them that.

For most of my conscious life, I have been lying to myself. It's the worst type of lie, the kind that you don't even know is there. The kind that you have been so conditioned to believe is true that you would never dare question it.

As of the past year or so, I have been slowly coming to terms with myself. I'm still not completely sure where the middle ground lies. I've learned that nothing is a switch, it isn't just "boys or girls," and it's almost never an even 50/50 split. For some people it's 20/80, or 70/30, and I'm not sure exactly where I fall on that scale but for right now, I am happy and proud to call myself bisexual.

My parents have raised our family Baptist. We go to church every Sunday and we believe that there is a god, a kind, merciful god. I do not believe that being gay is wrong—in fact, I believe it should be celebrated and normalized. But I am afraid. If I said I was anything else, I'd be lying. I can guess how my parents react. They would ask me why I am "choosing" to be gay. My mom would cry. They wouldn't kick me out of the house, but I'd be outcast in my family. I would pass by their bedroom and see my dad's arms wrapped around my mother's shoulders as she sobs into her hands. I can hear him whispering to her, telling her that it's all right, that we are going to be ok, how they are going to help me through this. I can see the long conversations, them telling me that it's a sin, that it's unnatural, that I am hurting them by being who I am. I know I should tell them, but I don't know if I'm ready to face the world just yet.

I am a human. I am not just a creature whose only purpose in life is to reproduce. There's so much more to us humans than that, so why should we get hung up on two individuals' capabilities to make children? We come in a million shades, a million colors, a million sizes, and a million types. We are all different, but there are some things that make us the same, like the fact that we are able to love, we are able to form a bond so strong that it transcends everything else. It trumps standards, norms, and formalities. It is more important than what organs you were born with, It is all consuming and all powerful. It's stupid, and cliche, and messed up. But it's something we can all agree on.