Coming Out

I just read this wonderful coming out post by Hannah, and she graciously said I could share it. Coming out to a highly active Mormon family is hard. Fortunately, these parents handled it well. Hannah captured the moment beautifully. Enjoy!

The hardest part was planning.

Hope for the best, plan for the worst. It’s what all the resources say. So I did. My sister drove me. I texted Delilah for emotional support. I gave my brothers a hug and rubbed my nose in their hair in case I didn’t see them for a while. 

The hardest part was bringing it up to Mom and Dad--that I needed to talk to them about something. The next-hardest part was the trip up the stairs, knowing that I couldn’t go back to before this moment. Once they sat on the foot of their bed, our lives would be different forever.

But I was ready. 

Telling them, letting the words come out of my mouth was easy. The release of all the secrets, all the pain, all the truth.

“I think you already know, but I wanted to tell you that I’m a lesbian.”

And after that, it was all on them. 

My parents loved me--I knew that--but I also knew that this confession would make them question every memory of me, question my past, question my future, force them to connect dots, make them tug at loose strings, make them question everything about me. Their daughter: the baby that was born with a dimple in each cheek and one in her chin. The toddler that gave them butterfly kisses with her eyelashes. The kid who rode her bicycle too fast.

I knew they would wonder where their kid had gone. Time had passed and instead of finding their vision of who I would grow up to be, they found me.

I sat in front of them, a 25-year-old woman with an apartment and a dog and my own health insurance, telling them what I had kept hidden for all this time, what I had never, ever wanted them to know.

Sitting on the ground at the foot of their bed, I was their daughter and a stranger.

My dad got off the bed and knelt next to me. He hugged me.

“Hannah, I’m so proud of you for telling us. I know how hard this probably was.”

He let me go. My mother knelt on my other side. She hugged me too.

“I love you, Hannah.”

On the floor of their room, I told them everything. I told them about my first crush at 11 years old. I told them about Frida and Lily and Kay. I told them about heteronormative culture, how I had no words to define what I felt, no pieces to put together. Parts of me were too scary to look at.

Now, I wasn’t scared. I dug up those memories. I dug up the elementary-school Shakespeare play and the illegal rides in the Jeep and the BYU publishing office that was too small. I told them how boys were a candle wick of warmth, but girls made me feel like I was swallowing the sun. They always had.

I repeated back what I had heard them say a million times--that being gay is choosing a harder life. I told them that men at work asked how I had sex if I were with another woman, not a man. I told them that I was yelled at by male strangers while holding Lee’s hand. I told them that a server had sneered when Lucy kissed me over dinner with silty sake on her lips, and that he was completely within his rights to kick us out of the restaurant. I told them that I never had a chance to meet Delilah’s family because her mother didn't want to see me, didn't want to know.

But I told them, even with all the pain and uncertainty, that it was better than living half a life.

I told them about Matt's promises if I stayed with him. He would buy me my own house; he would buy me a car; he would buy me another dog; and he could have afforded it. Those promises were terrifying in their temporal comfort. He built a life where I would never worry about money or bills or a career. But I walked away from his promises. I walked away from that life he built for me. 

I told my parents that leaving was worth it. So worth it.

And what I thought then, I kept to myself:  I, after all this time of questioning and fear and hatred of myself, was the happiest I had ever been. I loved the tug of a crush, my gut pinging. I loved being bold. I loved flirting like an idiot to see her eye-roll or to see her smile-blush. I loved to watch her walk, think, smile, talk--and I stared without shame. I loved holding hands with her in view of the entire world. I loved kissing her with alcohol on her lips. I loved loving. I loved women with my whole heart, with a whole sun.

When I was done, my parents hugged me and said, “I love you.”

My dad lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. “You never liked it when I called you a tomboy,” he said.

“I love you too,” I said.