Angela Kelly - Unavailable: One Lesbians Struggle With the Bisexuality of Other Women

Unavailable

One Lesbians Struggle with the Bisexuality of Other Women

Introduction

The Unsures

If youpicked this book off the shelf because of its title, you probably need to readit as much as I needed to write it. My stories are by no means unique; myrelationship experience is quite likely written on some of the same pages asyour own.

If you area lesbian, it is highly unlikely you havent come across the women I refer toas the unsures . Perhaps you had a different namefor them or found these women in your own life to be indefinable by wordsalone. The unsures go beyond the bisexual realm. Iexist in a world where, for myself, I could only ever imagine having been borngay or straight. By my own definition, being a lesbian does not mean I cannotappreciate male beauty, personality characteristics, or even sexual appeal.

But itdoes mean I know beyond the shadow of a doubt I will not wind up with a malepartner someday. Within my heart, I just know.Gay people of both sexes understand this. As it turns out, the rest of theworld does not.

We livein an age of sexual revolution and a redefining of the concept of gender whichis, in and of itself, a good thing.

Mostpeople actually dont live in the head space or even emotional space I do,where gay and straight exist in a clear-cut dichotomy. There is a lot of roombetween points A and B. The women in these stories fall at varying points onthe in-between.

Frombisexual and bi-curious to sexually uncertain andmy personal favoritemostlystraight.

I wishyou peace as you join me on the journey of these pages. If you have lived myexperience, know you are okay as you are. At the end of the day, I stillbelieve we cant really pick who well fall in love with. That is the verymagic beneath these stories. Through it all, there is something very pureunderneath.

Somethinglike love.

Chapter 1

Layingthe Foundation

(TheEllen Trainer Experience)

I havedeveloped a theory over the years that gay people are even more afraid ofrejection than straight people because it is highly likely our very firstexperience of interest in another was with someone straight. What that means ismost of us had our first experience of love with someone unavailable to us.Its a setup to be denied and feel rejected from the very beginning.

When Iwas in the 5th grade, I had my first recognizable crush on someone in the 8thgrade. Later in life I understood Id had crushes on teachers, my sister'sfriends, the checkout girl, etc. But this girl actually existed in my universe,which was school, and was someone I actually had conversations with andinteracted with. I found myself thinking about nothing and no one else. Therewas a constant internal movie of where she was, what she said, how she looked,what she smelled like. At the tender age of eleven, I had not one clue what itall meant. All I knew was I sought her out, and I looked forward to runninginto her in the hallways with great anticipation. Her name was Ellen Trainer;her friends and sports team companions simply called her The Train, or justplain Train.

The Trainseemed to enjoy the attention she got from me.

I wascalled upon to run many an errand and perform multiple tasks for my beloved,all to my great joy. There was the borrowing of money or my Walkman and thecarrying of books.

Every nowand then, for five minutes at a time, wed be alone together, talking. It wouldtake many more years for me to identify the feelings I had in those momentsIwas falling in love. That is, whatever the eleven-year-old version of fallingin love feels and looks like. Once in a very great while, she allowed me totouch her, hug her, or stand behind her and rub her shoulders. I knew nothingof sexual arousal, only that touching her was very intoxicating, evenaddictive.

I was a nerdy kid. Too smart for mypeers, I sought friendships with my teachers. It just so happened that the 8th3

grade English teacher was a neighborof mine, so I had occasion to befriend her long before I would be in her class.A writer from the time I was sixI have an old photograph of me at that age infront of a manual typewriterI had already learned how to express myself andcommunicate through the written word.

Spurred by my obsession with Trainer,I had what I believed at the time was a stroke of genius. I would write a shortstory about my love for The Train, and I would get Mrs. Johnson to read it toher class, thereby reading it to Ellen. Of course I would change her name, butshe would know it was about her. Then, magically, she would come to me tofulfill my innocent crush fantasy once she understood how utterly devoted I wasto her. It was perfect.

I wish I had that short story today,but I dont. I cant recall the details of what I wrote, only that the climaxof the story was a long awaited hug full of meaning and emotion. Had I known Iwould have a future of writing for and about other women ahead of me, I mighthave tucked it away to remember where it all began. You know what they sayabout hindsight. In any case, I wrote my masterpiece.

The other part of this drama I willnever understand is why Mrs. Johnson, a grown-up person, agreed with me that thisfashion of proclaiming my love for Trainer was a good idea. In her defense, Imquite sure I was a precocious child, and my eleven-year-old reasoning was boundto be passionate and irrefutable.

The day came when I knew Mrs. Johnsonwas going to read my story to her 8th grade class. How she worked that into hersyllabus, I will never know. I couldnt concentrate in any of my own classes,awaiting what I was certain would be a miraculous turn of events. Visions ofMrs. Johnsons entire class moved to tears and brought to their feet withapplause filled my head.

However, what really happened was TheTrain slowly sank further and further into her seat in that classroom,embarrassed in that way only teenagers can feel. The fact I had carefullychanged names to hide both of our identities didnt mattereveryone in the roomknew who the story was about. All of Trainers friends had watched me followher around like a 4

puppy for months, standing by awaitingorders to fulfill her slightest demand. It never occurred to me I was beingmocked, or even pitied. Her friends only ever saw one side; they were not therein our beautiful moments alone, and didnt see how she made me feel special,even chosen. They didnt understand.

Apparently, neither did Ellen Trainer.

In my adult life, the feelings of thattime have all but washed away. Surely there are things about then I haveblocked from my memory entirely. What I do remember is Ellen Trainer neverspoke to me again, and from that moment on there was snickering in the girlslocker room when I went to gym class. The words dyke and lezzie worked their way into my vocabulary by the 6th grade. Well, not so much my vocabulary as the vocabulary ofothers directed at me.

Growing up gay is hardits amazing tome how many of us survive. When I was that young, and what made the EllenTrainer experience so devastating was, as far as I knew of myself, I wasstraight. Having many other emotional defects at the time, the last thing Ineeded was another strike against my mental health. I had never had what mostchildren have, that kind of life-long best friend that is so common in mostpeoples lives. The classic American buddy, the one who accompanied you to themovies and the mall, slept over your house, took all the same classes in highschool. I was deprived of such a playmate, save a few fragmented variations ofsuch a companion. As a result, even when those kids began teasing me in the 6thgrade, calling me by homophobic slurs more often than my own name, I trulybelieved all I wanted was a best friend like everyone else. Today I understandthat masked the desire to not so much have what they had but to be like them,never comprehending what made me so different.