Secrets

Hiding memories so deep, you keep secrets from yourself.

I decided to suck it up and give Preteen Me a second chance. It was, after all, a confusing and emotional time; I may have judged her too quickly.

Slowly I prepared myself to reopen the 1993 diary. I knew what to expect, at least, having skimmed it a few weeks ago. This time I was going to read it carefully, in chronological order. I barely made it to February when something clicked in my head - I’d been keeping a pretty large secret from myself for more than three decades.

I had actually already started down this path of discovery. Memories and thoughts had surfaced, forcing me to admit a truth I’d been hiding all along. I was just not aware how deep this particular secret was embedded into the history of Me.

We tend to want to belong at all stages of life. Within our communities, around our peers, and generally feel connected to those around us. For a lot of us, that need becomes all consuming at some stage of our lives. We lose ourselves in the crowd, wear a lot of masks and pretend to be a lot of people. We just want to fit in.

For me, it appears to have been those preteen years where I lost all of my individual self. I’d stumble through high school attempting to answer that big question of “who are you?”, but never quite getting there. The secret was buried too deep.

The truth was spelled out in my diary, in the raw emotions and interactions with other people. My elite “Best Friend” status. The jealousy of my friends liking enemies. And I hated the boys. I always hated the boys. All of them, all the time. They were rude, gross, and they hated me.

Just before middle school hit, there was a sudden pressure within my circle of girl friends to secure these insufferable boys and “land” a boyfriend. Looking back now, it felt like a learned behavior sparked from this need to fit in. I never did care for them, but took cues from my friends on how to “attract them”. The blueprints were in every song on the radio and movie in the theater. Parents, grandparents, and extended family were all models on what relationships were supposed to be. Marry, have kids, the end. Who was I to question this?

As I flowed through high school, more clues would arise. I found myself hanging with the guys without being interested in them, sometimes annoyed when one thought he could break free of the Friend Zone. I’d still play the role of straight, occasionally questioning my orientation, but never giving it too much thought.

The 90’s were a time of acceptance, but with an undertow of upholding the status quo. Be nice, be respectable, yet don’t be weird. And in school, that’s the last thing you want to be. So I just did my best to fit in wherever I could, forever the chameleon.

In my adult years, I’d have a slew of bad relationships that should have made me question my life in deeper ways than it did. Despite it being a new, more tolerant era, I was bound by the life I had chosen. There was no turning back.

At some point I’d been taught “gay people are born that way”, so when I’d question myself, the answer had to be “no”, since I’d learned to be straight. It’s taken a lot of years to rewire my brain's programming. That my perception of partnership and romance was directed by learned ideals, not at all what my heart wanted or needed.

Somewhat late in life, I was finally given an opportunity to truly explore this side of me that had been so well hidden, even to myself at times. It had suddenly become completely socially acceptable to be Bi, as long as you were in the right company. I was able to prove to myself that yes, I do like women and there was nothing weird about it.

It would take another full decade, though, for me to realize I prefer women. And not until I read this diary that deep down, the raw young version of me always did. She was just never given the chance to say no to community expectations, no opportunities and no other options to explore. There was only one path. The farther I went down the path, the less I looked back.

Until now.

I’m glad I allowed Preteen Me to retell her story. I owed it to her, and my current self.

A skeleton key from a century old farmhouse.