Ocean Dreamer

It has not been a good week.  I’ve kind of debated about writing on here about this, but in the end I decided to.  As a result of all the crap that’s happening at school, I’ve been dealing with a lot of internalized homophobia.  I suppose I dealt with it before I really came out to myself and when I first came out, but since then it hasn’t really been an issue.  Until now.  So I’m not really sure what to do about it.  I find myself, horror of horrors, wishing that I could be like the other people in my cohort – i.e. straight*.  I’m also a bit embarrassed and ashamed to be feeling this way, which is the main reason I didn’t want to post anything about it on here.  In the end, though, I decided that the best way to work through something is to talk about it, so here you go.

Maybe this will go away next quarter when I’m student teaching?  I’ve written before about how I love the class and teacher I’ll be working with.  It is so nice to be in her classroom, where things are not so gendered, where there aren’t expectations or boxes for the kids to be in based on what their gender is.  Everyone just is, and I love it.  The kids – and all of us – have so much more freedom to be true to themselves.

I was talking to my friend E about how I was feeling recently, and she said she thought it made sense, since the straight folks in my program are treated so much better than I am.  Still, I want to be someone who can just be strong in the face of all of it, who will know in her heart that they are wrong and only need that knowledge to get through it.  I mean, I do know they’re wrong, but clearly there’s a part of me that doesn’t believe it and that is leading me to wish I was different.  I know of a queer woman a little while ago who sued my school because of their homophobia (she got all her education paid for, too.)  She really seemed to be having a rough time still and said they took a part of her soul.  I don’t want that to happen to me.

Until last summer, I really existed in a world that almost exclusively consisted of queer folks.  Those who aren’t queer are very queer-friendly.  I got used to it, it was comfortable and easy, and I always knew people either identified with or at least understood where I was coming from.  For the most part, we share the same values and ideals.  Consequently, when I suddenly started spending time with more straight people (some of whom turned out not to be so queer-friendly), I wasn’t as guarded as I perhaps should have been.  Although, really, who wants to spend their time guarded?  Watching what I say all the time makes me miserable.

For the time being, I’m trying to surround myself with as many positive queer images as I can.  I’m also thinking of taking martial arts again (at least until I’m preggers) – I used to train and got so much out of it (self-confidence, awareness of my body, etc.).  Most of the women who trained there were also queer and were really role models for me when I was first coming out.  Now my bad ex trains at that school, so I don’t think I’ll be going back there, but I may seek out a different place to train.

I’d love to hear if y’all have thoughts or suggestions about how I can work through this.  And thanks so much for listening/reading.

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*Note to the straight folks who read my blog: I don’t have anything against straight folks, it’s just that I’m not one and so it concerns me that I would in any way wish to be one.  By saying “horror of horrors,” I don’t mean to imply that being straight is a bad thing, but just that it’s not who I am or who I should be.

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