Hello, my name is Lia, and I'm a lesbian. Wow, that never stops sounding like I'm in an AA meeting xD

I regret a lot of things I did when it comes to how I came out. I really dragged out my coming out to people, but that's not all I regret. Let me begin with my story now.

The most interesting part of all this, I think, is how I realized I wasn't straight in the first place. It all started in the eighth grade. It was really close to graduation, like two weeks away, and I had just moved to a new town. For those of you familiar with the area, I moved from Jersey City to Bayonne in NJ. I was going to have to get up much earlier and take public transportation to get to school. But anyways, a week before the dance, I had a dream which involved my best friend (at the time) Elaimey confessing that she loved me, us coming out, our parents rejecting us, running away and kissing.

To understand just why this dream freaked me out so much, you need to know that my mother grew up in the Catholic church, and started attending Baptist churches instead shortly after we immigrated in the U.S. from Uruguay (in South America). I am a Christian born and bred, but at the time, it seemed impossible to reconcile my new feelings with my religion. Additionally, Elaimey was also a Christian.

I didn't want to take that dream very seriously. After all, people have crazy dreams with no meaning all the time. That, and I was crazy homophobic. In the seventh grade, this mean girl in my class went around calling Elaimey and I lesbians because we had pretty much only interacted with each other since the fifth grade. We were infuriated, though I was much more upset than she was. Another important piece to this puzzle is that Elaimey had been know this boy Brian Mory since pre-k and been obsessed with him since the fourth grade. She was pretty much over it, and had even dated some boy for several months (supposedly without ever kissing him, which I still don't believe her about), and it hadn't been very long since she had gotten out of that relationship. Still, I found it hard to believe she could get over Brian go easily, but either way, because he had constantly turned her down, I hated him. Maybe I was jealous of him? Hard to say. Point was, I was convinced she was straight.

I told Elaimey about the dream, terrified of what she would say, but she blew it off. And so, I did too. Except I couldn't, because I had a romantic dream about her every single night of that week. And I almost never remember my dreams, so it almost felt like a sign from God Himself. That idea was ridiculous and I immediately dismissed it to the best of my abilities. By the time of the dance, I was afraid to so much as touch Elaimey. And yet, I really wanted to dance with her. The whole dance, though, she wouldn't get up off her seat. I had only told her about the first dream and she had blown it off, so I got really angry at her. According to what she later told me, she was afraid that if we danced together, she would be tempted to just kiss me then and there. She pulled me into the bathroom and, according to what she later told me, was going to try and confess, but then she chickened out, seeing as I was so angry at her. That afternoon, I was going to stay over at her house, but we walked in silence, and when we arrived at her home, I just kept walking, not stopping even for a second. Slow dancing is now an enormous deal to me. It's just so romantic! But I know it stems from that instance. I can't explain why, but it hit me really hard.

That dance was Friday, and my first dream had been on that Monday. I stopped being angry at her over the weekend, and the dreams continued. I forgot to mention that every school day since I had moved away, I took the bus to her house and we would walk to school together. Monday morning, I told her i wasn't mad anymore, she invited me over to her house after school. She asked about a million questions to analyze my emotions towards her and female kind in general, and her last question was something like, "Well, it doesn't matter if you like boys or girls. All I wanna know is, do you like me?" I didn't even hesitate to say 'yes' even despite how confused I really was. As soon as I answered, she kissed me. And it felt so amazing that the homophobic voice screaming in my head was almost completely drowned out by how happy I was.

We graduated, summer break began, and I hadn't come out to anyone. Yes, Elaimey and I's two closest friends, Miranda and Emily, knew about us. Miranda was super supportive and Emily was sure we'd end up breaking up and ruining our friendship. I really hated her for saying that. I avoided telling my family for a while, but it just came out during a conversation in the kitchen. My mom was chopping vegetables with her back towards me and she said something like, "You've been going over to Elaimey's house a lot lately. A lot more than the past few years. You two aren't dating, are you?" I guess I was so shocked that my mother had guess it after just two weeks of summer vacation that I just said, "Why, yes we are." She turned around, pointed the knife right at me, and said, "You say that as if it's something to be proud of!" She turned back around and I slowly backed into my bedroom and closed the door. That is one of the things I regret.

My sister and stepfather were in the room, and of course my mother called my father to tell him. He was totally supportive. My sister and stepfather still think I am the spawn of Satan.

So, August came along, and my mother signed into my Facebook one night while I was asleep. Since I was only 13 (I think) at the time, she had to have all my log in info in order for me to be allowed to have a Facebook account. She looked at my messages with Elaimey and discovered that Elaimey and I had... um... *done the thing* earlier that day, at her house. She went straight into my room (while i was sleeping!), pulled me up by my hair and yelled at me for a very long time. Needless to say I cried myself to sleep, and the next morning, I discovered my mother had sent Elaimey a very angry message on Facebook stating that we would never be seeing each other again. The fact that I had sex with her so soon after our relationship started, so soon after I figured out I was gay, and while I still wasn't even in high school is something else I regret. I also regret being stupid enough to talk about it on Facebook messenger.

However, I was eventually allowed to see her again (but with some very strict rules). Throughout this whole time, my mother insisted that she knew I was straight because she gave birth to me and therefore knew everything about me. She said I was just confused and it wouldn't last long and that Elaimey and I would break up soon. She was right about two things: I was still very confused, and Elaimey and I broke up before we could reach four months. Elaimey had found a boy she liked at her high school and started cheating on me a few days into the school year. She announced to me that she was straight and wanted to break up with me halfway through September (the month school starts in the U.S.). Several months later, when we hung out in an attempt to revitalize out friendship, she finally told me she had cheated on me.

I was crushed, of course. She had been my best friend since fifth grade and I hadn't even really made any friends since the school year was only a few weeks in! Miranda stopped responding to my texts and Emily insisted I had treated Elaimey very badly during the relationship (I'll admit that I could be very mean to her at times), and so those two were out of the picture.

Throughout freshman year, I struggled with my sexual orientation. I really didn't want to let go of the idea of being able to date boys, since it would obviously be so much easier. I was also constantly battling with the idea of being a gay Christian. I told my high school friends I was bisexual because I didn't know what else to say. Eventually, some time loser to the end of freshman year, I stuck with lesbian, and I have since then (I will be a senior in September).

I also told my mom I was bisexual, and she of course demanded that bisexuals are just gays that can't accept themselves. Not that they should, of course, because homosexuality is a horrible, horrible sin. So I actually went a very long time after coming out to my friends as a lesbian without telling my mom. I was afraid that if I told her I was a lesbian, she would see it as proof that bisexuals aren't real.

Only recently have I started referring to myself as a lesbian in front of my mom, so in a way, it took me a very, very long time to come out. I never really had to tell my father what I identified as. Even after I started wearing ties, men's shirts and a chain on my jeans, he just told me I looked good and to be careful while walking down Bergenline Ave (which is in West New York and Union CIty) because some of the Hispanic men might want to jump me and "rape me straight". You know how that goes.

My mom still thinks I "want to be a man" even thought I keep telling her that I don't, and that if I identified as a man, then that wouldn't be up to her to decide anyway. I personally identity as "gender nonspecific" because I don't care what pronouns people use to address me with. My mother also likes to say that I "only pretend to be a man" (which encompasses both my manner of dress and my sexual orientation, apparently) because I like to "torture" her. I pray God gives me the patience.

And that's my way too long coming out story. In a way, it only took me about a month to come out, and in a way, it took more something like two years to properly come out.