in_seclusion | a story of a two-month long sexuality crisis aka how i came out to myself

in february 2020 i went to a gay club and there was a lot of joy, and two of my female friends started making out on the dance floor, as you do. in that moment i wanted nothing more than to be allowed that kind of joy, to freely hold the hand of the girl i liked back then, to have the courage to live openly. so at 2am on february 15, 2020 i realized i liked women in more than the girlcrush kind of way, and in the way that says, this is love.

that was 3 years ago, and i came out to some friends and family as a bisexual woman. i thought that was the end of it.

in january 2023 i went to a cousin's wedding. the philippines is not known for its progressive roots in many aspects, and gay rights and recognition is not one of those progressive aspects. i love my cousins to death, but they are children of the Catholic Church and their father serves in its ministry, and my relationship with the Church has always been rocky at best and downright hostile at worst.

anyway, back to the wedding.

my cousin married her first boyfriend from college, and cumulatively they have been together for fifteen years. her sisters have both married their first boyfriends. i have always longed for a love and stability that seemed to come easily to them, but always seemed like such a struggle for me. it was always the same old story: child of a broken home, dealing with trauma and growing up, too difficult for men to handle, always a challenge or a prize, never a person to be with. an old friend turned suitor who remained friend once told me that no filipino man would be able to handle me and i deserved better, to which i responded, then they aren't worth my time. i was in high school, what the fuck was i talking about? but also, i was right.

i have fallen in love with exactly two men in my life, but never felt the desire to be touched by them, only to be seen, only to be enveloped in a love and companionship. they were never relationships, because life always intervened and said, this is not for you, and that was that. both were a decade ago now, and i have not been with anyone since. i still remember and love them dearly in the way that i wish nothing but happiness for them both, but with the knowledge we will never be what i wished for back then, because things were too complicated, and we are different people now.

the days leading up to my cousin's wedding were some of the most stressful days of my life, and to be frank, some of the unhappiest. the day of the wedding was difficult in that i suppose i could not look at my family in a way that didn't constantly question, would you still be there for me if you knew? and i could not explain why.

in between this, i met old friends and reevaluated some relationships, and looked back at the past with a clearer lens as if to say, ah yes these are the people who let you be you, whose care was read as judgment, these are feelings for people that were complicated back then but clearer now. and i suppose it was in meeting old friends who knew me before anything, before the weight of social expectations became overbearing, before i built myself into a product of what society expected (hustle culture, associate director at 28, by all accounts successful in career if not personally quite miserable and terribly, terribly lonely), that i remembered how simple life could be, how i was back then when i was more honest with myself, how much freer it felt to not think about who i had to be. it was in the re-meeting that i realized how much i had built a second skin that had become so alien, and how i just wanted to be honest with myself again, in a way that i could not be for ten years. vulnerability was always terrifying in my 20s, but i wonder how much of that terror was because deep down i knew i had built a person on a foundation made of straw?

and yes in this time, i met a girl who i had feelings for and did not realize it from a few years back. i met her again, and subsequently realized it was not just a girlcrush, i did really like her, but i did not understand it back then -- and everything came into sharper focus in a way that i did not anticipate.

and i suppose all of it was too much, because there was so much grief in me on the day of the wedding that i felt torn in two: happy for my cousin and her now-husband, and preemptive grief at a loss i did not know. because as i sat at the second row of the church, as a secondary sponsor for my cousin, listening to a priest talk about how love must transcend even the shittiest of relationships as long as you believe in God ~~(lol no God would want you to save yourself actually)~~, all i could think of was -- if i married a woman, would you celebrate with me? would you be at the church, at the reception, talking about how you loved my partner as one of the family? would you be there to share my joy? or would you not be there at all?

and i already knew who would be there with me, and feared those who would not. my family is a large one, a product of the traditional filipino family belief of the more the merrier, and though my cousin invited only those closest to her heart -- they are the same ones closest to mine. and it was difficult to realize that some of them would not be able to see past the fact that i love a woman, and i would possibly lose them altogether.

and yet in that moment, i knew that if it meant i would lose some of my family to be happy as myself and with a partner who i love, then i would leave my family behind because i cannot bear hiding for the rest of my life. i will not hide my partner, because it would not be fair to her.

all of these are hypotheticals, of course. i do not have a partner now, but i am a risk manager by trade, and these are the risks involved. and i suppose in my industry we are prepared for all eventualities, and as i sat in that pew my mind went through all of it. it has been going through all of it for the last month.

but all i knew as i sat in church is that i could not see myself marrying a man. i could only ever see myself marrying a woman. that, my old college mentor (who has been in a relationship with his partner for 23 years) told me when we met recently to discuss this, was my pivot point: the point at which you realize you cannot return to who you were.

since then many things have changed, my understanding of my sexuality deepened.

i have been thinking about my realization about liking women, and coming out as bisexual in 2020 a lot, and reevaluating everything. i have come to learn that maybe it wasn't so much as a realization, but i finally had the courage to admit it to myself after years of ignoring my own emotions for the comfort of safety and assurance and the well-worn path that everyone expected me to walk. because while i have always longed for love and companionship, i have never wanted to be touched by a man, and have physically recoiled from it at times. i thought it was because i was asexual, but i don't think that's it, not anymore. i have wondered if i was socialized to be straight, because i've always believed i should like men even when i felt nothing. i had checklists for the men i should like, and dropped them for the slightest misstep. i wonder if that was just my subconscious telling me something i wasn't quite ready to face, and that was that i just don't like men in the romantic or sexual way everyone expected from me.

perhaps a hint should have been in my language for love and relationships -- i have never wanted to call a boyfriend a boyfriend, i have always wanted to call them a partner or a significant other. even with my ex, i called him my partner, because i wanted us to be equal -- and maybe again it was my subconscious asserting itself. i have always wanted to be cared for in the way that allows me to lay down and rest, to surrender my heart and my vulnerabilities to someone else, but to also have the honor of holding my partner's heart, of knowing that they too would find such comfort and home in a space we could build together. so rarely did i find that in a man, and even when i did, i simply denied their touch, because i did not want it. perhaps that was a big indicator, but i could not see it, because i was too afraid of what it might mean for me, trying to build stability in an emotionally unstable environment.

my therapist (the straight one) said for me to consider that maybe i am attracted to women because i seek feminine energy because of the lack of it in my life, and my crude knee-jerk reaction was, well doc, consider that i have never wanted to fuck a man without preamble but i would sleep with a woman. that was revelation in itself.

i never thought of myself as a sexual being, more given to thinking maybe i was just a prude or conservative (ginny immediately laughed and said i have read your fanfic, you are not a prude, which LMAO, TRUE), but the more i come to understand and accept who i am, the more that old thinking rings hollow or simply untrue. the more i have accepted myself the more feminine i have also allowed myself to be. i joked that my hyperfemme era has just begun because i'm going to make my ffxiv WOL the hyperfemme i never was, but i also now wonder how much of that led to all of this. it's not a bad thing, simply another avenue to understand myself in a way that is safe, at least.

i have spoken to so many people about this crisis: my trainer, my trauma therapist (who is also LGBTQ), my college mentor, ginny, two straight normie friends, my cousin in the US, my mother. my cousin in the states, who i love dearly (and who i tripped acid with), told me that none of this is surprising, because it has always seemed that i was trying to figure things out internally with regards to my romantic and sexual life, and was single by choice. and he has always welcomed me and i am always so grateful for his support. he is the one cousin that knows my life as it is, and never judged me for it even during my lowest moments. we may be oceans apart but he remains one of my closest confidants.

in the end i wrote in my journal, would it really be so wrong to love a woman? i would rather be honest with myself now and love a woman now and see this turn as a road, a life, where love might reside in a way that is not built on obligation or expectation. just love, built on the knowledge that i am finally honest with myself, and that i can experience joy in a way that doesn't cost me my sense of self. the price for such love is high, but if it means i love with integrity and with my whole heart rather than feel like i am obligated to, then there is no price too high.

also it just feels great to live in a reality where i don't feel obligated to love men!

it feels silly, but i am glad for this emotion. it keeps me honest with myself. for once, i don't want to run from the possibility of love -- it no longer feels like a cost or a sacrifice, or a burden.

verity has told me of the history of the term lesbian, so i don't know how much of it i would use simply because i don't want to adopt an identity without adopting the history of the term itself. it doesn't seem to be fair. but here in the philippines it is much less loaded, and it is the word we use for women who love women, so i suppose for all intents and purposes, in this context i am a lesbian.

it's still strange to type it out. it's a reality i am still coming to terms with, or getting used to. but it's a reality where i am honest with myself, where i can let myself be me, and where i am free.

it's been moments of terror between moments of euphoria, but the moments of joy far outnumber the moments of fear in depth, intensity, duration, and frequency. it's nice to feel free.