Emotional Swiss Cheese

Photo by Matthew Kendig

Look at everything I’ve done in the past year, Maria. I broke up my family, I hurt my kids, and I did it all for NOTHING.

You didn’t break up your family for me.

No, but I would have never done it if I didn’t think you were the one.

I am the one, Sass. 

No, you’re not because the love of my life wouldn’t treat me like shit.  Because every time I give you my heart, you smash it to pieces.  It’s not safe with you.  Do you know how sick it makes me to think of someone else’s hands on me?  It was supposed to be you.

Baby… 

Don’t call me baby.  I’m not your baby.

You’re the love of my life, I never loved anyone the way I love you.

STOP IT! Stop saying that! Do you realize what a mindfuck that is?  It’s brainwashing!  You are not the love of my life; the love of my life would cherish me and respect me and want the best for me.

I want to meet a woman who is happy and whole, who will take my hand and we will walk through this life together.  No one is pulling the other one ahead, and no one is slowing the other one down. 

I want someone who is healthy and whole, not emotional fucking swiss cheese.

The day I knew I was a lesbian...

People scowl and make this groaning noise anytime I tell them that I still share my house with my ex-husband. They don’t seem to believe that our lives are peaceful and happy, and that the transition from partners to best friends was nearly effortless. The assumption is that divorce must be contentious.

Can't two mature, loving adults who reach the natural ending of their relationship still remain best friends?

My ex-husband always knew that I wasn’t 100% straight, so it wasn’t a big shock to him. I mean, we used to check out chicks together...

...and then go home and watch girl-on-girl porn.

In the year and a half that we've been separated, I never had the urge to go downstairs for a romp.  I mean, why would I want to relive that torture?  Okay, so the sex didn't exactly suck, but there's only so many times a person can disassociate before you start losing brain cells. 

But I do remember the exact day that I realized I may be more than bisexual-slept-with-a-girl-before, and was more likely a flaming homo.

It was October 2, 2006.

Sitting on the couch, I flipped through channels while my husband and I chatted. I settled on Oprah, who promised a NEVER SEEN BEFORE television event.

Oprah really is the ruler of the universe, isn't she?

I mean, how many ah-ha moments can one woman possibly have?

Hubby immediately got up to leave, but I pulled his hand and asked him to stay.

Now, in ten years of marriage we never watched TV together, much less Oprah.

The show, ironically, was called Wives Confess They Are Gay

My husband took one look at my face and later said he knew our marriage had an expiration date.

These women were not soccer moms; they were not butches wearing chain belts and polo shirts. Oh no, these women were gorgeous in their lipstick and their Jimmy Choos.  Intelligent, professional women.

I realized there were more women out there like me.

Five years passed before I told him I was sure I was gay and our marriage was over. I sometimes wonder why I am not grieving the end of this marriage and then I remember that I have been grieving it for over five years.

When it's done, it's done.

Stupid is as stupid does, Forrest

Did I ever mention before that I have a phobia of needles and blood?  It's bad.  Really bad.  Like, I start to get dizzy and sweaty and red on the way to the doctor even if there is a chance I may get blood drawn.

So the other day in my Chemical Dependency class, we were about to watch a movie about heroin addiction.  Professor warned us that it was very graphic and I told him I would step outside, lest I pass out in the middle of class and look like this:

Seriously.

While in the hall, my friend Dani texted me and asked me if she could tag along with my girlfriend and I to roller derby that night.  Dani was trying to get over a broken heart and wanted to be social.  I called her back and told her of course, meet us there.

Wrong answer, folks. 

Girlfriend SCREAMED at me in the car while I drove us to Seattle. Screamed so loud the windows on my car vibrated.  She was pissed that I invited Dani and didn't ask her first, pissed that I wouldn’t tell her every word of our phone conversation, just simply PISSED.

I said, “Do you really want to enter into the mean mommy/naughty baby dynamic with me? Because I will fucking win that battle. I have a mother already, she lives three thousand miles away and that’s close enough. I don’t need another person in my life telling me what the fuck to do.”

Nothing she was saying was making any sense.

After a while she says, “Okay, I love you again.” She pulled me over and kissed me on the cheek.

I took a deep breath and said, “Look, this is never going to work without clinical intervention.” And she flipped out again, saying I was threatening her and why do I keep threatening her? I said I wasn’t threatening, but that if she refused to go back to couples therapy then it was simply never going to work out for us.

So she was quiet for a few minutes and then she said, “I think we should break up.”


Okay, fine.  I turned up the music and kept driving to the arena.

At this point, I'm just amused and surprised at this turn of events, and frankly, even a little relieved.

So we get to the arena and she’s outside saying she doesn’t want to go in, and Dani was there waiting for us.  I used my best social work skills to talk her into going in.

"Come onnnn, we're going to have a good time, let's go hang with our friends and drink some beer and look at hot chicks." 

Once inside, we went to get beers for everyone. As we're standing in line she said, “You’re not even acting like my girlfriend, you’re not holding my hand or talking to me at all.”

“I’m a little confused, an hour ago you said you wanted to break up. If we’re broken up, we’re broken up...I don’t have to act like your girlfriend anymore.”

So she stormed off (and stupidly, I followed) and she was making a total scene inside the arena, pointing in my face, calling me a bitch. 

Public humiliation...always a fun time.

Right at that moment, another one of my friends walks up says, “Are you guys going in?”

Girlfriend says, no, we’re leaving. I said, “No, we’re not. I have to say goodbye to Dani.” Girlfriend says, “You can text her goodbye. We’re going. NOW.” And she walked out the door.


I followed her out and said, “Here’s a concept that you haven’t figured out yet. YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK TO DO. I’m going back inside to say goodbye to my friends like a grown up.”

She said, “Fine. I’m going home.”


Good luck with that one, honey, because I drove your ass here.

Later, I drove her home.  She didn’t speak for the whole 60 miles except to tell me that I won, that I succeeded in making her look like a villain in front of my friends.  I made her look like the villain?

So we got to her house and I packed all of my stuff. I asked her if I had everything because I wasn’t coming back.

As I turned the doorknob to leave she said, “It was never going to work out, I can’t be the person you want me to be.”

And I think that may have been the truest statement of our entire relationship.

In the words of Carrie Bradshaw, "We are so over, we need a new word for over."

You slept with a girl before, how could you not know you were gay?

I get this question a lot.

Yep, I slept with a girl before I got married.  I kinda thought that's what people do in their early twenties.  You know, experimentation...like this:

I didn't even really consider her my girlfriend despite the hot sex.   Eventually, she married a man and she asked me to be her maid of honor...awkward.

I lived in the southeastern US at the time (shudder) and I didn't know any lesbians, I never saw any gay people and it never occurred to me that I could share my life with a woman. 

So, then I married a man. (She was my maid of honor too, and at my reception I really considered asking her for one last fuckfest for old time's sake.  It would have been more sex than I actually had on my wedding night.)

It wasn't until about 5 years into my marriage that I started having crushes on women. Not just feeling-drawn-to-you crushes, but fantasize-about-you-in-the-shower crushes.  I slowly started to put the pieces together. 

I have mentioned before that I had a major crush on my college math teacher.  Her name was Sue and my little heart would palpitate when I saw her.  I was sure she was gay until she mentioned her husband and daughters.  Confusing. 

All the signs were there that told me she was gay:  she had a crew-cut, wore polo shirts and khakis and was the girls' volleyball coach for God's sake.  I wore my cutest outfits and started to hang around after class. 

One afternoon, she asked me if I could help her carry things back to her office.  During our walk, I mentioned that some of my poetry was published in the college's literary magazine. 

"So you're the new Emily Dickinson?" she asked with a wink. 

"You know, a lot of historians think that Emily Dickinson was a lesbian."  I held my breath. Pleasebegay. Pleasebegay. Pleasebegay. Pleasebegay.

She sighed. "I always wondered what it would be like to live with a woman." 

Sue really was straight despite my wishing and praying and offering my first born.  But she unknowingly set into motion a process that  brought me to this moment.  And I got an A in her class.

My mother is an evil cow

My mother came flew across the country to help my ex-husband with the kids while I was in Italy.

Wasn't that nice of her?

Except that she used that time to pick a side [not mine] and talk shit about me to my own children.

To my soon-to-be ex-husband she said, "Just so you know, I'm not happy with what she is doing, and I am very concerned."

Wait.  Hold up.

What I'm doing?

When will people realize it's not what I'm doing but who I am?

Not a disease I will recover from, nor a phase I'm just trying out.  I'm not going crazy, not experiencing a second adolescence, not rebelling against society in general.


My mother repeatedly asked my 15 year-old daugther how she is "holding up" and talked all kinds of smack about me. Apparently what she was saying was pretty bad because my daughter was crying to me saying, "That's how she feels, Mom, that's not how I feel."

As my friend Berna says, "I would call you a cunt but that would imply a warmth and depth that you do not have."

Goddamn her.