january 1, 2007, (i have now had this journal 2 years.)

growing up, i desperately wanted to be normal.

when i was 17, i was involved in a romantic relationship with a good friend of mine. curtis had always been someone i admired, and when it turned out he was interested in me, i was enthralled. curt was different. he had long hair that went all the way down his back, he played in a black metal band and was the singer, he wore belts with bullets on them and metal on his shoes. he wore makeup. i enjoyed being his girlfriend at times. i liked how all the goth girls fell all over him and when he got off the stage he walked over to me. i liked how we looked so weird together. how everyone knew who he was. i even thought i was falling in love with him for some time. he was the first man i slept with.

over time, i wasn't really sure how i felt about curtis. he was always there for me. he really understood me. he put up with my ridiculous bullshit. i really cared for him. however, over time, i wasn't really feeling romantically toward him anymore, but i stayed with him anyways. i stayed with him because he was my confident, my best friend. parts of him i really got, and other parts i didn't. we slept together sporadically and he wrote songs for me which appeared on his albums in stores, carefully coded, with thanks to me in the credits. i hung out with him and all his friends. i learned how to swordfight with wooden swords. i learned all about pagan life, rituals, astral projection, and odin. i learned alot with curtis.

one day we ended up in a marsh that we so often frequented, in the middle of the night. i was having an emotional breakdown, as i so often did after my friends were killed, and demanded that he sleep with him, on top of the tower, and we didn't have any protection. he kept telling me that he didn't want me to get pregnant, he wanted to me to finish school ( i was in community college at the time studying nothing.) i was crying about something, like he didn't care or whatever, typical 19 year old bullshit, and he got down on one knee and proposed. me with tears streaming down my cheeks, him crazed and confused. and that's how i got engaged.

it was silly because i knew that i didn't really care for him like that. but it's not that i didn't love him. i had seen my parents have the same sort of relationship, more of a companionship really, and i figured that's how i would stay. i never really thought much about the future, and planned on dying early anyways. i didn't really think there were that many options out there. my parents had never been to college. i was trying out the community college route, but it was more for something to do, and so that i could continue health insurance. it's embarrassing to say now, but i figured i would just get pregnant and have kids. i actually even would picture myself in a long white dress, barefoot and pregnant. i didn't want to do anything, i didn't want to live or die, and i figured at least if i played the role of the mother, i would never have to work or do anything with my life.

curtis and i were having some serious problems, however. he sort of knew that i was not feeling the relationship, but still keeping him around anyways. i hate to say it, but i was probably somewhat abusive to him. i hated myself for it, but i didn't have any role models for other behavior. he treated his mom like shit too. she was a severe alcoholic who couldn't work and all she would do was clean and cook for him and they had this weird relationship. she loved and hated me and wanted me to marry her son and straighten him out. i didn't even know where to begin.

the summer after i turned 20, curtis and i broke up. i was more devastated than i had ever been. he broke up with him for a girl named kim, who had long blond hair and dark eyes, who wore sports bras and baggy pants everyday. i hated her more than anything, maybe even more than i hated him. i was sick for weeks.

looking back....
i don't know.

i really wanted it, this normal life. i wanted to get married and have kids and not have to think about choices or work or anything else. i thought that marriage was the way out. i remember thinking that when i got married life would just stop, and i'd be able to think. i'm not sure what i was thinking at this time. the same sort of thing happened with my next boyfriend, dana, who looking back, i think may have been a weird infatuation than anything else. i wanted to marry him and have his children. but looking back, what would i have taught these children and what would have become of me...and them?

i don't tell this to too many people, but it is true that i am just coming out. i have never been able to even admit these thoughts to myself. my one relationship with a female, which was before curtis, when i was 16 years old, had been so traumatizing and confusing that i had just shoved all that shit out of my head and continued on, feigning heterosexuality i guess. though i'm not sure i was feigning. i really just stopped thinking about that aspect of my life.

when i got to college, the summer after curt and i broke up, i would mention my past with meagan. i just wanted it out there somehow. i remember dana being freaked out about it. curtis has never been freaked out about it, and he would tell me i was bisexual and i would say, nah, i don't think i am. whatever.

anyways...
the point is..
what is the point?

i'm having trouble with this. coming out i guess.
i guess i just never realized that this is such a long road.
a long fucking hard hard road.
coming out to myself has been very hard.
growing up, i knew that gay was very wrong. there was a kid in my 7th grade homeroom named sean. it never failed every morning with him yelling, "larisa's a lesbian!!" shame. hate. even before i knew what the word really meant i knew it was gross. fucking disgusting. girls liking girls in 'that way' was fucking disgusting.
and i really did like boys at that time. so what happened?

i don't know.... i wish i didn't have to be this way. i find it strange that i have no problem with this sort of thing in other people, but i hate it in myself. i hate that i can't get the fact that i like girls to go away.

last week james got his chest reconstruction surgery done and the doctors did some kinda fucked up shit and james said, "i understand. i used to hate transpeople too. i grew up thinking that trans people were disgusting."

i wish i could talk to james about this stuff but i can't. i'm so embarrassed that i didn't know like alot of people knew, BAM! right out of the closet when they were 15, or 17, or 18, proud proud proud proud proud. i am almost 27, and i'm still so scared of these feelings. scared they are there. scared that the second i admit them they might just dissapear. even though i'm not sure if that is true.....it seems that since i have admitted out loud that i like women, i like them more and more. gah, go away, go away.

i know that i need to accept myself.

which brings me to the original reason that i began posting.

i've been reading alot. i've been reading about race relations, and queer therory, and queer history, feminists, women, activism... whatever. i sort of feel that i am a student of life...and yet...i am so lonely.. everyone that seems to be into this stuff seems to know it all, they have been into it as teenagers, their parents were radicals, whatever. my parents are not radical. my parents and family are closed minded (though my mom is getting better.) perhaps this is what took me so long to figure shit out. sometimes i feel that i will be figuring shit out for the rest of my life.

my mom told me that before i was born she found man on man books in the basement. she thinks that maybe my dad is gay. life just keeps getting weirder and weirder. i wonder if other people think this much. i know that my sister doesn't, and my best friend from high school laura doesn't. i feel like i don't really know anyone anymore. i need community. so. bad.

where is fucking community??


maybe i'll sleep now. i've been writing for awhile.

happy new year to anyone that read this.

and xox.

larisa ann.