.sam roberts.

Why did I contribute to L2F?

I wanted to conribute to this project because art and helping LGBTQ teens are both extremely important to me. So much can be conveyed with a photograph, or a poem, or a picture. Not only do I want to help LGBTQ teens, but if I straight person who knows someone like us roams onto the site, I want them to understand what we go through.

 

 

 

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My Story:

 

My mother and I have always been close. Up until my discovering of sexuality, I'd come home from school, tell her all about my day, what the latest gossip was... my mom was my best friend. However, that soon changed. See, ever since I was little my mom had been terribly lenient with me. The only rule she'd ever set for me was "Never come to me one day and tell me you're gay. You'll break my heart." No pressure, right?

 

When I was in my sophomore year of high school, there was a freshman girl who had fallen madly infatuated with me. She'd call me, hug me, flirt with me, people would ask her how we knew each other and she would say, "Oh, I'm her stalker." Course, I had no idea I was a lesbian... I was confused. And I was so embarrassed that I may like her back that I freaked, and kept faaaar away in the closet. But every time I retreated, there she was. Eventually, I became angry with her. Gave her a really mean note and told her all the things that were wrong with her and said that she wasn't boyish enough for me. She called me up crying and asked what she could do to change the way I felt about her. I said nothing. I said it just wouldn't work out. I was a bitch. But the truth is, I was scared. I'd never been in relationship with a girl before. And if I wasn't gay and went into one with her? She'd be hurt. Also, I wasn't out. To me, liking girls was a symbol of shame. What would my mother say? I repressed it.

 

That summer I fell in love with her. Yep. Just like that. It smacked me pretty hard in the face. I just woke up one day and knew that it had to be her. I couldn't help but feel a little helpless when the cold hand of irony hit, that I'd fallen for her the way she'd fallen for me, and now she'd moved on. I spent months crying over her, wanting to express how much I cared, but humiliated at the thought of rejection. Finally, my day came.

 

She told me she loved me on New Years eve, gave me a ring, and we started dating. I thought my heart would explode. My mother had no idea.

 

I can't say that my relationship was something out of a fairy-tale. My grappling with my identity as a lesbian woman definitely hurt our relationship. A month later, she dumped me. I was heartbroken, slid into a horrible depression, started cutting myself to dull the pain. Most of my friends abandoned me and I was at war with the girl I'd loved so much. I had no one to turn to. And my mother...? If I'd even hinted about my secret relationship, she'd have never forgiven me. All she knew was that Iíd fallen apart, and she'd been called to set up a psychiatric evaluation.

 

One day she found a personal note of mine. The shit hit the fan. She confronted me in the family van and started bawling, demanding to know if I were gay. I told her yes. I told my mom I loved her and that it wasn't her fault-that it was the way I was born and it wasn't my choice. She asked if my ex-girlfriend had made me this way. I told her no, but she insisted otherwise. She claimed that said girl and her own estranged relationships with men had turned me into such filth. She said she'd die before she ever saw me go to prom with another girl. We both cried. Snotty noses, swollen, wet faces, red cheeks... we cried harder than I ever could have imagined. She wailed that this wasn't the life she'd chosen for me, and that it wasn't what she wanted. No matter my attempts to reassure her that I was still her same daughter, she couldn't be placated.

 

After an hour... maybe two, she calmed a little. We went inside, and I threw myself onto my bed. My little brother heard me crying and went into my room after me. He asked what was wrong, and when he found out, he ran after my mother. You never saw such a screaming match. He tore her a new one left and right. Things became tense around the household, needless to say...

 

I love my mother. She's the most beautiful, warm-hearted person you'll ever meet in your life. She had her own struggles with my sexuality to overcome. In the months to follow, she desperately sought out answers to her questions about my state, and even though it was hard for her, she never once stopped loving me... It was just a big adjustment for her.

 

Now, she accepts me. And when I dated again, she embraced my girlfriend like a daughter. There was no end to "Why don't you invite so-an-so over for the night?" and "How about you take her with us?" My mother took a complete 180 from "Never tell me you're gay".

 

I can't imagine having never told her. Girls come and go, but my mom and I..? We're forever.