I’d like to welcome contributor Velvet Blade to our rolls here at the GLBTQ page.  I’ve been reading  her for quite a while and I hope you enjoy her essays, which will appear monthly, here at AWOP. 

Something that lesbians have to do that our heterosexual counterparts never need to do is continually come out. Unless we look, breath, walk and talk Lesbianese all day long, we introduce our sexuality to new people on a regular basis. Since being a lesbian is only part of who I am, people often get to know a part of me, and later discover the rest. We continually come out when we meet new people, when we network, when we change jobs, when a guy hits on us, when we march for gay rights and even when we hold hands with our lover in public.

In recent months it seems that people from my past have come out of the woodwork to reconnect with me. This has been made easy due to the power of Facebook. First there were those friends I had in England, who knew me when I was coming out for the first time. And those in San Francisco, who knew me when I was already out. Being a lesbian was a part of who I was to them already.

The next wave of People Who I Used To Know Crawling Out Of The Woodwork happened a few months later. I spent my first year of college on the Wellness Floor in the dorms at Colorado State University. It was one of the only mixed sex floors in the dorms and since I considered myself bisexual at the time, seemed an ideal playground for me. (Ah… the criteria we use to make decisions when we are 17!)

Other than my dear friend and roommate, who I have always kept in touch with, I lost track of everybody else. Truth be told, I forgot a lot of them. It was a long time ago. I could recall some first names, but very few things that didn’t involve my ultra-cool roomie.

There is one unforgettable moment, though, and I think you will understand why. A rather healthy-minded guy accidentally chugged a full can of the tobacco chew-spit his roommate was storing in a Coke can. I’ve never seen anyone turn green so fast.

Being sexually conflicted at the time, I still dated boys… Usually I chose very effeminate guys who looked like surfers. Ones that couldn’t overpower me or grow chest hair. Ones that wouldn’t be caught dead wearing colognes like Chaps or Old Spice, but especially Stetson. The kind of guys who had common names like Doug, Dave and Scott but harbored secret nicknames from their surfing buddies like Wingnut, Nutter, Rocky and Sweeney. They listened to music like REM, Cat Stevens, The Smiths and The Waterboys and knew cool lyrics by heart. The kind of guys who seemed more interested in appearing to have a girlfriend rather than having sex with one. The kind of guys that wore the same size clothes as me and let me wear theirs, but never asked to wear mine. They had to have a really good closet full of shorts that I could wear to volleyball and soccer practice. This was almost as important as the cologne choice. They were all wickedly smart and we spent a lot of time discussing topics smart people discuss. We spent a lot of time drinking together, seeing and being seen. I made sure that none of them lived in my dorm. Some even went to far away schools and visited on weekends and breaks. Those were the best ones.

My fellow dorm dwellers and I only bonded over Broncos games in the TV lounge. Oddly enough, several of them have built careers in the performing arts, just as I had done. Many, according to their Facebook profiles, marched for same-sex marriage rights despite being heterosexual. At least one is gay… I think. These are all the guys who were on my dorm floor. Sorely missing are all the women who lived along side us, except my roomie. She’s in our little Facebook group as well.

I received a volley of Facebook personal messages asking what I had been up to. Telling me about their jobs (or lack thereof), their wives, kids, dogs, cats and bicycles. (Yes, bicycles… but that’s a story for another day…) They all asked if I was married and had kids. I braced myself as I went through the whole coming out all over again.

I pondered, at first, how to do it best with each individual based on their Facebook pages, which either gave me a lot of info or none at all. There were 5 of them, and it was maddening, so I just ended up giving the same version to everyone and screw it.

“I’m a lesbian. Just found the love of my life. Been together 17 months. It’s great. She is fabulous, sexy, smart, and everything I could have ever hoped for. I wish I had found her sooner. No kids. One step-sonish from a previous relationship with another woman. One dog. Lots and lots of cats. Anyone need a kitten?”

Every last one of them has been wonderful and accepting, continuing conversations as if nothing is amiss and being a lesbian is the most normal thing in the world… which of course, it is.

Then I found myself going through this AGAIN a few weeks later when I was contacted by friends from the Performing Arts College I went to in London. There are ten in that group. I hadn’t yet been with a woman when we studied together, but knew at that time that my next relationship would likely be with one. I didn’t share this information with just anyone. I avoided having relationships, preferring instead to use the Working On My Career excuse. And it was true… sort of. Truth is I was scared shitless and still conflicted.

I landed an acting job immediately out of college and left London for Germany shortly after that. We all went our separate ways. Oh, the beauties of Facebook! Connecting those stray dots across the globe to each other with Web-String. Facebook often makes me think of those diagrams on the crime shows where they connect crime scenes with thumbtacks and multicolored yarn. I half expect a rainbow spider to be knitting stockings off to one side of the white board.

Looking at their profiles, I was aghast at what I saw. Most of the women had incredibly derogatory comments about lesbians on their Facebook pages. Each was followed by a “hee hee”. Many, after I said I was gay, never contacted me again. I was dumped like a pariah mid-Facebook conversation.

It’s not a loss for me, this Contact and No Contact. I’ve survived almost twenty years without them in my life and I am sure I can make it the rest of myself without suffering. Sure, maybe I have wondered over the years what one or two of them made of themselves, but never with a pining need to have them in my life. Having a larger web of acquaintances and friends, a wider scope of people you know and are in contact with, is sadly sometimes one of the things we give up when we are open about our sexuality.

But I want a huge Rainbow Yarn Web where no one feels like they have to hide from me or judge me based solely on my sexuality. I want people to add their own unique shade, pattern and patch to the Quilt Work of my life. The more people in my life, the richer its quality. But hey, if you don’t want to be a part of my damn quilt, chances are, I probably don’t want you to be part of it either!

The dichotomy (or should I say Dyke-otomy) of this is not lost on me. These are people who work in the entertainment industry where they work side by side with GLBTQ people on a daily basis. They laugh with us, smile with us, schmooze with us, get paid by us, line up around the block to take Master Classes from us, and create with us. And yet they don’t want us as close friends. (But they might invite you to their weddings or BBQs depending on how connected you are.)

In this Second Coming Out I found myself thinking all over again about how to break the news of my sexuality to these long lost people. I wasn’t worried about being rejected by them. I am four decades into life, and nearly half of it has been spent loving women. I found myself trying to be gentle so that I didn’t disturb their sensibilities. I found myself worried that I might upset them in some way. I didn’t want to represent gays and lesbians in that In Your Face Way we are so often accused of.

Then I realized how absolutely ludicrous this was… prancing around like a circus horse instead of just being. It’s awfully arrogant of me to think that anything in my life or how I choose to live it might affect any of these people. After all, they have lived without me all these years as well. What do they really care if I am a Big Ol’ Dyke these days or straight and married with 3.2 children and white picket fence? Either they care about reconnecting or they don’t. If they don’t, it doesn’t matter. If they do, my sexuality also doesn’t matter.

Go out into the world. Be who you are and who you were meant to be. Those who love you will love you regardless. Those who have issue will either come around, or they aren’t worth your regret in the first place. Build the quilt of your life with the most bright, loving, kind and brilliant people and wrap it around yourself with pride.

By having a Second Coming Out, at forty-one I had to relearn this bold lesson. Sometimes the best lessons in life are those we rediscover.