Thoughts: Part two: Evolution of my sexuality

Picking up from where we left off...my first conscious same sex crush on a luminous girl from Burma that would never come to anything.

As I mentioned, I was dating a guy at the time of this self discovery who was supportive of my exploration and as we discussed the possibility of marriage, he said he would be completely open to me exploring this aspect of my sexuality during our marriage.

Since I was so young/naive and it was more common than not to get engaged and married right out of college, I just assumed this would be my path and didn't question whether it was a good idea or not when we did, in fact, get engaged and married shortly after my graduation.

It's interesting to me that without any examples of polyamory or ethical non-monogamy, I was completely willing to try out such an alternative style of relationship in my marriage without question. We definitely did not have the books, resources and dating apps back then that they do now. This was the time of the Craigslist dates, etc.

I will never forget my first official same sex date, it was an actual date off of a Craigslist classified's ad. I was living near Denver at the time and had been married for less than a year. We had been previously trying to get pregnant but after speaking with a financial advisor, decided to pause trying to have kids until we were more financially stable. So, once that decision was made, we revisited my desire to explore my sexuality more and I scheduled my first date!

It was wonderful and horrible all at once. The excitement I had for being on a same sex date was overwhelming but this person claimed she didn't really like being around women, she just enjoyed sleeping with them. I couldn't wrap my head around that so, as I'm sure you can guess, we did not go on a second date.

Later that week, I found out I was pregnant which put a halt to any further exploration. I had such mixed emotions about finding out I was pregnant. It was something I thought I always wanted, which was to be a mother. But when I found out, I remember feeling a deep sense of grief for the possibility of a life and self I had only just begun to explore and now was slipping away from me. It also showed me the first cracks in the image I had for myself and my life. It allowed the seed to get planted that maybe this marriage wasn't what I actually wanted, but there is so much more to that story that I will get to in another project I'm working on. :)

Despite my trepidation over my marriage and pregnancy, I threw myself into caring for myself and for the baby growing inside me. Three months of surreal and rapid changes quickly turned to terror when one night I started spotting. It was, of course, over the weekend and my regular OB was not in the office so in a very traumatic series of events, I was informed I was miscarrying and there was nothing that could be done.

No one can prepare you for the kind of grief of losing a child and it horrifies me that miscarriages aren't talked about more freely in this society. I could go on a whole rant about that, maybe I'll make a separate post on it as I feel very strongly about it and all the protocol surrounding it.

As painful as that momentous turn of events was, I wouldn't trade it in for anything. It is the exact catalyst for me to start breaking free from living in my dreamland notions of life and started to face reality and it started me on the path to self exploration and discovery I am still on today. This was all thanks to an incredible therapist I started seeing to help me process and handle my grief.

We had been in the middle of getting ready to move from Denver to Salt Lake City when my miscarriage happened. To say it was a difficult time in our lives would be an understatement. But once we got settled in, we explored non-monogamy again but as we didn't have any information on how to do it properly or even what we were comfortable with, nothing much came of it except my burning desire to actually get to explore what it's like to be with a woman.

Almost two years to the day after we got married, we decided mutually and amicably to part ways. At this point, I was heavily involved in the local belly dance community and we had many friends who were LGBTQ+. My very first Pride Parade was in SLC where I did a belly dance duet on the main stage!

After my divorce I had my very first same sex kiss and sexual experience was with a gorgeous ex-Mormon burlesque dancer who still holds a dear place in my heart. This just fueled my desire to date a woman.

A couple months later, I decided to move to Los Angeles to go back to school for a fashion degree. While in SLC, I had been introduced to The L Word and could not wait to be sitting in cafe's in West Hollywood surrounded by community.

In 2007, I made the move. Although I didn't love living in LA, I can say that I did get to live my best gay life in my 20s going to clubs in WeHo surrounded by queer family. I also had the opportunity in the spring of 2008 to go to Dinah Shore where I got to see Pat Benatar perform and where I met my first long term girlfriend who was visiting with friends from New York.

During this time, I fully embraced identifying as a lesbian as I was only interested in dating and being intimate with cis-women. Or so I thought.

I happened to again be in the same city as my high school sweetheart whom I had always had an incredible sexual chemistry with. And as he was always a unique energy in my life, I never questioned the continuation of the chemistry between us. I never really thought about identifying as maybe bisexual as he was the only male I was attracted to sexually which I tossed up to love, our history and sensual memories.

I think this is a good stopping point for this one. :) In the final part I will talk about meeting my current partner and getting to my current evolution of sexuality. See you in the next one!

If you would like to be automatically notified any time I post a new blog, you can sign up with your email at the bottom of my "Home" page.