I first fell in love when I was 18 and I had imagined that when I fell in love that it would be a really wonderful carefree experience. However, all I could about when I first realized I had fallen in love was, "shit!" I had fallen in love with my best friend, a member of my own sex and all I could think was, "No, no...Gay does not happen to me...Others can be gay, that's fine with me...but I am NOT gay!"

I had always lived the life that I felt was drawn for me. I dated boys, went to prom with boys, hooked up with boys and lost my virginity to a boy. This was so ingrained in my head that when I found myself feeling something for a woman, I couldn't imagine it possible. In fact, it was impossible.

So like many homos who start coming to terms with it... "no I'm not gay, I just found the right person. I fell in love with the person." I think that was a kind of coping mechanism. It was a way for me to adjust and help myself realize that maybe I wasn't going to be the norm. I continued this relationship for about 3 years and thought this was my end all be all. This was the person I was meant to spend the rest of my life with. I had given myself to her in a way that no one else could understand. I had come out to my family and friends with her, and I had traveled that vulnerable road of either being accepted or not as a homorsexual person. There was no possible way that anyone else could love me or understand me in the way that she had. I not only had first fallen in love, but it was a life altering kind of situation. It was stepping out of the norm with someone for the first time, and truly fearing rejection from the people you know and love and others who were just complete strangers.

However, some good things actually have to come to an end. I was heart broken. I had grieved that love for so long, and it took years for me to come to terms with it. Better to have loved and lost. No. Absolutely not. It was years of an emotional roller coaster, but what was really an issue was the fact that I not only had to mentally get over the fact that I had been heart broken, but I had to challenge myself to come to terms with my sexuality. I had realized that I had used my relationship with her as a crutch. Which isn't to say that I had loved her any less, but I needed to be on my own and identify as a gay person without her. Because with her, I was a girl who had fallen in love with a girl. There was no other need to identify as gay, because I didn't need to look for anyone else.

For so long I had told myself, and my family that I had fallen in love with this particular woman, and that the gender was not the issue. I had made it clear that I wasn't gay, it was just that I had found a soul mate in a person that happened to be the same gender as my own. So the end of my relationship meant that I had to be true to myself. I knew that I wanted to be with a woman and I think that the people that I had told that I wasn't really 'gay' didn't really care. I was dating a woman, and that's what mattered. Essentially I was a gay woman in their eyes, but not in my own.

The breakup was the best thing that ever happened to me. I eventually healed and found that I was ok with being alone. The biggest hurdle was the fact that I could be single and have the strength to call myself 'gay'. I wasn't a straight girl that happened to fall in love with another girl, I was a lesbian.

With everything that is going on around us, and the injustice that is happening all around us, I think the strongest way we can fight against it is being true to ourselves. When we lie to ourselves about who we are, how are we supposed to expect the people around us to accept us?

I fell in love for the first time when I was 18, and it taught me more about myself than I could ever imagine. Anyone who falls in love will feel vulnerable; because that is in essence what love is all about. But even when I was told from the beginning of my life to be true to myself, I had never really understood what that meant. I assumed it meant that I should do what I feel is right, but I never thought doing what was right would be the hardest thing I would ever do. Falling in love for the first time gave me the strength to accept myself in a way that would never have been possible without her, or without the complete cycle of love transforming into complete heartbreak. I am eternally grateful for that.

Ashley

Ha uu a (Sunrise)
By Crisosto Apache (Mescalero Apache)

I often think about how I found love in a bar, when a bar represented so many other things in my life. The loud mess of chaos, lit in the darkness. When it is cold or lonely outside, there is always refuge there and it welcomes anyone. All of my life I have heard bar stories from my relatives. As a child looking up at your relatives, everyone looks tall and happy.

My arrival in the big city about eleven years ago was small and as cliche as it sounds, only with the clothes on my back and one-hundred dollars in my pocket. The residue from bar-life can leave a person wondering aimlessly without purpose. To the point where he doesn't see disparity in front of him and the trail that it leaves like a shadow against the moonlight. Unknowingly I arrive in Colorado without any contacts, aside froma friend who lived in Boulder with his daughter.

My life and the drifting I have never seemed to mind. It was wherever I ended up. That is what I counted on. Self definition, identification and place of origin, are very important to Apache people. Our place on this earth was diminishing and I along with it. In my mind and inside my body I tossed out any feeling of concern and my relationship to the outer world because the outer world did not care about self definition, identity and place of origin according to the Apache people. As far back as I can remember I was always drifting. Recollecting places, fuzzy places with the scent of alcohol, cigarettes, porches and shouting. Places where I traveled as a child, people, faces and country unfamiliar to me. Now these places, I come to understand were real places and imagined.

My mother has a strong memory and would often tell me stories of my childhood and hers. My self-identification comes from these stories and from her voice. Her life has the same drifting pattern as mine like sand drifting over a small dune being carried by the wind. The beautiful relationship between air and space propels us elsewhere with unknowing destinations. Timeless Native vagabonds and gypsies. Our lives were similar, my mother and I as well as the lives of my siblings. We took endless trips to the convenient stores in town, emptying out our pockets of our bi-weekly paychecks and monthly stipends. At the time that was the life to live. Every place that I resided I reminded myself of home. My reservation is what is left of a culture that was almost wiped out of existence. I come from a long line of warriors and realized recently what my calling in life was. I also realized that this path which has been laid before me will not be an easy road for I have lived much of my early life in selfishness. Now I have an obligation to my people and other Native people, which to help them tell their stories.

Upon arriving to Denver I was not looking for love but had thought I had found it not realizing love was a two way street. The man I thought was the love of my life only turned out to be a mirage, a figment of my imagination. We did the domestic thing for awhile because that's what couples are supposed to do according to the western tradition. An identification and fulfillment of the male and female roles was what we were supposed to emulate. This ideology would never work with those guidelines in the western world, mostly because we could not figure out who was going to be the man and who was going to be the lady. These constrictions can leave a relationship in turmoil because they are ideals that are strictly black and white and very linear. Our relationship was doomed to failure. I had not found love.

I had given up on the idea of love and tried on the suit of lust for size. It seemed more ideal for the life I was born with. Growing up in and out of the western world made me forget where I was from and who I was. It is like melting butter. Everyone knows how good it tastes in everything but the process that it has to take to incorporate it's succulent nature is insoluble. You cannot separate its origin from the end result and the processes it takes to mature. I am not calling myself butter by any means because I am not as good.

It wasn't until I was convinced to attend stripper night at one of the local gay bars that had run into what is to be my destiny. It wasn't that exciting because the evening I choose to go was not in fact stripper night but kareoke night. I was very confused. The bar was filled with half-tanked people who thought they were singing sensations that evening. Who would have guessed that night would last ten years?

I was having a conversation with my mother and she was explaining to me the importance of Sunrise and how much power it has for Apache people. It is our place of origin and desitnation into the next world. It has a place of honor, regeneration and remembrance. It is important everyday to face the east and ask Haishu nagukaande, the Sunrise People, for strength. It was then that my self-identification became apparent. I was no longer a part of the Western world as a gay American Indian and was reborn and reintroduced into my Apache culture as nde isdzan, (Two Spirit). Through this journey I was also glad that my family held onto the tradition of acceptance of "Two Spirit" people and that they were also accepting of my relationship with my non-Native partner. This relationship has felt right from the beginning and I knew so when I took my partner down to my reservation for our ceremonial. He was accepted by my relatives and was able to help out with the preparation of our meals. Feeding the public is a high honor in my culture and the family who prepares the food was honored as well. He was shown some of the traditional aspect of food preparation and blessings. Because my tribe is matrilineal everything is passed through the women. Because we were Two Spirit we were allowed to help out in the cooking arbor. Sharing my tradition with my partner has become a huge part of my life and it makes me happy to share that aspect of my life without our indifferences.

It is difficult to live in the Western world far away from your family, far away from your traditions and culture. To see another Native in the city is delightful but to meet another Apache, no matter what band or region, beyond delight. Gaining strength and holding on to your Native identity in the Western world but it is even more difficult to hold onto your identifying tribe, in my case Apache, is even more difficult. When I hear the Apache language or Apache songs I melt. When I do not hear it I am closed. Every day I walk through the Western world I am reminded of who I am. Sometimes it is good sometimes it is bad. When it is bad I need strength and can't wait for sunrise, so that I can commune with my ancestors and ask for strength and daily guidance. They speak to me and remind me that "Niya", "I am here" and "Guuzhu gu Nagu iinda i", "Life is good".

Crisosto

Just keep loving
By: Just Me
Me: Mom I...I'm bisexual
Mom: It's okay....your sister was anorexic. I still love you.

I was 17 when I came out to my parents but I had known for years. All of my friends knew that I loved the ladies but kissed boys because it was easier, well I guess I mean they were easier. Women are beautiful, mysterious, sexy, complicated, and the only gender I could actually see myself falling in love with.

There wasn't a single moment that I fell in love with her but more of a continual growing magnetic urge to be around her. Two problems though; she was my boss and she was married...to a man.

It wasn't supposed to happen, it shouldn't have happened and neither of us asked for it to happen. But it did. She needed a shoulder to talk to. Not cry on she isn't a crier like I am. There were things going on in her life that nobody seemed to notice or care about. Her friends never seemed to notice that she was sad. Just because someone is obnoxiously outgoing and confident doesn't mean they are happy. How did her friends not see what she was really feeling? I guess that is how we first connected.

Then it turned sexual. Just a peck on the lips when she dropped me off at home after I had too many beers to drive but not enough to make a move myself. She kissed me and I thought, 'huh, odd.' That was all and I shut the passenger door and went inside. Then came the flirting.

Flirting is so dangerous and exciting and in this case, the point of no return. I couldn't help but flirt back when she looked at me or push into her when she walked by. After a night of bar drinking she decided to accompany me home while I walked my bike. We extended the twenty minute walk into a three hour very exciting make-out-on-top-of-cars midnight stroll. Our connection was sexual and hidden but I always knew she would become my forever. I know you won't believe it and that is totally fine, but I do have morals I just couldn't listen to one of them for a little bit of time. They say you can't control who you love and I believe that because I lived through it. I lost friends, broke people's trust and everybody told me I ruined a marriage. Guilt washed over me constantly but the love washed over me endlessly more. I breathed it in and out when something hurt too much and waited patiently for the final outcome. We say our anniversary is SF PRIDE 2009 because that is when we could finally live the life we were meant to share together.

The Gay Ending

Anonymous

This is arguably one of the most difficult writing assignments I have ever encountered: to write a non-fiction personal account of love, with a happy/positive ending.

Staring at the screen. Staring at the screen.

How can I be a writer if I can't write? It isn't that I lack things to say. I feel like I have so many things to say I could explode at times. Especially since I don't say them. Out Loud. In fact I probably say 5% of the things inside of me that I need to say Out Loud. I probably have too much to say I know I have too much to feel. So much that it all cancels itself out because it is overwhelming and then I feel nothing and say nothing and write nothing. This right now is nothing but actually it is something. When I feel nothing I feel something and that something is a weird blank sadness. A dull pain a little bit of sting behind my eyes like I could start to cry but I am hanging in there holding on. It is a nothing that feels frustrated and anxious and torn and goes a million miles a minute and then a full brain glaze over. My brain becomes a giant doughnut. A disgusting jelly doughnut. Which then reminds me of how fat I feel/am. Which is a distraction from the weird blank sadness.

What do you do when you feel you have loved your greatest love of your life and lost that love? When you think that is it for you. That was your Person and you lost your Person and now you have an entire life ahead of you without that Person. What do you do? When almost two years later you can sit in a public coffee shop on the most beautiful day in a most beautiful city, with time that is all yours but it feels as though the weight of this loss of this Person is crushing your chest. When you feel that the years left in your life stretch endlessly ahead of you and at any point the best you can be is 50% because you lost that other 50% which wasn't even 50%. That Person was 100%. When you literally think about that Person every 10 seconds and in that same moment you have to remind yourself that this person is--for all intents and purposes--dead. Your Person is dead. When you love your Person so much you would rather they actually be dead then out living in the world somewhere else loving someone else. When merely thinking their name, picturing their face, causes your heart to start pounding, causes such crippling anxiety that the only cure is drugging yourself into a deep sleep, drugging yourself into a deep drunk, drugging yourself into a deep fucking. And when you do all these things on repeat until your brain is a glazed doughnut again you are back to where you started. And you are back to the knowledge that your Person is dead but not really.

My Person. My Person. She was not perfect. But I liked her and loved her and hated her and loathed her and liked her and loved her just the way she was and is and was. I loved her skin. I loved her weird knobby knees. I loved her eyes that held a million secrets and her strong hands and her hard heart. I loved her throat. I loved her voice and her laugh which was more of a series of sharp shouts. I loved her stupid mind. I don't know anymore if she, my Person, loved me. Really loved me. I try not to think about it. I try to remind myself that the Person she was and is and was is gone. Is dead.

And then what? And then what?

And then you feel angry for a tiny little bit because you think of all the broken promises. You think of all the things that were supposed to be a certain way but are not that way and you think about all the things that were supposed to be right now and they aren't right now and won't be ever. And then you don't just have the weight on your chest, or the fluttering in your heartbeat, or the stinging behind your eyes, or the glazed doughnut in your brain. You have them all at once in concert and you think you are going to throw up and cry and scream in concert. And you feel like nothing is right. And all you want is to hear your Person's voice. For 60 seconds. On the phone. That wouldn't be enough but that would be enough. And you feel as these feelings and things all of it in a flash every few seconds, minutes, hours, every day. And you can have all of these things these feelings sitting in a public coffee shop on the most beautiful day in a most beautiful city, with time that is all yours. When I feel nothing I feel something and that something is a weird blank sadness.

Staring at the screen. Staring at the screen.

What is the happy ending? How can I make this positive?

What do you do when you feel you have loved your greatest love of your life and have lost that love? When you think that is it for you? That was your Person and you lost your Person and now you have an entire life ahead of you without that Person. What do you do? What is your Happy Ending? Here is your Happy Ending. You have loved. You have loved a great love. You know love. You know real big crush crush crushing fucking love. You know pain. You know exquisite, overwhelming out of this world love and pain.

I would do it all over again even to know a single moment of that love and this pain.

Anna

When I met her, I was talking to another girl. I was at a Super Bowl party a couple of years ago and she kept coming up to me because she thought my name sounded like a TV show, which annoyed me because she wouldn't let it go. I still remember everything about her from that night. She told me she had never been to Tracks and I wondered how that was possible and she told me she had just moved here from Utah. My intentions at this point were innocent. We all decided to go to Tracks and I was going with the girl whom I was talking with but as soon as we got there, Ashlynn and I ended up in the bathroom stall alone together. I admit, not my best moment, but not in the least do I regret it.

After that night we were inseperable. I fell hard and fast for Ashlynn. We started dating and we would do ridiculous things together like "40s Disney Nights". We would get 40s and watch Disney movies all night. We liked the same ridiculous things. I knew she loved me as much as I did her.

After a few months she moved in with me and my son and then we moved into our own place downtown. It was very soon after this when I got very sick and I was denying that I was sick at all. I wouldn't go into the hospital and I wouldn't get treated. I was denying all of it. It was her that found me a doctor that I would actually go see. That doctor is the one that diagnosed me and started treating me and it was because of her that I started getting treated and am probably still alive.

It is an illness that affects her just as much as it affects me. And it's an illness that will never go away. She took over everything. She never complained. She did everything. There were days where I couldn't go to work, or pick up my son from school. One day she left work early to pick up my son from school for me. It was extremely hard, it's still just as hard. But she never left my side. She was amazing.

After about a year of me being really sick I realized what I was really doing to her and one day without a reason or an explanation, I just left. She was devastated. I never really knew if I was making the right decision or not but I knew I couldn't have her doing this anymore. I knew she needed to be taking care of herself. I started dating other girls right away. I dated a lot honestly. All of them ready and willing to take care of me. But I wouldn't allow it and I was hospitalized three times in a single year. Ashlynn and I remained close over this year and everytime I was in need she was who I turned to. Every hospital stay she was there with me and would bring me Happy Meals-my only request. I never lost my love for her. I just knew I wasn't supposed to be with her. She got into a serious relationship with another girl and that only reaffirmed my feelings.

Today it's been a year, we're both single and we're at a place now where I'm relatively healthy but I still seek treatment for my illness. We're still talking and I'm not sure if it's going to go anywhere. But we're seeing if we can still have good times after everything we've been through.

What's been so important for me is that she has stood by me through everything. Illness, leaving her and me not always being there. When I left her I started dating other girls and I know I hurt her really bad. Part of me was trying to hurt her because she gave up everything to take care of me and I didn't want her to give up her life anymore. Through all of this she is still a part of my life. I don't know what will happen between us in the future but our relationship over the years has shown me that true love can overcome great obstacles. I know that she will be a part of my life even if we don't end up together, in a positive way.

Anonymous

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So we initially met on Grinder and I saw his profile and he just made me think he was a Mexican Guido, so I didn't really pay attention to him. Then he messaged me asking me if we could meet up for lunch or dinner or whatever. And I was like "eh, he doesn't look like a serial killer or anything so why not?!"


The next day he calls me up, he's all like, "Just to let you know this isn't a date. This is just two people meeting up for lunch or dinner and we'll each be paying for ourselves. I'll be at Qdoba at 6:30." I remember vaguely telling him I'd be a little late and he told me, "Well if you're there or not, I'm just gonna get my meal. If I don't see you there, I don't see you there."


So me being the bitch I am. I decided to get in the shower and was like, "fuck it, I'm gonna take my sweet-ass time then!" And then I got dressed and made sure I looked cute enough. I show up at Qdoba, walk inside and he wasn't fucking there. So I was starting to panic a little bit and I was thinking that maybe I shouldn't have taken my time because he wasn't there. I turned to leave and he walked in.


It was really cold at first and he didn't really respond, didn't make eye contact and it was very awkward feeling. So we sat down and we were eating and I don't remember what we were talking about but we seemed to click. I do remember that I cracked a joke about one of the bus boys and it was comical. What was comical was that the bus boy took out this big ole trash can and it splattered all over the floor. We just kind of laughed and joked about it.


Then he was talking about the movies he liked and it turns out we had similar interests. He brought up the whole idea of having sex and being tested and my status and I told him I was negative and that my last partner was and that it wasn't really something that I was concerned about.


After dinner he asked me to get some alcohol with him at the liquor store next door. So we both go to the store and we're looking at the alcohol and I told him I wasn't going to buy anything because I didn't have my ID on me and he's looking around and he realizes he doesn't have his ID either. We were both completely embarrassed and he was like "well I have my ID on my phone, do you think that will work?" I said no.

So we just left. I remember going home and we exchanged some pictures and then we set up another date to hang out at my house to watch a movie. (Something that was intended to be completely innocent but ended up being not-so-innocent...) It started off with just some cuddling and it was still very awkward between us-there was a lot of uncertainty. Typically I won't ask if I can kiss someone but I asked if I could kiss him and he just started laughing at me. He made some condescending comment and said that it was fine and I could kiss him. So we kissed and it was very enjoyable and things got very fun.

The next day after we had messed around he was in a nervous panic. He kept asking if there was anything he needed to worry about and he went and got tested. So I saw the urgency and went and got tested and made sure to get an expensive test. But the results of this test took 2 weeks to get back. Within the first week when we were hanging out we would start kissing and it would get all hot and heavy and I could tell it was killing him because he wanted it to go further but he wouldn't let it happen. So after about a week of waiting he offered to pay for a quicker test for me. I agreed and picked him up from school and then we went to the clinic which ended up being a funny story.

While Justin was putting money in the meter, I was talking with the doctor and she began asking me all the routine questions. I told her I had no reason to be worried and she asked me why then all the urgency. I told her I was dating Justin and then she laughed and said "oh."

Justin comes back into the clinic and we're in the meeting room together and I'm laughing with the doctor, joking back and forth about the studies that have been done and Justin has obvious panic on his face and he just starts to explain his worry with previous incidents he's had. The doctor told us there was no reason for me to be tested since I had another test in the works but I looked at her and said, "no no no, we need to do this!" She had brought up building trust and I replied, "that's all good and well, but right now this is what we need to do and we'll work on trust later." She could see how panicked Justin was and agreed to give me the test.

The test came back obviously negative and Justin and I met up later after his final and he expressed how grateful he was that I would do that for him. A couple of days after that we agreed that we were going to be exclusive with one another since we were both negative and then about three days later he gives me this whole schpeel about how this was his first serious gay relationship and he still had feelings for women and asking me if we should not be together. I told him, "quit being an idiot because we're not getting married. It is the beginning of our relationship and we're still trying to figure things out."

About a week later we decided to combine two of our "wants" together. He wanted to get drunk together and I wanted to take the LightRail. He took me to this old restaurant that his family went to when he was a kid. They took him there all the time-it was a very special place for him. He bought me a couple of drinks and didn't really hesitate about giving me anything. He was very sweet and made it all about me.

After that we went and hit up some more bars and got more drinks along the road to get to the LightRail, and then we got to Union Station and there was no one there and he stops me and we start making out. Ridiculous! We're just hand in hand walking around this huge-ass fence trying to get to the LightRail and when we finally got there, we took it back. I had my feet up next to him and he would try to tickle them. We got home, watched a couple of movies and did our typical make-out-thing.

And then right before I was getting ready to take him home, he starts up the conversation about his feelings and his struggles. He basically made a comment that this wasn't a real relationship and he asked me if I thought it was and I told him, "yes. I whole-heartedly do." I dropped him off at home and I was okay, but really sad. We had decided to hang out again the next day and he called me up the next morning as soon as he woke up and said, "oh my god Chase forget everything I said! I was completely drunk!" So I didn't really know what that meant and when I went to pick him up for the movie, I didn't greet him with the usual kiss. We drove about a block away from his house and he asked me, "why didn't I get my kiss?!" I told him, "I didn't think you wanted to be kissed by me still" and he said, "no I still do. It's just really complicated for me right now." I said, "I know, but be chill, it will be fine." We got to Dave N Buster's and he bought my dinner and my drinks, and anything I wanted. Then he went and paid for the expensive IMAX 3D movie tickets for Tron.

After that night we were really back on track and a little bit more in tune with one another. Over the next couple of weeks he started divulging more information to me-issues he's had with his family and his past experiences and he also started letting me know more of his feelings. He started trusting me more and there weren't a lot of issues between us.

Recently his sister had a baby and it was discovered that the baby daddy was cheating on her the whole time, which brought up a lot of trust issues for Justin and he wanted to be reassured that I would never cheat on him. I told him, "there's not much I can really say to make you trust me. You need to build that trust from within by the actions I've shown you." He accepted this as an answer and then I suggested buying roses for his sister because she was going through such a shitty time. He tells me, "hell no! That bitch doesn't need no flowers! You haven't even gotten me flowers!"

I tossed this idea around in my head and I had gotten out of class, it was around 9 o'clock one night. While I was buying cough drops I saw some roses there, relatively cheap, but nice looking roses. I got him a card too, telling him how much I felt about him and our relationship. When I left the store, I called him and asked him if he was home. He was, so I told him I was going to come over. He got very confused and wanted to know why, so I told him that I just needed to talk to him about something, knowing full well that this would torture him. He proceeded to call me, but I ignored the phone call and then he sent me a text message asking if he would "be upset about this?" I replied, "I don't know." So I got another text demanding, "call me right now!" And of course, I ignored that message too.

I pull up to his house and I call him but it immediately goes to his voicemail, but I can see his big ole head sitting in the window. I texted him and tell him to "come out and talk to me." He comes out all solemn, looks down, looks at me innocently and I hand him the card and say, "this should explain everything, but just in case it doesn't..." and I reached behind me and grabbed the roses that were hidden there and said, "...this should explain the rest of it." His face lit up! And I said, "let's go drive for a bit." He gave me a little bit of shit for working him up like I had and he told me that that was the first time he had ever been given flowers before.

A few days later I got super sick and he didn't hesitate to take me to Urgent Care. He sat there for 2 hours while I had an IV in my hand, coughing up a storm. This act of caring and patience exemplifies what a sweet guy he is. Along with taking care of me of my death bed, he is so thoughtful in general and will send me random text messages saying, "thinking of you" or "xoxo" throughout the day.

Relationships aren't easy, they take a lot of work. They are always going to be a lot of work and that's why you have to be in the right mindset and maturity level. You don't have to settle in a relationship, but there is a way to compromise and learn to get to know each other. Don't give up when the road gets rough because who knows what you maybe missng out on.

Chase