Happy National Coming Out Day

By: Krista Ann Freego

October 11^th is National Coming Out Day! I thought I would honor this day by sharing my coming out story. Disclaimer – each person’s coming out experience is different, just like each snowflake or fingerprint is unique. My experience, for the most part, hopefully will not be your experience. My story spans about fifteen years. Also, hopefully your journey will not take as long as mine did. While my story has a lot of downs for a while, spoiler alert – I am happier now than I have ever been! I am living my happily ever after! I am madly, completely, hopelessly in love with my girlfriend Katherine, who I have been dating since December of 2017. If I didn’t go through everything I did, I would not have been ready to be in a relationship and completely give myself and open up to another person. I am so happy and proud to be a part of this loving, amazing, patient strong and accepting community!

I came out publicly last year in June through an article I wrote for Starry Constellation Magazine about why positive LGBTQ+ representation in the media matters. Since then I have not kept my identity as a member of the LGBTQIA+ Community a secret. I have referenced it numerous times in my Web Series Wednesday articles, as well as in my ClexaCon and DragonCon coverage.  However, being completely open and honest about who I am has been a recent luxury for me. Looking back on my life now, there were always signs that I was gay, but I did not realize it then. I did not first start to question my sexuality until 2002 when another girl kissed me at Toronto Trek. That kiss set me upon a very slow going and arduous road with many ups and downs. I am sad to say that I hurt some amazing people along the way because I was too afraid to be completely honest with them, with myself or with others about the fact that I am gay. To those that I have hurt, I am so sorry. You were never meant to be casualties to my self-awareness.

Prior to the kiss of 2002, I had only been in relationships with boys and I had always been bored. I always had a wonderful emotional connection to the boys I dated, but I never had a physical connection. At those times of my life I did not even know that being gay was an option for me because I never saw it around me in my daily life. I just thought I was broken and could not feel what everyone else around me felt so easily. It was not until the kiss of 2002 that I realized I could feel it. Sadly, the kiss did not break me from the evil spell of denial. My life is not a Disney movie. The kiss was incredibly important because it got me asking myself the questions that I needed to ask myself. “I felt something when kissing another woman, what does this mean?” “Does this mean I am gay? If I am gay what kind of gay am I? Do I like men and women or just women? How will my parents and my family react? Should I pursue a relationship with a woman? Is it fair to that woman to pursue a relationship with her if I am not out and don’t know if I am going to come out anytime soon? There were so many questions taking up all of my thoughts and they just continued to play in my mind on a torturous loop.

In 2004, I sadly wasn’t any further along in getting definitive answers to any of these questions, so for the first time I sat down with my mom and through a lot of tears confessed to her that I have feelings for women and that I am gay. My mom looked over at me and without any emotion stated very matter of fact, “No you aren’t.” And that was it. That was the whole conversation. My mother went back to reading her magazine and I just sat there stunned. I knew then that the definitive answer to “how my parents would react” was not well – not well at all. Even though the conversation ended there until 2016, my mother’s reactions were just beginning. My mother started bad mouthing the relationship between Willow and Tara from when I would watch “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and anytime I was watching it she would have a snide comment and ask me to watch it in my room if I must watch it. My mother even went so far as to call up an old boyfriend, tell him that I was still in love with him, pay for him to travel to where I currently was and also paid to put us up together in a one bed hotel room. I had no idea that she had done any of this until he showed up at my door with a bouquet of roses. He was a casualty of my self-awareness and my mother’s reaction to the same.

After the kiss of 2002, I dated and kissed women but not with an eye to being with them long term or establishing a life with any of them. I thought foolishly, at one point, maybe this is just something I need to get out of my system and once I do I won’t have to worry about it. I constantly involved myself with women who there was not a future with, either because they were already in a committed but mutually open relationship or because they lived too far away and I was not going to move. Further casualties. I hid my feelings for these women and I hid their role(s) in my life and I hid them. I tried to compartmentalize my life, or my lives, and it did not work well for anyone. I continued to do this until 2008 and then finally stopped. I did not like keeping people secret and I was back living in the same town as my parents, so I decided I was just going to put a pin in that part of my life and be the person that my parents wanted for me. I started dating only guys and the relationships never went anywhere because I did not have any feelings for them that would lead it to go anywhere, thereby definitively answering my earlier question, “What kind of gay am I?” Lesbian. I identify as a lesbian. I have only been sexually attracted to women. Despite knowing this is how I identify since 2010, I continued to date only men because I rationalized that so long as I had a strong emotional connection with a guy we could still build a relationship and my parents and society would still be happy with me. Let me save everyone reading this a lot of time, if you are a lesbian and you only like girls or a guy and you only like guys, no matter how amazingly strong your emotional connection may be it is not enough and you are not doing your parents, society at large or yourself any favors by pretending to be something you are not and by settling for anything short of your very own happily ever after. I wasted so many years of my life trying to please everyone and looking out for everyone else’s happiness over my own and I was miserable. So absolutely, horribly miserable. If my coming out experience can save you a few years of being miserable than it is definitely worth it.

Fast forward to 2016. Once again, I was going to be moving back to the town that my parents live in. Between 2002 and 2016 I had come a long way with regards to my sexuality and orientation and I had answered many if not all of my earlier questions about myself. I knew if I ever got married it would be to a woman. I knew that I would not have any more fake relationships and that I would no longer set myself up for failure to please others. I was moving back home to help take care of my parents and so the Thanksgiving before I moved home I told my parents very bluntly that I was gay and a lesbian. It did not go well. It has continued to not go well. Every now and again they would take what seems to be a small step towards acceptance and then the next week they would take a giant leap backwards.

Here is where we get to the good part. I survived. I survived my parents not accepting me. I survived losing friends that I have had since high school. I have survived. I have not only survived, I have thrived. I feel stronger than I have ever felt. I am in love, truly in love, and it has provided me so much clarity and perspective on the rest of life. I am living my life for me and no longer sacrificing my own happiness to please others. My parents may very well not be at my wedding, but the woman waiting at the end of the aisle is the woman of my dreams and my true partner in life. If I hadn’t taken a stand for who I am then none of my dreams could ever possibly come true. I did not come out until I was an adult. I had a job and my own house. If I had lost everyone in my life, I would have been able to survive. I know that this is not the case for many people. Maybe you are still living at home. Maybe you are much younger than I was and are financially dependent on others. The point is that there is no set time for when you have to come out. You don’t have to come out on October 11^th. The most amazing woman I ever met actually came out on October 1^st. I came out to all of my family and local friends Thanksgiving of 2016. The important thing is that when you come out, come out for yourself and come out when it is safe for you to do it. One of the best things about the LGBTQAI+ community is that it is patient, understanding and supportive. Whether you come out when you are aged 12, 22, 32, 42 or 72 it doesn’t matter. There will always be a safe place for you under this umbrella and you will never be alone.

To Starry Constellation Magazine, thank you for accepting me ever since my very first email where I messaged you a personal writing I did about being a lesbian. You have always welcomed me and supported me and my voice with open arms and without hesitation.

To my amazing girlfriend Katherine, you are the best part of this world and every day you fill me with so much love, joy, strength and hope! Loving you is the best things that I will ever do! With you I always know I have a family. You are my home.

To the LGBTQAI+ Community, thank you for being there for me. Thank you for always being so supportive and welcoming and accepting. My life would not be the same without you!

For those who have already come out and their family did not support them and for those who will come out and their families may not support them, you are not alone. You are not without family. I will be your family. I will love, encourage and support you. I will cheer loudly for you (in most likely in a goofy and embarrassing fashion) and I will love and accept you for who you are. You are not alone. It gets better, and you are far stronger and more beautiful than you give yourself credit.

Whether you are out completely, out to some or out to none, I wish you all a Happy National Coming Out Day! On this day and all days please remember to love and accept yourself! Celebrate you!