I didn’t really grow up surrounded by kids.  My neighborhood was quite spread out and mostly populated with folks whose kids were grown.  Even my siblings were closer to adulthood than childhood.  My grandparents were old enough to be either dead or practically dead…and soon would be.  It wasn’t a sad life.  I liked my life.  In hind sight, I guess I had a fair bit of solitude and time (even though I didn’t know it then) for introspection.  My strongest influence, outside of my soon-divorced parents and their ensuing remarriages was a sister, who was a lesbian.  Oh, no one talked about it at first, but I swear I knew the whole time.  She spent a ton of time with me, and her friends were these amazing women who always welcomed me into the fold, never reminding me that I was just a child.  To be clear, I never saw them kissing or holding hands, or anything remotely lesbian-ish, but I knew…deep down.

I have brothers, but don’t remember many of their friends.  And I have another sister who was married once, but her husband would always give me these weird "ickys" that involved slobber and my nose, so I didn’t really like to hang out with him. Eventually I had a sister-in-law who reminded me, by her own example, that women were strong and capable and didn’t put up with bullshit.  This is probably what gave me the eventual determination it took to leave my short-lived horrible marriage without spending decades trying to figure out why he kept hitting me and how I might do things right enough for him to stop. In addition to my lesbian sister, she was a strong influence too.  And this same sister-in-law has been married to my brother for most of my life…because he is wonderful.  Ok, so I found one:  a positive male role model, someone I love deeply, someone I named a child after.  And perhaps this ONE man, my precious brother, is the reason I kept trying to get marriage right.  And I have. Mostly.

But sometimes, in the far reaches of my brain, occasionally in my loins, and definitely outside the mental bounds of my now happily-married-with-kids life, I wonder:  Am I a lesbian?  I know, that sort of came out the blue didn’t it?  But when I look back at my slew of relationships with men, most of them not good, I can’t help but wonder if I’ve played a role my whole life…the role my mom (who always thought my sister was going to meet the right man and embrace her heterosexual self) wanted me to play.  I mean, isn’t there a reason I never liked dolls, or dresses, or doing my hair and makeup? And what about my brief sexual liaison with my best friend in fifth grade?  I know this kind of exploration with a friend is considered "normal" heterosexual behavior, but why have I never forgotten the titillation of it, the softness of her skin, the way I couldn’t quite get enough…and the way I would fantasize about her when I was trying to have sex with my first husband, the abuser?  Why is it that sometimes during sex with the man I adore, I STILL fantasize about lesbian sex?  When I am being rational, I chalk it up to the fact that a woman’s body is far more sensual than a man’s.

And then there’s the fact that I am not generally attracted to women.  I don’t find myself having to fight off urges to flirt with my mom-friends, or strange women in the market.  Only once, and this was after a few Jagermeisters, was I so attracted to a woman that I nearly called her for a date.  I didn’t, and this was a long time ago, AND I’m living just fine as a heterosexual woman…but sometimes, I just wonder.

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