I am valid. I am loved. I am enough.

A reflection on what it means to be whole - wholly yourself, wholly bisexual, wholly enough.

This story begins in my tiny dorm room on a surprisingly warm night during a brutal London winter where I’m curled up in my bed, thinking about love. It’s the day after the best concert I’ve ever been to and I’m feeling some serious withdrawal symptoms. I combat it by excessively rewatching my Instagram stories, wearing the concert t-shirt and listening to the setlist on repeat on my free-trial student Spotify. Inevitably, I’m thinking about love because a) I’m essentially single and hopelessly romantic and b) all the music in the world seems to be about love.

With a revived belief after listening to a million love songs, I ponder about my past and my future; the people that have contributed to the rollercoaster ride of life where I saw a multitude of possibilities of what love could feel like. The tender first love, the fiery passionate love, the heart-breaking grief of losing love, the yearning and nostalgic love, the list goes on. Today, I think of two of those in particular; the first girl I ever truly loved and the endless possibilities that accompany a new young man I have a first date with the next morning.

The first woman I loved was known as ‘my girlfriend’ among our friends and occasionally on Instagram. Whereas our families knew us as ‘best friends’, and while I didn’t mind our families being in the dark, I definitely did mind the feeling of fear that came with holding her hand in public and snuggling in her parents’ house. Once, during a particularly romantic musical event, I dared to hold her too close and the management quietly let me know that ‘this’ (vaguely gesturing to the display of our queerness) was not acceptable. I never actually told her that the management said that to me, but the truth is out now! India, despite repealing Section 377 that criminalized homosexuality, is still grappling with the newfound freedom to be themselves that their younger generation is exercising.

For a long time, I had this odd feeling in my gut that I wasn’t straight enough or gay enough. Despite having felt attraction across the gender spectrum, the feeling persisted in the early days. The Internet reminded me that my identity was complete in itself. So, I reassured myself, you’re not gay or straight enough because you’re bisexual enough! This reassurance shattered as soon as my girlfriend (yes, the same first-love one) said in her breakup text, ‘I don’t even know if I’m gay, there is constantly a feeling that this is incomplete or something’s missing’. God, I wish I was making this up. But I bring this up now for good reason! I let my belief in my own identity get affected by forces outside of me and I now know better, which I hope could help you. I realized that her doubts were her own battle and not a reflection of my ‘whole-ness’, I was and remain complete in myself.

"I was and remain complete in myself."

So, dear reader, let this be a reminder for you that you are your own person and how you identify is uniquely yours. Nobody else can validate something you already feel in your bones. You know who you are and someday, you must take that leap of faith and build that foundation of trust within your own self. However, you are allowed to enlist all the fellow queer people who have taken this journey before! Community support and friendships with people who understand this aspect of you can go a long way in accepting yourself and staying connected to the greater whole.

"Hope...in...the limitless potential within ourselves to be who we are."

Queer people are often surrounded by voices telling us we’re not worthy but the worst of all is when those voices coalesce into a nagging presence in your head chanting, ‘not enough, not enough, not enough’. So, as I reach the end of this strings of words reflecting a small piece of my life, let me leave you with the hope and possibilities that lie ahead of us, both in friendships and in first dates but also the limitless potential within ourselves to be who we are. Finally, I urge you to make the conscious choice to tell that voice inside of you, ‘I am enough. I am valid. I am loved. I am enough.’

Article Written By Rainbow Dreams @rainb0w_dreams