Self-discovery in today's digital world.
Ever sit in front of your laptop staring at the search bar thinking ‘if I just type in the right question, I’m sure Google will solve everything for me’?
I won’t share precise details of my internet searches from early 2020, partly because I deleted my history after each fruitless Googling session, but mostly because I’m easily embarrassed. Suffice to say, words and phrases like ‘sexual fluidity in middle age’, ‘bisexual’, ‘pansexual’ and ‘coming out late’ featured prominently.
For context, I’ll rewind a little to the morning after Boxing Day 2019. I was staying at my mother-in-law’s with my husband. While he was happily settling into the slouchy, pyjama wearing days between Christmas and New Year, I was anxiously packing a bag and preparing to announce my departure.
‘Do you want toast?’ my husband asked when I found him in the kitchen.
‘No’, I replied. ‘I’m sorry. I need some space. I’m going to drive home... by myself’.
And so began the end of my marriage. I’m a people pleaser, the archetypal ‘good girl’. I’d never done anything so subversive in my life. As I drove away from that family Christmas, my heart hammering, the clock on the dashboard read 11:11 and I felt like I could breathe for the first time in months.
For most of our family and friends, this uncharacteristic act of mine which finally detonated our marriage seemed out of the blue. As is often the case, however, it was the culmination of many factors over multiple years. My husband and I were just good at hiding these schisms from the world, and from ourselves. Our subsequent separation was sad and amicable. I was relieved and full of grief. Don’t get me started on the guilt. Feeling like I should be the one to move out of the flat we rented, my life became an unsettling carousel of cat sits and imposing on friends. How does one process being 42, single and childless, whilst flitting between spare rooms? Realising I needed some time away and space to think, I booked a meditation retreat. ‘What a great opportunity to process the separation’ I thought. Instead, I spent the entire time consumed by realisations about my sexuality.
While I should have been meditating on my breath, or at the very least grieving my marriage, I couldn’t stop thinking about a female friend. This had been a recurring theme over the last year, ever since she’d left her husband and come out. I’d suddenly found myself thinking about her, a lot. I’d imagine scenarios where we’d end up in illicit clinches - which was weird as my sexual fantasy life had previously been as sparse as my actual sex life. I had figured I just wasn’t that into sex but when I started fantasising about my single, gay friend it was only a short step from there to realising that my sex drive was fine, my assumptions about what should or would turn me on had been way off the mark.
"It was only a short step from there to realising that my sex drive was fine, my assumptions about what should or would turn me on had been way off the mark."
It sounds ridiculous now but at the time it still didn’t occur to me that I might actually be queer. Queerness just didn’t look like me and my life. After all, I was attracted to men, married to a man and had exclusively been in heterosexual relationships. Okay, I paid more attention to the female cast of every film and TV show I watched and was mildly obsessed with the hot, French woman who worked in my local shop, but I often joked with my husband about my ‘girl crushes’. Fast forward to newly separated me, sitting crossed legged in a meditation hall, consumed by the realisation of my queerness. It felt huge and I knew I could no longer contain it. I didn’t want to deny it, but I also didn’t know what to do with it.
"I didn’t want to deny it, but I also didn’t know what to do with it."
Leaving my marriage had, for want of a better explanation, unlocked access to a whole other part of me that I’d seen but not recognised or allowed any space. Subconsciously, I’d prevented myself from acknowledging my sexuality in its fullness. I’d never felt repressed or in the closet because I didn’t realise I was keeping anything back, but now I began to wonder if I’d ever felt truly whole. No surprise that despite being married to one of the loveliest men in the world, I’d so often felt stuck and had begun to feel like I was suffocating.
Of course, there are as many coming out stories as there are queer people but most of the accounts I’d heard went something like: ‘I knew I was gay from an early age...’. That wasn’t me. As soon as I got back from the retreat I began to trawl the internet for stories that mirrored mine more closely. Narratives I recognised; someone, anyone who, like me, had realised later in life that they were queer. I felt adrift, anomalous. Google repeatedly failed to tell me what to do or how to be.
"I felt adrift, anomalous. Google repeatedly failed to tell me what to do or how to be."
Adding to the sense of being untethered I also felt like a total idiot. The more I looked back over my life, the more obvious my queerness seemed: the kid who hated wearing dresses, got mistaken for a boy and was obsessed by the rebellious female characters in her story books. The teen whose friends called her too picky because she didn’t want to kiss any of the boys. The woman who thought Ryan Gosling was hot but cared more about Emma Stone. Latterly, an obsession with drag and queer culture and a growing community of queer friends.
The questions were constant and unanswerable: How could I not have realised? Does this mean I have to come out? How would I even do that? Who comes out in their 40s anyway? How can I tell my ex without him thinking it’s the reason our marriage failed? Won’t everyone think it’s just a ‘phase’? What would I come out as? What label fits? Do I need a label? Do I want a label? Surely, I’m not queer enough to even deserve a label...
Of course, Google didn’t have the specific answers I was looking for but over time it did lead me to articles, podcasts, social media accounts and online spaces like Queermunity Mag that have helped me feel less weird. I’ve come across more people who, like me, took longer to recognise their queerness; whose sexuality became more fluid over time. People who met someone later in life that sparked something in them; people who don’t feel the need to define their feelings, their love or themselves with labels.
I’m realising that I don’t need to put myself into a box. At the moment, for description purposes, ‘queer’ feels like the best fit. I’ve come out to a handful of people who I feel safe with, including the beautiful woman who was instrumental in my ‘queerevelation’ and who I’m now seeing (proving that fantasy can sometimes become reality). I haven’t yet come out to my parents or to my ex. Some days that feels ok. Other days it feels like torture. Those conversations will happen when I’m ready. Importantly, I’ve finally acknowledged that Google doesn’t have the answers I’m really looking for; nor does anyone but the shy, queer inside of me who’s been waiting so patiently for so many years to be acknowledged and given a voice.
Article Written By KP