I remember being a kid and shocking boys at how good I was at dodgeball, football, soccer, and basketball.

I remember the joy I felt in my body when I was the first girl to be picked for teams in gym and boys would fight over me because I was the most athletic girl.

I remember feeling superior when I dove into blacktop tearing my elbows up and catching a ball, to then throw it to home base for two outs after a boy told me I wasn’t that good at kickball.

I remember playing Pokemon with Jeff and Andrew and Aaron.

I remember realizing I was the only girl in my small catholic school to not be in girl scouts because I liked to hang with the boys better.

I remember fitting in with them so well and all the inside jokes we had.

 

I also remember shopping trips where my mom would get so mad at me because I just wanted to wear stuff in the boys section.

How upset she was when I hated every single white first communion dress she picked out for me.

I remember her holding back tears in our fights about clothes.

I remember getting to middle school and feeling so insecure about my entire body.

I was 5’9 by eighth grade, and had curves to match.

I gave in to my mother, I tried dresses and shoes that weren’t sneakers.

I wore bras and tried to wear girly blouses because that’s what girls wear…right?

I was 14, maybe, when I realized I really wasn’t a normal girl after all.

Social pressures hit me like brick shit house, and the more girly and more “normal” I looked on the outside the more alienated I felt on the inside.

This got worse as high school came.

 

I remember getting more “girl” friends and letting my past guy friends go. Not because I wanted to, but because everyone else had more girl friends than guys.

I remember being a freshman and every girl I know talking about their new boyfriend or about their crush they couldn’t stop staring at in study hall.

I wanted to relate, I listened patiently, trying to come up with something relatively similar.

I remember my friend talking about sex and how she had lost her virginity. It seemed to be the hottest topic at the time, who was or wasn’t a virgin.

 

I remember thinking I need to be normal I’m a girl and I want stories to share.

So I started partying and getting blackout drunk almost every weekend (little to my parents knowledge.)

 

I lost my virginity to a man when I was 15. I lost my virginity to a woman when I was 15 too.

 

But I knew all along that only one virginity was valid.

So I buried my experience with a girl and boasted to my friends about the boy I slept with who I barely remember at all.

I remember my girlfriends cheering me on as if I had won a gold medal. I was part of the non-virgin club after all.

I remember countless sexual experiences with men, each time feeling dirtier, and this pit in my stomach growing.

I remember burying my guilt and my past experience with a woman.

I remember sneaking around with a man who was 22 when I was 15, now realizing how wrong that is, but at the time it added drama and interest to my stories at the lunch table in the cafeteria.

I remember never looking like other girls no matter what I wore, no matter how hard I tried.

 

When I was 19 I was living in Denver, far away where I knew no one, and was safe from small town gossip.

I woke up one day and said fuck it. I like girls. I’m not sure if I’m gay, but I like women.

So I told my roommate at the time and my best friend back home.

They were both so supportive.

I remember how excited I was to change my tinder settings from men to women and to see what was going to happen.

I was delving into a whole other world where I felt accepted, excited.

 

The first girl I slept with in Denver was of course a tinder match. She was a beautiful culinary art student and she picked me up the same day we started talking. We went to sonic and then her dorm room and played drunken cards against humanity with fellow students who lived in the hall.

I remember her giving them the “look” as if they should leave and them saying their goodbyes while eyeing us up and down. They left and we laid down in her bed in silence I was so nervous even drunk, I was trembling a bit.

I hadn’t remembered much from my first experience with a woman three years earlier and I was hoping she would make a move. After ten minutes of awkward silence and spooning she turned around and said I really wanna kiss you. I told her “then kiss me.”

 

I made love to this girl for hours who was a stranger the day before.

Oh so natural, oh so sweet she was.

I remember her telling me she was moving to the east coast in a week, and what that implied.

I remember the massive amount of hickies we left on each other.

I remember her walking me to my uber in the morning hungover and giving me an awkward kiss goodbye.

 

I remember hopping into the uber smiling only to observe the uber driver was so obviously a gay woman. She saw my neck and the girl that kissed me goodbye and simply smiled at me.

She said “you have a good night?” her intention implied.

I remember saying back to her, “yes, why the best night of my life.”

I feel whole now, clean now, me now.