being a work in progress.

Growing up, I read stories about gay kids who always “knew they were different,” “thought there was something wrong with them,” “never fit in” or “felt alone.” Never having felt any of these things, I couldn’t identify with my LGBT peers. I was popular, well liked, had plenty (well, a few) options for boyfriends, and was obsessively boy-crazy for a red-haired lanky cross country runner and his best friend for most of high school. Although I was open and friendly with most of my classmates, I couldn’t identify with the nerdy, introverted, socially awkward kids who operated outside of the mainstream. Growing up, there weren’t any stories about “normal” kids who didn’t “look” gay but who were experiencing same-sex attraction nonetheless. Where I did identify with my LGBT peers was in the way my emotions flared up for other girls, the way I felt curled up on the couch next to a best friend, the way I got excited about the thought of kissing one of them.

The problem was, I was discriminating, judgmental; I hated weakness and insecurity and didn’t want to be associated with it. I was smart, too smart, and was drawn to dynamic, charismatic people. Because most of the dynamic, charismatic girls I went to high school with were my best friends, I displaced my attraction to them onto the boys they were dating: brooding, dark budding philosophers and athletic, enigmatic high school seniors, totally out of reach and absolutely unattainable. It never occurred to me that I might have been more in love with my best friend than with my boyfriend, and so my latent homosexuality went mostly undetected until college, where punk rock gay girls in short dresses and high-top Doc Martens were around every corner. I was drawn to women of all types, particularly those with bright blue hair and multiple piercings or those who wore baggy jeans and chains on their wallets, who exuded a “fuck you and your rules” attitude. I thought I wanted to be like those women, to be able to loudly and defiantly shrug off my insecurities and fears. It never occurred to me that I already was one of them, especially to the needy, insecure, and hesitant girls who were drawn to me for my own confidence, which I wasn’t even aware I had.

Still, my inability to identify, to see myself, as these women or with a woman like them kept me more afraid than curious. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, not facing this “identity crisis” arrested my development; even though I questioned the traditional commitments and values my family held, by not truly investigating alternatives, I had placed a moratorium on figuring out my identity. I knew what I didn’t want, who I didn’t want to be; I had no idea what I wanted or who I was. Instead of investing in myself, I divested with a boyishly cute and incredibly intelligent, maniacally motivated boy in the dorm across from mine. He was a rock climber, a mountain biker, a poet and a philosopher. The first time we hung out, I hung on his every word about Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation, admiring their dedication to exploring alternatives–alternative realities, alternative lifestyles, alternative philosophies.

Misguided, I bought a pair of climbing shoes, then a mountain bike. I studied Eastern religions and read Plato and Aristotle. I tried smoking pot, writing poetry, surfing. While I enjoyed climbing, I was afraid of heights. I loved the scenery of the mountains and ridges mountain biking took me to, but was too scared to look at them while riding. I loved Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism–but was bored by Plato and Aristotle. Pot made me paranoid. Tantric sex made me laugh. Surfing was impossible. None of the things I was trying seemed to be “my” things. And yet, here too, I stopped exploring. Convinced that these things were better, more interesting than any things I would find on my own, I adopted them as part of my identity (except for the pot and sex), even though I struggled to identify with them.

The problem with adopting an identity that isn’t authentic is that it causes an internal conflict and tension that eventually finds its way to the surface, creating conflict and tension with everything around you. My naturally sarcastic and cynical attitude became bitter and resentful. I was dissatisfied with my career, restless in the day to day, and unsure of what I wanted. It wasn’t until I became a mother that I found “my thing”–motherhood became me in a way that rock climbing, mountain biking, and surfing never did. I stopped trying to overanalyze things with philosophy and instead found a spirituality that allowed me to tune in to my children, and by extension, myself, in a way that I’d never understood how to accomplish–or was too busy “doing” other things to notice.

For me, being a mother meant being aware of the day to day and the here and now. Time was precious and for several years, extreme sports had to take a back seat to long walks around the neighborhood, killing a few hours with friends and their new babies, and sleep. During these years, I discovered a love of running, hiking, and yoga. I made friends around the corner and spent time with them often. It took time, but the more time I took, the more time I wanted–quiet time, reflective time, down time. The more I discovered what I liked, the more comfortable I felt with who I was. I wasn’t looking around at other mothers and comparing myself to them; for the first time, I knew who I was without needing external validation. And as I embraced motherhood, I realized I was embracing an identity I’d had all along, but hadn’t believed was “good enough.” My identity was more than just “queer,” more than just “mother.” It was more than “teacher” or “climber” or “runner.” These were words that described things I did, not who I was. And recognizing that the sum of these things was greater than its parts answered all of the questions I’d been asking; it gave me the self confidence and sense of self I’d been missing.