Dear Mom,

Dear Mom,

I wanted to write you because I feel that it's so much easier to express my feelings through writing than it is verbally communicating. I can see my thoughts before I have to say them out loud and edit what i'm thinking. I wanted you to know that I always knew I was gay. I knew when I was so young, when I didn't even know that gay was such a thing. I didn't know anyone who was gay, I didn't know that it was even a thing to be gay, but I knew that I thought girls were pretty, and there times I caught myself thinking about having a crush on girls.

Remember the matchbox car collection we had? How I would sit on the long window seal and line them up to make paths and make them be friends - well, they weren't just friends. I would make the girls date the girls, and I remember that exact moment when it hit me. I made two of my "girl cars" date each other, and I sat there for a minute and I thought to myself, "Do I want to date a girl?". I would get myself so deep into thought I would sit and stare, zoning out into this thought - what if I like girls? How will I tell my family? How will they react? What if it's just a phase? You can't like girls, you're "supposed" to like boys. I remember stressing myself out so bad about these thoughts that I would make my cars break up trying to get the thought out of my head that I was fantasizing about something that didn't even exist. I thought that I might have been the only one, and it scared me. I was scared to be different. It was in this moment that I knew I wasn't straight.

When I was growing up nobody ever talked to me about people who were gay, or even that being gay was even a thing in general. It wasn't until I was into middle school that I started realizing that being gay was a thing. I went to school with people who were gay, and it fascinated me just hearing about it because it sounded like me. I never talked to any guys, I didn't even have any male friends in middle school, I never had a crush on a boy in middle school, I didn't really look at boys like that. Nope, I was too distracted by the girls :)

I finally got to the age where my friends were starting to talk about boys and get boyfriends (yuck), and I would try to fit in with them and talk about boys, but I never meant any of it. I didn't know how to tell my boy crazed friend group that I liked girls. I thought I had to hide who I was to fit in with my own friends. So I did, until I got to high school. I don't know how this wasn't so obvious because somehow, a majority of my friends at the time were all gay. It's like we all magnetized together somehow. HAHAHA!! I remember my sister said to me the one day, "Why are all of your friends gay? You guys don't have anything in common." And I laughed in my head because I actually did have a lot in common with them, they just didn't know I did. I thought by now, being in my late teens that I would have had the nerve to come out of the closet, but my extended family was SO homophobic. Since you raised us to be so family oriented, I was afraid that it wouldn't ruin just my relationship with the extended family, but you and Dad's too. So I hid who I was until I was 20 years old. After high school so I didn't have to deal with anymore bullying in school, and after I found the love of my life. The one who I couldn't hide the real me from, and the one that I knew I would spend the rest of my life with. When I met Sarah, I didn't want to hide who I was anymore. Suddenly, I didn't care who didn't like me after that, or if I would get bullied or comments made about me. Everything that I worried about a majority of my life, didn't worry me anymore. And I was actually so excited about it every second. I was still really nervous to tell everyone, but I wasn't afraid of what the outcome was. I knew that I needed to do what was best for me, and what was going to make me happy.

Mom, I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. I know you're feelings were hurt when you found out after 20 years of my life. But I honestly feel like I needed to really grow and figure myself out before I should share a part of myself that I didn't even fully understand. I wish I would have understood myself sooner. But I think that everything happend the way that it did so that I could meet Sarah at exactly the right time that I did. I am SO happy, Mom. I have such a happy life with her, and I am so happy that you love her like she is your own. My life has always been good, but life has been nothing short of amazing since I came out. I'm glad that things happened the way they did, and I think out of all of this, I'm most happy about finally knowing exactly who I am, and living so comfortably in this life.

I guess I just wanted to say, thank you for being so supportive of me, and understanding that I wasn't any different than I was before I told everyone. I'm still the same, the only difference is that everyone just knows my secret (that's not so secret) :) and I'm so glad its OUT!

Love, Shay <3