the falls of unconventionality

There are things in my life I feel guilty about – things I probably wouldn’t bring up in casual conversation and maybe not at all.  We all have these things that just dig at us from time and time and perhaps we never even say them outloud.  They are our fears, our regrets, our worst versions of ourselves hidden behind all the neuroses and anxieties and hopes and dreams.  

Occasionally, there are things about being gay that make me sad.  And feeling sad about these things, well, that makes me feel an overwhelming amount of guilt.  I’d like to feel proud at every moment of exactly who I am and who I will become.  It’s not so much shame I feel – actually not at all.  They’re just experiences, silly, small things that make my heart slightly depressed when it thinks about them for too long.

I’ll never accidently become pregnant.  I know that sounds ridiculous to want and I don’t mean the kind of accident where you’re single and broke and way too young for the responsibility of another human life.  I’m talking about the kind of accident where you’re happily coupled, secure and stable and one day realize that your boobs hurt and you feel pukey in the morning and you’re inexplicably craving maraschino cherries and burritos.  That moment where you sit on the toilet seat, waiting for the two lines to appear and get to tell the love of your life that you both are going to be parents.  

I feel ridiculous even typing this.  What a stupid thing to feel sad about missing. 

I told my only other lesbian friend about this once and she surprisingly nodded in agreement.  It makes me sad, too, she replied and we both sat in silence for a minute.   It felt good to not feel it alone.

I will never be legally married no matter where I am in the world.  Even if all fifty states decide gay marriage is legal, I still won’t be able to travel abroad with the security of knowing that I am legally bound to my significant other and if something should happen, it would be without question that she would be the person to turn to.  And the chances are, in my lifetime, a nationwide law making gay marriage legal will probably never come to be.  So we could cross a state line and suddenly become nothing more than two friends in the eyes of the government.  It makes me so mad I can barely see straight.  (Hah.  Pun unintended.) 

Revealing these fears makes me feel incredibly exposed.  I never want to give the impression that I am ashamed of being me.  I would never, in a million years, change who I am for an easier life.  I could not imagine spending the rest of my life in a more conventional relationship just to be able to appreciate and experience the above things because spending forever with the love of my life is far more important to me than any biological process or government sanctioned union. 

But.

It’s just.  Sometimes.  Those things.

They tear at my heart, a little.