A cousin who is a year younger got engaged last week. I attended the ceremony knowing that I would be asked when is my turn going to be. I just smiled at those questions without answering. People say, a smile can also be an answer, the only difference is that, having a smile, as an answer will lead us to wondering what really is the answer. A smile is a charity and it can tell a thousand stories. It is up to us how do we want to interpret it.
Another year has gone by and I am growing older. Growing older is what everybody dreads but I find it rather interesting. Generally people will think that growing older means you will grow wiser, old and wise, somehow these two words always come together in a package. I have seen older people who are not wise and I have seen wise people who are not even old. Why do we often think that old equals wise? Whose definitions do we go by? It is the norm to think like that and it is the mainstream ideologies. We are all the followers indeed. We follow what people say, we follow what people think. Never mind if it is right or wrong but as long as our thoughts and actions fall under the mainstream ideologies, we feel saved and normal.
What is normal? Again, whose definition do we go by? Is there any definition that can be universally accepted? As I grew up, I understood that it was not so. I realised that what I thought universally acceptable was what is now known as 'mainstream ideology'.
A lesbian friend is going to get married soon and she didn't even have it in her agenda to get married but why is she getting married then? She told me she wants to be normal. She wants to do the normal stuff that everybody does. What are the normal stuffs? Have a career, get married, have children, have a family, grow old watching her children grow up, have grandchildren and live happily ever after. Is that a normal lifestyle? I do not think she has her own definition of what is normal. She was only concerned with society's definition of normalcy, the mainstream, safe ideology. She had broken away in the earlier part of her life, and now, I feel, she wanted to make up for it. I feel that she was sorry for her own circumstance. How hard I tried to understand her, still I have to ask this question, what is normal?
I can never see myself being married to a man. I am not sure myself but consciously there is not a place in my heart for a husband. This strong craving for woman is in my blood till the extent that marriage to a man is totally not in my future plan at all. The idea of getting married to a man that I would eventually fall in love with is very indefinite to me. Being the only daughter will bring more challenge to the plans I have for myself. I wonder how is it going to be if I was born straight? Will I get married? And I wonder what it is like to have given birth to my own flesh and blood, my future generation. I can only wonder and guess. Ultimately it is all in His hands to determine. I rest my case.
A good friend once said that when we fall in love do not give our everything to the person because in the end we will definitely get hurt and left all alone because we are simply lesbians. We do not and will not have an infinite love that will last for an eternity. Sooner or later one of us will have to get married. I do not buy that. My beliefs have always taught me that there is an infinite love for each one of us. With only different level of commitments, love and responsibility, regardless what our sexual preferences are, we are after all humans. One is no different than the other just because he likes people of the same gender as he is. Maybe that friend of mine is right and maybe she could be wrong. Falling in love has always been the greatest thing that has happened to anybody. It is the feeling that only those who have been there could tell. It is a feeling that is beyond description. It doesn’t ask why and it speaks from the heart and never explains. Doing the things for the relationship to the best of our abilities just to make it great is not wrong. Falling in love should be something that is memorable. Never mind how it turned out, just give her your best. It is not about giving up your family, it is not about giving up your present life, it is about making each other feel. It is about saying ‘I love you’ without uttering those words. These are the days that will be remembered for the rest of our lives.
Aren’t making choices our best blessings in life? Someone told me once that everybody can love but not everybody will. I think she was right. You have to want to love; you must go out there. Love does not manifest on its own. You have to work at it. You have got to break down those walls of yours and let people in. I know it can be scary, I have been there. Whatever the reasons for the fears we might have, we must find that ‘X’ factor that permits other people to touch our hearts in their own special way, because we deserve it, to be touched and to be loved.
Don’t you guys ever wonder what would it be like in the next 5 to 10 years to come? Where would you be? What would you be achieving or already achieved? We have to plan our live ahead of time my parents once told me. I nodded in agreement. I was a child and I knew nothing about lesbianism. All I know was girls caught my attention more than boys did. I was very nervous being surrounded with girls. I imagined things that I shouldn’t have. At that point of time, I knew I was not straight. I kept it to myself. Living in a closet I was. Coping with my own inner battle discovering myself and trying to deny the fact that I am who and what I am. Worst of all, I am a Muslim and that makes it even more difficult.
There is that stigma that if ever you committed to any form of gay activities, all your good deeds called by your faith would go down the drain and you are condemned to hell. And yet, you can't understand it, because, you recognised what you are, and how could you be condemned to hell for what you were made to be. It is so confusing living in this closet. Have you ever wondered whether are you really born with it or it is just the environment, surroundings or the way you were being brought up? Do we have a choice? Can we fight these feelings that has been branded ‘abnormal’? When I am alone, I wonder and I cry to myself like a baby without tears. They were all dry cry.
As it has been mentioned in the Koran and the Bible, it means that homosexuality and lesbianism are not just a recent development of the person. It has been in existence for a long time, meaning that it could well have been in-born for some individuals. I understand that being gay is not an accepted thing in Muslim society, on the other hand, society just cannot blame me for not being able to be anything but gay. The culture and the upbringing hit me at times. It really got to me. Even though my dad’s Chinese, we are all Asians and living in the East. We are eastern people and we were brought up the way we were. What can I say, what can I do? It is almost impossible to divorce oneself from culture and beliefs inculcated from young. Perhaps our culture, religion and upbringing dictate a safe, mainstream thinking. Perhaps it is not the only option in a lifestyle. Perhaps it is not the only ‘right’ we should recognise.
There is no use explaining and reasoning because we all know what we are doing is wrong. There is law against it in public. We will lose. No matter how hard we fought for society to accept us, we will not win. We will never win. Most people think that we are what we are because we lack of faith and religious knowledge. They are wrong. I am never proud of what my sexual preference is. I am ashamed of it. But I am only human with strengths and weaknesses. I have people who put me down. I have people who condemned me for the slightest mistake I have made. I do not ask for all this. But who am I to say? I have tried, I bet we all have tried. We were all once sorry about our lifestyles. But this is what we are. Whether we like it or not, we cannot deny and not acknowledged what we are. My statement is debatable of course. One can never really understand another human being even when you think you have love her like blood. No man or woman will open himself/herself to you openly. There will always be something she hides. Everybody has a skeleton in his or her closet, and one does not wash his dirty linen in public.
I have loved and have been loved before. And quietly I hope and wished that I could live my life like a straight couple. Have our own house, our own children, live together like husband and wife. Those are my fantasies, it is just a matter of time to bring it to life. It is good to have dreams and wishes like that. It gives me hope in the love I have built in myself. It may not even be love but if it’s special, it means something. It is good to have companion, everybody knows that companionship is not a crime. Never mind if we cannot figure out how much, or how big the sex part is responsible for our togetherness, concentrate on how it feels. Loving behind closed doors is not difficult. It is intensely private. It is a choice anybody can exercise.
People might wonder of the circumstances of two women raising a kid. What happens when he grows up? Perhaps he will understand. Perhaps he will be angry. Maybe he will gradually accept the way his life has been set. I am not sure. But one thing I know, he will have a choice too when he grows up. My parents are heterosexuals but I turned out to be a pure lesbian. Everybody exercise his own preference. Ultimately, aren’t making choices our best blessings? I rest my case, these are my thoughts for now, you do not have to agree with me.
