I accidentally fell down a rabbit hole the other day when I followed a Wikipedia link to articles on lesbian pulp fiction. Two reviews I found for a book called The Loveliest of Friends (both written in 1931, a time I should not look to for compassion nor understanding when it comes to homosexuality) did not shy away from seeing being gay as a horrific thing you wouldn’t wish on anyone.

As I’ve gotten older, I still believe firmly that you cannot change your sexuality or be cured of being gay. I believe it with all my soul. When I was sent to ex-gay therapy by my parents, it almost destroyed me.

On the other hand, as I've gotten older I've also realized I no longer have the energy nor the care to fight what others think about sexuality or LGBTQ+ issues. I'm worn down by fear and weariness. It's exhausting defending your existence to others or trying to explain things.

"Asexual? What's that."

Or if people do know what it is, they just assume you were either traumatized by something as a young person or you haven't met the right person yet.

It's been three years since I last had strong feelings for someone, three years free of emotional torment or romantic longing. And while I'm not physically attracted to anyone nor attractive myself, those are not the reasons I have no interest in sex.

It's more complicated than that, but it's also not anything that terribly troubles me. I'm pretty sure I'd be this way if I were gorgeous and full of self-confidence.

I deeply understand and get that sex matters to a lot of people in this world. I think that's great and wonderful. It just doesn't matter to me. You'd think not having sex and not wanting it would be fairly controversial-free. But asexuality (usually delegated to the plus part of LGBTQ) is often a hot button issue for some.

I read in a recent Los Angeles Times that Shawn Cassidy is currently touring and I SO want to go.  I liked him so much in the late 70s and early 80s and the Tiger Beat girl that still lives inside me somehow also wants to go.

I am there but not there. I will sometimes think of the happiest times in my life, all of which seem behind me now, and be both thrown back into them like I'm in the cruelest of time machines and then thrust back here with what feels like a hard slap to the face.

Sometimes they are specific dates: October 31, 1989, November 19, 1997, June 17, 2016. 

Other times they are more like sets of times: the Fall of 1988 through the Spring of 1990

or all of the late 90s, starting with January of 1997 until the beginning of 2000.

The happiness of some memories can overwhelm me so much I fill up...I tried to rewatch Ally McBeal once but couldn't because my recollections of that original time are so sharp and joyful and wonderful that, contrasted with the hell that life feels like now, it just hurts too damn much. 

It's the weirdest thing: I've come to realize that I can rewatch the shows that got me through horrible times in the past with much delight, but I can't rewatch the shows that aired during times I was so full of life and hope (and something else I can't define) I floated off the ground.

To think that my flashbacks of the best of times sting so much more than my flashbacks of the worst of times...I just don't get that.

I am left-leaning, but I am not anyone to fear. I've never protested (not that there's anything wrong with that) but I still feel passionately about so many things and now more than ever. 

Even so, I am genuinely terrified right now. I am more afraid than I have ever been and I find myself shutting up a lot, pretty much about everything except Golden Girls and my cat.

My cat is my best friend and my soulmate. I care about my family and my two close human friends and my coworkers. I go to work, the grocery store, the gas station and the dentist and eye doctor. Lately, though not often, I've started returning to the liquor store. I'm not adventurous nor bold. It's just who I am. I have never been one to raise a raucous unless I'm very hangry. My idea of wild is to actually have social plans, like going to the movies.

I consider myself part of the queer community, even though "queer" was considered a slur when I was growing up and the word still feels so wrong when I say it. I have never slept with anyone nor do I ever plan to, nor do I imagine anyone will or would ever want to with me. 

I'm asexual, which means I feel romantically and emotionally drawn to women when it comes to affection and relationships. But I do NOT hate men. I, in fact, think they are just as great as women and that no gender lays claim to cruelty or infidelity or "wrongness."

So to anyone who fears the left or thinks we are a threat to the world, this is all I have to say: a tired and broken heart is just not very scary.

I had a dream last night and in the dream I saw someone and interacted with someone I haven’t been friends with or seen since 1998. The dream felt so real that I felt like I had time traveled, and I woke up with the saddest feelings. 

This was someone I really really liked at the time and was lucky enough to be friends with as well. The times I have had crushes on people, they not only haven’t felt the same, we weren’t friends. I never ever tell people I like them 'that way' and as far as I know none of the people I've liked have ever known.

I felt blown away by the strength of the dream. I haven’t really thought about this person in a long time but I went to open my desk drawers where I keep my old diaries, thinking to try one more time to find the journal from the missing year (that is set in my dream). 

I shoved my hands way back behind the crevices of the drawer and found it and could not believe it and having just read some of it right now I feel mentally and emotionally drained. It is just so weird how powerful mental time travel and dreams can be. It feels as if I just saw this person last night instead of almost thirty years ago.