[*Anya*]

What a really lovely thread!

I can remember back in New Jersey, younger than 8, playing house with my little girl-friends. I would always want to "practice kissing" with them.

I found myself in fairly frequent childhood sexual exploration with my little girl-friends-never the boys.

I was totally clueless about what it all meant but knew I liked it. I also knew, on some level that it was "wrong", that I should not be doing that with girls.

I did get busted by my mother once, still under age 10 and I think she was most upset about it being with a little girl. I clearly got the message that sex-play was wrong but even more wrong with another girl.

I got married at 18, mostly to escape my parents. It was not good. I was not sexually attracted to him and never had an orgasm with him.

After we split, in my mid-twenties I dated men and also had relationships with women. I told myself that I was bi because at the time, it felt to me that it was more hip and cool and stepping over that line to admit to myself that I really was a lesbian and to leave hetero privledge behind was just too terrifying for me to admit outloud to myself.

I continued to go through the motions with bio men and was still non-orgasmic with them.

I led this pretend sort of life, knowing something was missing, until I fell in love with my best friend.

I could no longer deny to myself who and what I really was.

There were costs: rejection by parents and two brothers for 15 years, loss of some of my so-called friends, dealing with my own two small children and their confusion about why I was kissing my girl-friend ("I love her in the same way Mrs. Smith loves Mr. Smith"), etc.

In spite of the difficulties involved in coming out and I do feel I almost come out on a daily basis as a femme: my life as a lesbian has filled in all of the blanks that I had felt were missing, such as the ability to truly connect emotionally, as well as physically, to be able to vulnerable with another and in general, to finally feel complete as a human being.

I have not looked back or regretted once that in spite of the pain and tears of finally being able to look in the mirror and admit to myself that I was gay, it was all worth it to feel truly alive and whole.