Zia, the Fearless NonLesbian
J likes to call me Zia for zealous – she suggests I’m, well, how do you say in English, a little over the top.
T asked me on Mardi Gras day, “Are you Lesbian?” – deliciously dropping the article with her sexy Croatian accent – I said to myself, “No, but I am now!”
This morning, picking up T’s bike at Bayou Bicycles, I saw R, who called gently from the back of an SUV – “Rachel?” – in the form of a question, and I said, “Hey! I want you to meet my girlfriend!” and beckoned T over enthusiastically.
Her Brazilian friend wonders if I, a nonLesbian, will be able to handle being with a woman.
[T sighs and says out loud, “I don’t have to worry about outing my girlfriend.”]
February 23rd, 2008 at 7:58 pm
whoa! your blog never disappoints but this truly sends it to a new level. you should start charging a monthly membership fee to read, cause i can’t wait to see what’s next. but if you’re non-lesbian, what do you call what is happening now? i’m confused. you need not post this, and you need not answer this, but is it like the best sex you’ve ever had is that the attraction? why the sudden transistion? i just never saw it in you. glad you’re happy.
February 25th, 2008 at 8:54 am
I’ve spoken before about being bisexual – my friend K says why don’t you just say your sexual and leave the bi part out of the equation. So of course sex plays a part in this. But this is something very different. I’ve never entertained a relationship with a woman because I always appreciated the veil that separates a man from a woman – it allows you to cohabit intimately without being completely transparent. My lesbian friends have told me that a relationship with a woman is intense and my, I’d have to agree with them on this note. Where I am here is with a “person” – let’s take lesbian, woman off the table – who fits me to a T – someone who is so like me but different enough to offer mystery and challenge that I crave her company and want to be with her every minute.
I think you fall in love with a person not a gender – I’ve had many friends who are committed to heterosexuality or lesbian or gay life – but I don’t think that I ever lived a life that was compartmentalized like that. I don’t think of myself as a free spirit but friends often describe me that way.
I feel like I have the possibility right now for a great love – one very similar to when I met Steve 16 years ago – and the fact that she is a woman is not the reason although it informs a great deal of our relationship.
When I go back and connect the dots of why I had an affair with N – what I wanted and wasn’t receiving was tenderness and someone who was interested in caring for me as I was in caring for them – this is not to negate the love that S brought to our marriage but early on we had established a dynamic that we were wrestling to change but were not successful in doing so for many reasons, including my having already closed doors because I was receiving what I wanted from someone else.
I was out last night with friends of T’s and I kept looking at her and marveling at who she is, which every day comes more and more into focus – she asked the 8 ball in my office the other day if I would be her “super love” and the answer was “Yes, Definitely” – for once I think that 8 ball was telling the truth.
As Jerri is want to say – more will be revealed… – if I could write here about the ways in which T and I connect, you’d understand on a deeper level why we have found each other at a time when we were both ready for each other.