On January 3, 2008 I was 70 years old. I have no wrinkles, am healthy, I feel sexy and have lots of love to give. I am a Lesbian. Until 6 years ago, it was hard for me to choke the word ‘lesbian’ out of my mouth. But when I finally looked at myself and said,“I like you and you are Gay”, I knew I was free!!! The past year I have been meeting lesbians in my age group with varied backgrounds. We all have the same basic story to tell. I want to tell you mine in the hopes that younger lesbians will be true to themselves early on in their lives Chapter One I grew-up in a small town, knowing most everybody: neighbors, merchants and my class-mates. My family consisted of mother, father, grandmother, and younger brother. We were “middle America” and my parents were madly in love with each other; our home was a happy one. In 1950 I was in the 7th grade and soon noticed that I was attracted to girls, not the boys. The feelings I was getting I truly did not understand. I only knew that I wanted to touch, hold and kiss girls - certain girls. As I progressed though my school years my feelings became stronger for girls. I knew that the terrible names people like me were called, both male and female, were awful and I did not want to be like ‘that’. In the 9th grade I began my trip through life pretending to be someone else. I had told absolutely no one my secret. Not a soul, and until 5 years ago, no one ever knew who I really was. I spent my high school and college years immersed in music activities. It became my life. I lost my mother just after turning 17 and this was a tragic blow to my entire family. For a girl as afraid and lost as I was, this alone could have taken me down. Only my music and few close friends kept me going. After 2 years away at college studying music, I returned home to a now unhappy, dysfunctional family. I spent a year helping to correct some of this mess and be around my brother, now a teenager. A year later I married a boy who was like a brother to me in high school. I knew I did not love him, but we seemed at ease together. I did not know at the time that most all of the words coming out of his mouth were lies. I guess I was too busy trying to be this person everyone expected me to be: marry, have children and forget my true passions. We had two children, 17 months apart. Soon after, my life fell apart. I had buried all of my “secret feelings” so deep inside of me that when I allowed them to emerge, I knew it was a ‘gift from God’. Raising my children and protecting them from elements in our lives was my full time job. I wanted them to have a “normal” childhood, to not be the product of a broken marriage, and certainly not to know who their parents really were. I spent from 1959, the year I married, until the end of 1999 when he died, doing just that. After these last 7 paragraphs you are saying to yourself, “so what? So you had a rough time - join the crowd and my goodness – how did you do that?” This is only an overview of my past. Now I will tell what happened and how I feel. Chapter Two I breezed through high school. I was independent and full of hope for a future in music, my passion and study. I attended a small college in northern Washington majoring in music. By the end of the 1st year my instructors approached me with the idea that I needed to attend a school of music which would offer a greater challenge to me. I was still hiding my true identity as a lesbian. I met some girls that I had sexual crushes on but, of course, I never revealed myself to anyone. My 2nd year of college was at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles (USC). Their music school was the best of the west coast in 1958 and although I thrived there, I always felt out of place. Pretending to be a ‘normal’ co-ed was difficult. I was meeting new friends and some became passions for me. Again, I kept my feelings all hidden. I let my music keep me going emotionally. After that year, I had to return home, get a job and help out financially. My music plans were put on hold. It was what I had to do. Once again, the forces of nature were making the decisions for me; my life was not mine to live! At the end of a working year an old friend from high school, a boy who had been a ‘brother’ to me, returned to our home town on leave from the service. We started seeing each other, going on picnics and small dates. Before I knew it, we were talking marriage. I remember sitting on a beach, talking, and thinking to myself that I did not love him, but I did feel comfortable in his company. I did not understand at that time what it meant. There were many things about him I didn’t really know. Although we had been friends in high school, I didn’t realize until after we got married what kind of a person he was; I did not know that he tended to exaggerate, and that underneath it all, he had concerns about his own gender identity. We married a year later and began our family. From our wedding night forward, it was a sexually challenging partnership. I later learned that his only goal was to have children and prove to the Coast Guard that he was not gay! This is when I knew that I had made a ‘gross mistake’ and did not know how to change it. Soon I was pregnant and pretending to be someone else…hiding in plain sight. Four years later I had two children, a husband who’s lies were unfolding at a fast pace and I was an emotional wreck. All I did from this point forward was to take care of my children, work to earn badly needed cash and listen to lies, and believe them. At my age now, I look at this part of my past thinking what an idiot I was and where were my family and friends. I needed them to help. My father wanted to. I knew he cared very much but he did not know how to deal with or fix this mess. Well, the years passed, horrible things happened and I just kept going forward, as if on a voyage of no return. My children grew up, married and had their children. Becoming a grandmother helped to heal an aching heart. The longing to be me, to be loved and to love that certain person meant for me was now a dream I hope will come true. You are curious as to what happened during these years that was so horrible. It concerned my husband, not me; therefore, I choose not to go into details. He has passed on (12/1999) and nothing can be gained by talking about his ‘dirty laundry’! Besides, he is the father of my two children. The Beginning of 2000, I was FREE, able to talk to God, look into the mirror and accept myself for who I really am…..mother, grandmother AND LESBIAN. Up to this point, this is not an unusual story, right? Now it is time to talk about my love story I have to share, interwoven with what I have shared to this point. Chapter Three By 1964 we had our boy and girl. My husband was gainfully employed as a police officer in a small town near where we lived. We soon moved to that town, bought a house and settled in. I was a busy mother and housewife, working in the mortgage business. Everything was going smoothly until the bottom fell out of this life, my future and stability. We moved out of our new home, back to our home town, he was kicked out of his job as a small town cop and we started over. A year later he managed to land a job with our local private electric utility company and we bought another house and began a more normal life. We purchased a 20’ travel trailer and started camping with a group of other utility company employee’s families. One day I was introduced to a family (man and woman) at the company lake resort where we camped. Our friendship soon grew and before I knew it, the young woman in her early twenties was seducing me. She came on to me with force and I fell for her. I mean I fell in love with her and in a few months we were catching every moment we could to be alone together. Our attraction to each other was something I had never experienced before. I knew then I was in trouble because now the secret I held was being attacked and I was being tugged between her and my love for my children. This situation went on for several years. I lived for the moments she was in my arms or bed. Then I realized that I must make a very big decision. Either I ask her to go away with me, which I knew she would not or I must walk away from this love, put my full attention to my children and my ‘pretend life’. I chose to walk away. Some of my decision was because I knew she was not like me, a Lesbian. I still do not know why she fell in love with me, slept with me and wanted me all those years. We did not see or talk to each other for around 35 yrs. I lived my life, as did she. I was now a single person, free and relocated to a Great Lakes state to be near my daughter, her family and my two dear grandchildren. Still in the closet, looking for a new life two years later, I received a message from my son at home. He saw her and her family and she wanted desperately to know where I was and if she could contact me. Then I received an E Mail and soon she her husband and relatives were at my doorstep, during their vacation to nearby states. We had no time alone to talk; about 4 hours total for general visiting. After she returned home from their extended trip we began to correspond by E-Mails and the phone. She kept asking me what happened and what she did that made me go away. I finally said I would fly out to the coast and if she met me we could spend a few days together and I would explain. So I did and it was an incredible 5 days and nights. We fell back in love, more than we had every felt before. We talked the whole time, except for the time we were learning anew about each other. From that moment forward, I felt my love growing and growing for her. She came back and visited me for 11 days at my home in Wisconsin. That was a very special time. It could have not been better, but I wish I would have stopped to think about a few key things: No. 1, she is NOT GAY….where is this taking me? No. 2, she is married….this is adultery for her! No. 3, why does she feel this way about me….I am lesbian and I told her when I flew to the coast to see her. No 4, why does she want to continue this relationship? I did not ask myself these questions. I was so happy to finally be “in love” again that I forgot that this was not a long term solution to my needs. These are questions that have become important to me at this stage of my life. After 4 years in the great-lakes area, I returned to my home town area to be nearer to her although she is still 150 miles south of where I am. I must admit now, that although she has not and will never tell me the truth, I know by her actions and words that she was unhappy I moved back and was very unhappy that I “ waltzed out of closet” upon moving back. This was a threat to her…she never gave my feelings a thought. Over a period of 3 years we grew apart, she was leading, slowly taking herself out of my mind, heart and not returning my love. I understand now, but it was a tough few years. I am over her now and have been for a couple of years. What did I learn? I learned that the love I have to give is strong and ready to be given to someone who understands me and wants to love me .I have also learned that building a strong foundation for a relationship is based on a solid and loving friendship. If you find someone you truly like and have feelings for, the love and chemistry you feel must be developed slowly. Work hard and lay that foundation based on “giving and taking” in all things related to each other. It is the WE, not the I that matters. We cannot be alike nor would any close relationship exist if we were. Bringing your best qualities and assets to a partnership will create a lasting foundation. Chapter Four I put myself “on line” in the lesbian personals and have met some very nice, fun, great ladies. It is wonderful to be able to be with, talk and share fun times, meals, etc. with gals like me, lesbians. We are all nice women who look forward to many more times together. I am happier than I ever can remember and have some ‘very special’ women I enjoy being with. At the same time I came out in the lesbian world I knew it was time to tell my two adult children. I had already told my story to my brother and his family, but now I wanted and needed to inform my own adult children, in their 40s, just who I am. This was very difficult for me because I would be telling them that their parents did not love each other and were not like the normal parents that they believed. I knew they would now think that their entire growing-up years were a lie. Of course this was true but we did manage during those years to give them a safe, loving home life. We had many vacations, boated and camped. My children were surrounded by a loving family network. Still the idea of facing them with the truth was terrifying to me. My son was the first to be told simply because he lives 20 minutes away. Then in the summer of 2007 my daughter came from the mid-west to visit me and I told her face to face. Both of them were shocked and speech less .Then they became angry with me because I waited so long to inform them of who their parents really were. However, after some time they have come to understand me and why I lived my life in the closet. I have informed them that it is my life now and I intend to be who I am and I will do so no matter what anyone in my family thinks of me. I do have some issues within myself to work on. I have noticed that the years I have been back here and alone have left me unable to smile a lot, to relax and enjoy people’s company. I am now working on being happy, smiley and someone that others will want to be with. I have some shortcomings here and I want to get my old, funny personality out of hiding. This is hard for me, but I WILL ACCOMPLISH THIS! I began this in October and now it is mid-February and I want to finish my story. As I re-read this I now realize that I have wonderful friends, I am smiling a lot and my life is full of hope. I do not know what is in my future; or if I will be with that certain someone, to love and be loved and share the rest of my life. I only know that I have dear friends and will continue to be my true self, never giving up the dream that someday I will have that wonderful woman at my side. Epilogue God has been with me always, even though I have not regularly attended Church the past few years. I am positive he has been at my side, guiding me through the past 50 years of my life. I began my daily conversations with him when I knew 7 years ago that I could no longer hide from who I am. He has given me the strength and courage to ‘come out’ because he chose me to be a lesbian, not I. My proof of his blessings surfaced in a strange way….one I want to share. I had a very bad habit of chewing my fingernails. This began when I was a small child and continued until 2003. How did I stop? It just happened without my awareness that I was not chewing anymore. One day I “woke up”, looked in the mirror and told myself, “I love you as you are; it is time” to live as God intended. Upon accepting myself as a Lesbian, I felt a deep calmness overtake me. Now it was no longer necessary to chew the nails! As quickly as they grew, I was dancing from the closet, no longer hiding in plain view. I have been blessed by God and I am very proud to finally be living as he intended. He and I are now on the same road and I will always know he ‘has my back’.