thelesbianlifestyle.com

(topic number three of this month)

I hear her door open, but I don’t look up at first. Instead, I take a breath, shut my eyes, and compose myself. You aren’t going to cry this time. You aren’t.

When I do look up, she’s smiling. “So, she finally wants to talk!” I can’t help but smile in return. She’s in a shapeless sweatshirt and pants, slippers on her feet, and her hair is damp from a shower. Instead of just standing in my doorway, she positions herself on my bed, lying on her side to my cross-legged position. A small German Shepherd follows meekly, her tail wagging feverishly. We take a moment to create a sense of security, cooing and calling the dog onto my bed, until she jumps up, squirming and panting in the delight of being included in our little party.

I begin with what seems to be a phrase that has taken over my life: “I’m scared.” Afraid, terrified, frozen in place and time because of it. “I’m scared of loosing you.” And of letting myself love, risking hurt to let her in. I don’t get a reply, so I raise my eyes to hers, and study them, for a moment. Blue, a light blue, with the pupils rimmed with a golden brown. They’re intriguing, just like the rest of her. We hold this gaze for a few seconds, and I feel a hand slip into mine, over the back of the dog. Her thumb drags across my knuckles. She begins to reply, but I am deaf to it. I am surprised, no, beyond surprised at the little bit of affection. Just by taking my hand, she can shatter my world into a million pieces. A single maternal movement can send me reeling, because my lack of experience makes it that much more scary and unexplored. I catch the last bit of her quiet response.

“I may make you mad, but I will never, ever, purposely hurt you,” She releases my hand and gently hops off of the bed. I am confused. Are we through? Am I not given the right of a reply? I quickly realize I was too hasty in my judgement, as she wraps her arms around me. My beginning vow not to cry is quickly ignored.

“You’re so sad; I can feel it. Talk to me. Please. What’re you thinking?” She doesn’t understand how I want to, but it’s almost impossible, and not just the physical limitations that have sprung from my crying jag. I try to explain that never before had I felt someone’s arms around me when I was upset. Never before had I tried so hard to trust, and the frustration I felt when something inside me was incessantly screaming to turn and run.

She allowed me to struggle, tracing gentle patterns on my back and resting her head atop mine. After awhile, I gave up, and buried my head against her, tears coming anew. Right then and there, I hated myself more than I had ever hated anyone else. I hated my inability to speak, to trust…to do anything that required even a bit of emotion.

“You’ll learn. I promise, you’ll learn how to trust and how to love. I had to, and you will too.”

Those were her last words that night, before she made me giggle by kissing me about a hundred times.

Lessons are meant to be given, then reinforced. Learning to love, and to trust, is a lesson that both my aunt and I reinforce every day, with one another. When I embrace her at night, and tell her I love her, I feel a sense of recovery. I’m learning. Albeit slowly, but I’m learning. The damage is being repaired, and all I can do is thank her for being the only teacher that has ever taught me something valuable, for her lessons will help me with future girlfriends, and possibly, with future children.

She has helped me change for the better.

Name: Sky
Age: 14
Location: Massachusetts
Personal Blog: Creative Muse
Quote: “Mr. Parker, in my job, you learn that nothing is certain. Nothing. Nothing that seems very good, and nothing that seems very bad. Nothing is certain. Nothing.” — Susan Lewis, ER, 24 Hours