When do people know?

When do people know that they are gay? That is the question of the day. And it is a question that doesn't have just one simple answer. It has many answers, and many of them aren't that simple. So here we go.

Being gay isn't something that we choose to be, and is something that many of us don't realize that we are right away. Everybody who is gay realized it at a different point in their life. And sometimes you know you're different but do not have a name for it right away. Quite often it's cofusing to try to make sense of. The realization that you are gay can happen at any time of life. For some people it happens at a young age. For others it happens when they are older.

Personally, I began noticing that I felt different than my peers in about fifth grade. For whatever reason I looked up to my fifth grade teacher. But that wasn't all. I had begun to notice these feelings towards her that I could not describe. I'm now sure my friends were beginning to feel some of these same feelings towards the guys in fifth grade while I was beginning to feel those same feelings towards women. At that age I didn't have the words to describe why I was different and what I was feeling towards my teacher. Those feelings continued throughout middle school, and into high school. By my freshman year of high school, I had realized that what I was was gay. But I didn't want to admit it just yet. I kept on telling myself that I couldn't be gay, and decided that I would force myself to like the guys I went to school with. But I very quickly discovered that this was something I could not change. There was a girl I was in band with, who also happened to play a brass instrument. For the sake of this blog, I'll call her L. L was a senior during my freshman year, and we went to the same church. One day, before school started L, several other band people, and I were hanging out in the band hall talking about whatever. I didn't realize it at the time, but the collar of my shirt was messed up. L reached over and fixed it for me. It was in that moment that L fixed my collar that I knew I couldn't deny my feelings anymore. I was gay, and there was nothing I could do about it no matter how hard I tried. And so I began learning to cope, and came to accept myself as a lesbian during the spring of 2007.