Cherry Rainbows

Michelle. It had started with her.

It was all her fault.

Lying sprawled on the couch in the darkness of my now ex-but-it’s-complicated-because-we’re-still-friends-I-think girlfriend’s apartment suddenly I was ten years old again. Michelle flashed to life in my memory, short straw blonde hair; chubby face decorated with freckles and eyes the colour of jade. Older by a year, she was my introduction to a lot of things. She taught me about the words that the older kids giggled about in cautious whispers. She taught me a haphazard, naïve eleven-year-old’s understanding of what adults did behind closed doors. She taught me about betrayal, secrets and pinky swears.

Most of all she taught me about myself.

As the school bus creaked to a halt in front of my house I turned to go but she laid a hand on my arm. I looked at her, puzzled.

She wanted to kiss me.

I shook my head, even as she explained it was only on the cheek. I told her girls weren’t supposed to kiss. It wasn’t right, it was wrong and not something you did; only boys and girls were supposed to kiss---at least that’s what my mom and dad had always told me. It’s just a friend kiss, she retorted, not a boyfriend-girlfriend kiss.

None of my other friends or even the women in my family kissed, not even on the cheek, so I still wasn’t sold on the idea. With this in mind I continued my protest, but in the end despite it all I surrendered, for or by what means I no longer remember. There was a small, wet smacking sound as she made clumsy contact with my left cheek. Fireworks. A million flashes of colour. Red, white, pink, yellow, green, blue…a million flashes of joyful light exploded in my chest. The heat from the blast sent a flush of red to my face and set in motion a cascade of emotions I have not yet been able to describe.

I went home and tried to forget all of it.

Tried to forget all the confusion, all the shame and the fear. What if I could never like boys? What would become of me? What would my parents say? Most of all I tried to forget her. Forget that every day after school on the bus I secretly longed for her to kiss me again. Forget that now I was even more aware of my inability to keep my eyes off the bodies of the others girls in my cabin at summer camp when we had to all shower. Forget that awkward conversation I had with one of the other girls while trying desperately to keep my eyes on her face as she nonchalantly as she stripped and changed her underwear. Damn my drifting eyes.

By the start of secondary school she had faded into the recesses of my mind. In fact, that summer a longstanding childhood friend asked me out. I, enthralled at the fact that I was finally being asked out, said yes. I felt reassured, normal. A boy had asked me out and I was now his girlfriend---never mind the fact that I had no interest in him. As that would predict, the euphoria lasted about two days and then I was sick of him, sick at the sight of him. Granted, the feelings had never been even close to mutual even in the beginning but now it had degraded to hatred. I was often conveniently ‘ill’ when he would come calling, and my mother was well versed in the art of telling him I was not able to get out of bed and was highly contagious. One night, sitting on the front steps while his crazy, overbearing mother raged inside the house he asked me for a kiss. Inwardly I recoiled and fought not grimace while outwardly I told him to go first and if it landed anywhere near my mouth I would kick his ass. I waited for the fireworks as his mouth bumped my face just under my right eye.

Nothing.

There was an empty, ugly feeling in my belly and I fought the urge to get up and leave. Worse still was having to return the favour. A quick peck on his cheek and I excused myself, scurrying home trying to fight back tears and the worry. Why? Why hadn’t it gone right? Why didn’t I feel right? I was supposed to like boys---he was my boyfriend…so what was going on? Nerves. Nerves. I put it down to nerves and that he must not be the one for me. Trying to convince myself my subconscious cooked up some half-obsessive puppy love crushes on various guys over the next couple years. But they never went anywhere. It was like being in a pressure cooker---I figured it was ok to be anxious around guys because it meant that you like them—not realizing there’s anxious-hee-you’re-cute and anxious-oh-my-god-get-away-from-me-ew. I was not and never have been comfortable around men and can’t remember being interested in them much.

And then there was Natalie—who was unbeknownst to her---the beginning of the end for me and my membership card to the straight world. We were fourteen or so when we met and I instantly liked her---she had the appeal of a Pekingese dog with a crack habit and bipolar disorder. She was an over-the-top blur of long curly dark hair and large round eyes---hence the Pekingese comparison. Just to clear things up she didn’t actually have a crack habit and wasn’t bipolar. Right from the start there was a weird dynamic to our friendship---a little too random and a little too much touchy-feely. I can honestly say she’s the only woman who has ever touched my chest with the exception of myself. It was nothing for her to squirm her way into my lap and cuddle in a way too friendly way. She would hold my hand or pet my thighs at odd moments and I’m sure that most of the school population thought we were a couple. Although I didn’t realize it then, I fell for her. Whenever she appeared I had to fight the urge to actually sit on my hands to keep myself from touching her. I just wanted to reach out and hold her close, run my fingers through her hair and kiss her all over. Even with this strange dynamic and the tension between us we continued to be close and are to this day good friends.

Only in college did I begin to realize that there were in fact the confines of the four closet walls around me. Hetero-flexible, bi-curious, desperate…I tried to think of all the labels I could to avoid coming to conclusions I didn’t want to hear. I was just a ‘late bloomer’, something; anything—never mind the fact that I had had an interest in sex since grade school. Never mind the fact that people had been accusing me of being a lesbian since I was twelve. Never mind that I just couldn’t understand how my friends seemed to be able to flip through a magazine and find a man they thought was attractive on every page. Never mind it all.

My journey to self-discovery on all fronts unfolded like a bad, bad stereotype. I took a feminist class and within the confines of a cramped and stuffy basement classroom my transformation began. Like a scene from a cheesy movie I stopped shaving my legs (although to be fair it was because I had the guts to finally embrace my transgendered nature), tried being a vegetarian (which I liked but failed at due to my family) and fell head over heels for a girl in my class. A girl who smelled like the kind of blueberry muffin mix that came in bags, the kind my mother used to contemplate while I dragged along behind the grocery cart. A girl who’s francophone Acadian roots gave to the English language that my ears had heard for the last eighteen years a new beautiful melody. I was there on her couch now, inhaling sugary sweet blueberry mix and wondering where me and this life was headed. I didn’t know, yet or maybe ever and I was beginning to be okay with that…