A Different Brand of Senioritis

That silly little four-letter L-word has been on the edge of my nervous lips for weeks. I’ve been listening to far too many happy, sappy songs. My heart has been fluttering lightly since this morning when I woke up in that bed that smells like us. I was actually excited to get back to school after one of the best spring breaks I’ve ever had. Graduation is two months away, and I’m falling in love.

It took me a long time to decide which way to go with this post from here, and I think I’ve decided to go both ways. First, I want to address the question that may have popped up in some of your minds – how does this girl have the courage to admit that she’s in love on the Sappho blog?! Isn’t her girlfriend probably going to read this? In explaining why this isn’t going to happen, I am going to commit a faux pas that has almost never failed to make my Sapphic sisters lose interest in what I have to say. I’m going admit that I’m falling in love with a BOY. The idea of writing this whole post to painstakingly avoid mentioning the gender of my partner crossed my mind, but that felt too much like trying to reenact how I felt talking to my mom about an unnamed crush I had before I came out to her. Avoiding the “she”s that would have made it possible to have that conversation had been difficult and painful, and I am not going to do the same thing now. If I’ve lost the attention of many of you by admitting that I love HIM, that’s okay. It’s worth it. It won’t have been the first time that I was snubbed by queer girls for not being gay enough.

Ok, end rant. Sorry. I’m just sick of biphobia. My usual retort to anyone who hints that I’m not gay enough is that “I’m the big-old B in LGBT.” However, I was really shocked recently when a good friend responded to this by telling me that my B looks a whole lot like an S.

Well, whatever, even if you can’t imagine falling in love with a boy, perhaps you can sympathize a little more with the problem of falling in love at the worst possible time. My approach to love has always been to just throw myself into it. Why hold back? When you find someone who makes you feel all googly inside, give in to the google! But now I find myself second-guessing. What should I do when I know that the end of school is so near? Should this relationship become a long-distance one almost before it’s had the chance to be a short-distance one? Or should I cool my jets. Should I try not to fall in love? Maybe that little L-word is better left unsaid. In saying it now, not only do I face the uncertainty about how he feels, but also the uncertainty imposed by the impending end of Yale and the security it ensures.

I hope I’m not risking too much, but I’m sure that I’m gonna jump. It’s what I do. It’s how I work. Bring on the cheesy songs and overwhelming contentment of sleeping with him in my arms. Even bring on the uncertainly of everything associated with admitting I’m in love. He and I are too good together to have our time squandered. Senioritis, here we come.