Crushes are Clues
There are no coincidences. Only clues.
Yesterday marked the 7th anniversary of when I stood on a stage and confessed to being attracted to women when I was a child. The same day I stopped fearing the worst and sent my crush a compliment. Someone who started following me on Instagram last summer. Intrigued, I decided to follow back, a rarity for someone I didn’t know or share a mutual friend with.
Months later I caught a reel they shared and found myself wanting to learn more. I explored their posts and with every discovery I felt myself crushing, big time. Bigger than any other time. Even though I wasn’t surprised, I wasn’t expecting it.
Who am I to have a crush?
In six months I’ll be fifty. Isn’t that too old to have a crush? I’m at the age where I’m finally questioning if my crush is more than a feeling. Perhaps it’s a test. A clue. A time to reflect on what I want. Who I want, and why.
When I had my first crush, I had no idea it would be fleeting. It felt like forever. A feeling I always had and would always have. In a way, I was right because I look back fondly on the feeling and the innocence of forever. Decades later, the four-year old in me feels the same. That crush mattered. It taught me that I was allowed to have feelings for friends. That the rush of excitement I felt after my preschool playmate pretended to be Count Dracula by biting the beauty mark on my left shoulder was natural. A clue that my body reacted to touches.
Now my current crush, a mad crush, is teaching me that I didn’t see this coming but would love to see where it could go. I’ve tried to convince myself that it’s nothing more than physical attraction. But when I look at her… I smile, inside out.
But here’s the thing, I don’t know if she’s single or even interested in women, and she lives in California, I’m in Illinois. Another clue or am I clueless? Because if I’m being honest… crushing on her has brought up memories that like her, I never expected.
This is not the first time I’ve had a crush on a woman. Hence my confession in 2018.
https://youtu.be/TZ9-O-WxqKc?si=7LUoZ46uWhl54DMv
Besides that there was my crush on a workshop participant in 2020, my dates with a woman in 2005, my best friend gifting me lap dances from a female stripper for my 30th birthday, and the love song I wrote for a bartender named Sarah back in 2000. Those were the good memories, others surfaced too.
A core memory of my mother shaming our “lesbian” neighbors for making “disgusting” noises late at night in their bedroom, which was below mine and my brothers’ bedroom. They moved out soon afterwards. My mother talking about “bad girls” going to hell, especially ones who broke mortal sins like masturbation and homosexuality. She made me start going to church to “save” my soul at six, but now she’s living in my house and I have a crush on a woman. Plot twist!
Am I too old to start something new? Will I be shunned for stepping outside of my mother’s comfort zone? Do I dare?
As scared as my Inside Kid is to take this leap, I know this crush is no coincidence. Forget being on the verge of fifty, I see the clues. I know what, who, and why I want women and, I’m open to exploring where these crushes can grow…🤭
