Why did I get married when I was 26? It was important to him to be married, and I didn’t care enough about not being married to argue the point. I didn’t realize how much privilege I would have. How differently I would be treated. How much my family had worried until —suddenly—a reprieve! She’s married. To a boy. It’s all going to be fine.
I don’t think that was about my soul. I think that was about shame. I think they were worried I’d shame them. Have a bastard child. Or live with a woman. Or read poems on street corners. I agreed to be married because women were heartbreaking. And difficult. It didn’t seem possible to be with women and be happy.
So I got married. Gavin always wants to know why I kept my name. Well, it’s mine. Why would I want someone else’s name? I’m used to this one. In some ways, I wonder if he’s asking why he has one name and I have another, if it has something to do with rejection. And, of course, it does. I married because I thought, at 26, that I knew myself. That I could separate myself from women and marry a man and be OK. Not even OK, but happy. That I could marry and be happy. It seems like lunacy now. It wasn’t women I cut myself off from, it was truthfulness. I married lies. I married the scale: boys or girls, I can be content with either. I married a myth. And I chose it. I designed it myself.
Can you choose to be gay? Well, you can choose to live lies or you can choose to live honestly. I told lies because it was easier in some ways, and in others, you know there’s a reason I was sick for 5 years in my twenties. Can you choose to be gay? You choose it like you choose bravery. Like you choose kindness. Like you choose self. I am this person. I am this person. I am this person. I am.
