Embracing My Bisexuality Has Set Me Free
I’m shedding all the lies I believed about who I needed to be in this world.
As I’ve accepted and embraced my bisexuality, I’ve been uncovering repressed feelings and reexamining memories with new clarity. And I’ve realized, it wasn’t just my bisexuality that I repressed. Everything and everyone around me told me there was a strict mold of masculinity I needed to fit into to be accepted and safe. For decades, I tried so hard to fit into that mold without even allowing myself any wiggle room. Now, at 40 years old, I’ve realized that I don’t know what I truly like or enjoy. I’ve never given myself the freedom to just be who I am.
This all hit me unexpectedly on a lunch break earlier this week. While sitting in my car, I noticed something I wouldn’t have given a second glance at before. A large bush full of bunches of small freshly bloomed flowers.
Growing up, if I picked a flower I was automatically asked by an adult, “Who are you going to give that flower to?” And I quickly learned that a “normal” boy doesn’t like flowers for himself, he only gives them to women and then he doesn’t give them a second thought. From then on, if I ever saw a flower I liked, it went unsaid unless I was pointing it out to a woman or picking it to give away. This pretty little thing couldn’t just be for me.
Sitting there, I realized this is just another of the many male gender norm ideas that were repeated to me over and over again as a kid. But at this point in my life, I’m making a conscious effort to decide what things I like for myself rather than what I feel like I’m allowed to like and still be a “man.”
As I caught the fragrance of these flowers, an instant calming sensation flowed across my body. I didn’t even know I was stressed to begin with yet I felt my blood pressure drop and a sense of happiness washed over me. I plucked two lower stem branches from the bush and carefully removed the leaves below the delicate bunches of flowers. A pretty little thing just for me.
I searched for a place to tuck them out of sight in my vehicle. This way I could smell them but I wouldn’t risk anyone else seeing them. Here I was now, at 40 years old, finally allowing myself to literally stop and smell the flowers, and admit I like them and enjoy them. Yet, my first instinct was still to hide them away so no one else would see.
As I looked at my options for a hidden place where I could put these delicate flowers, I was hit with the realization that this is what I have done with myself my whole life. Sure a person or two might get close enough to catch a scent of what I have hidden but hopefully it would be misunderstood as something entirely different. Because, if they smell the flower and see the flower then they will know it is a flower.
I’ve hidden away so much of myself hoping no one would see me.
I felt a swell of grief for the person I didn’t get to be growing up. Not only for missing out on any non-cis-female relationships but more so for not being able to allow myself to just be me. All my life, until very recently, I have been afraid someone would point out that I was different or say I am not “man” enough.
I told myself that flowers are not gendered and even if they were I don’t care, it is something I like. I want to embrace whoever this person is that I truly am.
After placing these little flowers in my car for anyone to see my eyes welled with tears. They look so cute, so delicate with a sweet floral fragrance. Happiness mixed with sadness and grief.
When I was a child, a pretty flower was never pointed out by a man, only by women. I realized I have done shades of the same with my son. So, that night, as we were having our nightly talk before he went to sleep, I told him about these flowers. I followed up by reassuring him that whatever the “flowers” are that he likes in life, I hope he knows that he can enjoy them as he sees fit and I will be happy for him to experience that joy while he is still young rather than repress himself as I did.
I’m still uncovering who it is I am at my core, underneath all the lies I believed about who I needed to be. I’ve certainly questioned my gender and I know I have much more to learn from the queer community. I’m beginning to understand that gender exists on a spectrum and I may come to view myself differently, in time. But at this point in my journey, I feel it is important to set myself free from society’s gender norm expectations.
Me liking certain things does not mean that I am not a man. Instead, me being who I am should challenge the stereotypes of society’s definition of man. Men can be bisexual. Men can like to wear pink. Men can cry and feel all their emotions. Men can pick pretty flowers just for themselves.
Embracing my bisexuality has led to an untangling of all the toxic masculinity and gendered expectations which were imprisoning me. I feel freer than I have ever felt before.
Getting into my car the next morning to go to work, it was filled with the fragrance which gave me so much joy the day before. Sure the flowers are wilted and not as bright but they are still beautiful and I am thankful for what they have taught me. While there is sadness for what was lost, at least I am smelling and enjoying the flowers now.
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