Fate or something along those lines

This week I am planning my birthday party. The last few years I haven’t actively celebrated growing one year older, so I decided it was time to do something fun and bring all my friends together – especially as I’ve only recently got back in touch with a few of the old crowd. In compiling the invite-list which includes people I’ve known for nearly ten years, people I’ve known less than a year and all the rest in between, I realised that the majority of them I’d never had met if I hadn’t realised I was a lesbian when I did.

I’ve always believed in fate or something along those lines anyway. Learning from your mistakes and successes is important as they lead you through life and bring you to where you are now and as such that you should never regret your past. You wouldn’t be who you are without it. Does this sound complicated? Let me clarify.

I used to be straight and like any good home Kent girl, I had a boyfriend and I thought that was what I wanted. Then he cheated on me, and I removed myself from my normal group of friends in order to get over him, and as all our friends were friends, that meant finding new people to hang out with in new locations.

So I ended up in another town, going to a gay-friendly bar for a few drinks with a gay girl I worked with. What started as one night out to get me away from my home town turned into two or three nights out, and then, to my surprise (as much as everyone else’s when they found out), I saw this stunning blonde girl who just caught my eye.

Now obviously, as a straight girl, I wasn’t aware of the significance of this, or even why she caught my eye. But I couldn’t stop thinking about her…however being as shy as I was back then I decided that I wanted to contact her but it would need to be indirectly. I don’t even remember why I decided to contact her, or even where I was going with this, and what I wanted out of it, but for some reason I was compelled to contact her, so I did.

I set about getting her phone number and I started to text her via ICQ (life before Facebook!) and she became my first girlfriend and fast forward a few years and I’ve never looked back. 

The point I’m making is, if that boy hadn’t cheated on me, I wouldn’t have been in that bar, I wouldn’t have seen that girl, I wouldn’t have realised I was gay (that just doesn’t bear thinking about) and I wouldn’t have got to where I am today. You get the idea.

I’m definitely not saying  there hasn’t been bad times or questionable relationships, but all in all it’s good, I survived, I’ve come out stronger from the bad and happier from the good… I don’t regret that I was once ‘straight’ – regretting yesterday or tomorrow means regretting your life; who you are; where you are; and what you do. So build on the experience, love life and grab it with both hands.