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To All the Girls I’ve Loved... Before I Knew I Could
By Ashley Caballero for ASN Lifestyle Magazine
I’m sorry to that girl in middle school that I knew had a crush on me, and I had a crush on her. I wasn’t ready to come out. I’m sorry to that girl in high school, who spent all her time at my house. I wanted to see you as a sister only, even though you were much more. I’m sorry to the girl in college that I convinced myself I was “experimenting” with. I’m sorry to all the girls from there to here that I’ve kissed, that I’ve loved, that I’ve held in my heart, and in my bed. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to open myself up to fully loving another woman. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to be who you wanted me to be.
Being bisexual, even as a female, can be pretty hard sometimes. It isn’t all about playing around at a party. Being bisexual means that you can see yourself loving people of other genders and your own, and sometimes both at the same time.
Even since my husband and I came out to each other, we’ve discovered how easy it is to fall in love with other people. Now, don’t get me wrong; we aren’t poly and could never be. I like my space too much to share it with someone else. We’ve tried. And I’ve run them all off in under a few weeks. But falling in love? Well, that’s different. James and I have both been in love with other men and other women during our marriage. And we tried so hard to keep up with other relationships, but we discovered we aren’t built for that. He’s the only one I want to see when I come home, and I’m the only one he wants to come home to.
I’m very much in love with my husband, and he’s very much in love with me. But, the truth of the matter is, that if I had been secure in my sexuality and he had been secure in his in the past, then we would probably be in very different places in life now. And that’s something to embrace. The timing of life is incredible. Despite all that has come before us, everything worked in our favor, and here we are.
That doesn’t mean that we don’t have regrets. That doesn’t mean that we wonder what could have been with other people. James is my future and my present but only a small part of my past. I have loved hard. I have lost. I have cried tears because I couldn’t make myself hold on to a woman I loved with everything inside me because I wasn’t strong enough to tell the world I was bisexual. I have let go of other men because I wasn’t secure enough in myself to admit that I didn’t know what I wanted. So I allowed myself to believe we were just “having a good time” even when he expressed he wanted more from me. More that I couldn’t give.
And I know, without a doubt, there will be others that come along that will light that familiar fire within my belly. There will be people that I will love fully and unapologetically. People that I won’t want to let go of. And maybe, just maybe, now that I’m secure with who I am and James is secure with who he is... maybe we won’t have to let go. Maybe we can be people that allow ourselves to feel love wherever and whenever we can receive it. Maybe we can be people that don’t have to operate with agendas and can just accept others, and ourselves, for who we are.
Now that I’ve realized and understood what it really means to be a bisexual woman, maybe I can set aside all my fears and anxieties and society’s ideals/morals/values and just practice love, love, love.
This article originally appeared in the January 2020 issue of ASN Lifestyle Magazine.
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