New Queer’s Resolutions
The other night, in a moment of drunken clarity that definitely did not coincide with crying on the tube, I wrote a list called “New Queer’s Resolutions”. Like New Year’s resolutions but instead of trying not to fuck up your year, you’re trying not to fuck up your lesbianism. It hit me that after the chaos runs its course, the dust will settle and I will find a new equilibrium. Number three on the list reads “This is your life now. Own it.”
It’s coming up to a month since I admitted to myself that I’m a lesbian and ended my relationship. The dust has yet to settle; it frequently catches in my eyes. I am faced with new challenges and new realities, and it’s all surreal as fuck. Amidst the pain and the frustration, I find new foundations to build upon. My friendships strengthen, my interests expand. Bloomsbury is in bloom and maybe I am too, bright with all the colours of spring.
It has been a rough week; I have had a genuinely horrible time of late. And I have laughed with my friends and felt so loved and seen and alive. In my early days in London, I remember thinking that even the worst I’ve felt here was better than the apathy of my final years in Glasgow. This was when my problems were simple things like mouldy flats and social anxiety and figuring out how to write a literature review. I have had worse days since then, worse weeks. I spent most of March feeling like I was dying, and April showers were tears in my eyes. But I think May will be good to me.
Each month of 2025 so far has ended with a bang. The 31st of January was a catalyst, a picture I couldn’t look away from. My grandmother died on February 28th. And on the 31st of March, I finally told myself I was a lesbian. I don’t know what will happen on April 30th, but it better be good. So far on the agenda I have: go to a SSEES department event, and get coffee with my PhD supervisor. I doubt either will be life-changing, but hey, I could use a break!
The dust has yet to settle, but I can see my new life begin to take shape. Old parts of me are waking from their slumbers. The sparkly side that I thought I lost at 22 is back with a vengeance, and I’ve missed her so much. She came back when I performed in an improv show for the first time in years. She came back when I chose my own needs, my own future over anyone’s expectations of me. She rears her head again when my friend cackles at my jokes in the Lidl queue, she’s there when I paint my nails green to match my dress, she’s there when I wear dumb shoes and fall on my arse in a lesbian club. My sparkly side is dramatic and funny, a schemer and mastermind. She coordinates her outfit, and coordinates her life.
See, my sparkly side is a storyteller. I love my stories. My novels, my blogs, my gossip, my rambling voice notes and essay-length messages. I am a storyteller, and that is the crux of my being. But I have a love-hate relationship with writing, with communication in general. Writing is like breathing to me, but I often forget to breathe.
I’m telling new stories now, and I feel like the main character for the first time in years. All I want to do is talk. I changed overnight from a relatively quiet, reserved woman into someone who cannot shut the fuck up. I love talking, I love writing, I love having something to say. Sometimes I think my brain is built entirely on anecdotes. Everything is narrative to me. A poorly written first draft, sure, but narrative nonetheless.
Owning my life means paying attention to the stories I want to tell, and plotting accordingly. I am both protagonist and narrator, dramatic and observant. I spent so many years of my life waiting around for *something* to happen. I’ve found my something. I’m finally in the right story. That doesn’t mean I plan to go and date women after a month of being single. That’s a more distant future. Right now, lesbianism, for me, means freedom. It means living life on my own terms, without conforming to heteropatriarchal timelines and expectations. Lesbianism means I belong to myself first and foremost. Lesbianism means I don’t have to compromise fundamental parts of my personality because I’m too loud or bold or ambitious for men. I have spent so much of my adult life trying to make myself as small as possible, crushed beneath the weight of who society expected me to be. I didn’t know I wasn’t being my authentic self.
My authentic self is my writer self, my storyteller self. Sparkling and vibrant and incapable of shutting up. All I have wanted to do for the past month is talk. Yet I spent the first couple of weeks of that time in solitude. When I came face to face with the biggest question of my life, I was alone. My friends were strewn across the world, at the far end of a phone but not physically present. My loneliness was a vast mountain standing before me, and I held dynamite in one hand and a compass in the other. So I blew up my life, eradicated any ounce of certainty I once held. All that remained was a feeling of being utterly lost, and the knowledge that I would find my way out.
Loneliness was a necessary part of this journey. It forced me to act. I often say that leaving Glasgow cured my depression. Well, it turns out being a lesbian cured my anxiety. Follow along for more mental health hacks! All the daily insecurities, the persistent fears that people secretly hate me, stopped mattering. I needed the people around me more than I needed my anxiety. So I pushed through the discomfort. I am still pushing through it. I say yes to every invitation; I try new things and meet new people. I let my world expand.
Make no mistake, this entire situation has been brutal. My life finds new ways to implode on a near-daily basis. I am so fragile right now. Yet within that fragility there is a profound sense of clarity. I see myself and my life for what it actually is. I have immense hope in what is yet to come. There are so many challenges ahead, and I know I can face them. I am so grateful for all my friends who have supported me throughout this surreal time in my life. I am grateful for my old friends, who have held my hand across land and sea through phone calls and voice notes. I am absurdly grateful for my London friends. I am grateful to the people who recognised my need for friendship, who weren’t fazed by me speed-running emotional intimacy and relying on them more than I ever had before. I’m grateful for every coffee and lunch and ice cream in the park, grateful for every conversation and every hug. I am grateful to have found people who care for me. I’m grateful that I ignored all the voices in my head telling me that these people didn’t like me, when they have become the thing keeping me sane. All I want in the world these days is for someone to give me a big hug, and to sit in the sunshine together and talk. All I want is to be heard and held, and I am beyond grateful each time someone sees through me and sees what I need.
I don’t know what my new story looks like, but I know who my favourite characters are.