Page 20 - The Bridge Vol 17_pgs

The Bridge

on the team shut me out and talked about me behind my back. I even received a note in my bat bag that
stated, “You don’t belong on the team because you are a dyke.”
Amanda, the girl on the team that I liked, started to wear make-up to practice and flirt with the
baseball boys in front of me after she learned that I liked her. One practice we both arrived early, before
other members of the team showed up, and for a split second we were alone. I wanted to say something
to her. I wanted to burst out in rage. I wanted to ask her why she would hurt me. But fear held me back,
and soon after, a kid she knew who played baseball walked by. She ran up to him—away from me—and
basically jumped on him. Maybe it was best that I didn’t get the chance to say anything to her, or maybe
I would have gotten the answers I needed.
Four years later, in 2016, Amanda came out as bisexual. It would be easy for me to hate Amanda,
but honestly, I don’t. Through learning that I liked her, I assume Amanda feared that she exhibited

“Button-ups have

control over their identity,
while many times
I have not.”

a code that made the concrete wall she built around her identity more translucent. She needed to draw
the curtain—to create a distraction from her queerness that she feared was becoming more and more
noticeable. I, unfortunately, was that distraction. That scapegoat. We both did not have any control
over our sexuality, we just handled it in different ways.
Today, I identify as a twenty-two-year-old lesbian with a gender of I-have-no-idea. I always tell
people that my “pronouns” are “she, her, and hers,” but there are more days than not where I do not
think they fit. A cliché thing that is always said about college is that it’s a fresh slate. You’re able to take
control and ownership of who you are without the judgement of those from the past. This in many ways
is true, but what if you’ve never had any experience, at all, with being who you are?
Going to classes, working two jobs, and taking care of my parents after they got divorced (not the
other way around) has made it hard for me to even think about finding myself. Relationships have
been hard to come by, however, I have been on a couple of dates. Most of them involved getting food,
making out in movie theaters, and getting high. They were fun while they lasted but, ultimately, they
did not work out.
Overall, college has been one giant learning experience that has not ended yet. I am still on the
quest of discovering who I am, constantly experimenting, failing, and trying again. Constantly finding
myself through clothes. It has been hard attempting to construct, from scratch, my sexuality and

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