Monday, June 1, 2020

Musings on a personal milestone

                    This is really personal, but at the same time, something I want to share with the world. Tomorrow will be the second of June. Five years ago tomorrow, I walked into a skeptics meet-up in Harrisburg, PA. I honestly remember very little about the meeting, except that this one cute girl an I kept making eye contact throughout the whole thing. I was dressed about as vanilla as they come, and this girl was gothed-out to the hilt. No matter what went on, I kept trying to sneak glances at her, and much to my surprise, it seemed like she was doing the same. 

                    When the main event was over, there was coffee and snacks, and I remember hanging back doing nothing until I saw this girl go over to the coffee urn, and like a silly school girl at a dance, I clumsily made my way up to pour a cup right after her, desperately hoping she would notice me.

                    For most people, this probably seems childish and incredibly unremarkable. We all had countless moments just like this in high school or college or somewhere in our youth, right? The difference for me was that she was a woman. Here I was, a thirty-one year old woman, going mushy in the knees for another girl. What makes this remarkable, you might ask? What makes it remarkable for me is that she was a woman like no other.

                    To this point in my life, if you had asked me to describe my sexual orientation, I would have, by default, answered heterosexual. My only relationships had been with men. I went through life doing what was expected of me. Had I noticed other women before? Yes. Had I felt an attraction to females before? Yes. But everything in my life had conditioned me to believe that these were just curiosities. I was a woman, life expected me to settle down with a man. I had just gotten out of a very fulfilling but ultimately unsuccessful relationship with a man.

                    Luckily for me, this girl decided to strike up a conversation with me. We talked nervously, like teens at a high school dance awkwardly thrust together by a gang of their friends. But yet for all the nerves, the conversation just kept going. We nervously exchanged stories and pleasantries, batting our lashes and biting our lips like we were sixteen again. 

                    The room started to thin out, people began to leave, and yet we were stuck there like awkward teens. I honestly don't know what I would have done if pushed. I hope I would have taken a chance. Luckily for me, I didn't have to. The other woman asked if I wanted to get some air, to which I agreed, and we went outside and made our way to an overlook of the Susquehanna. 

                    It was then, with our cups of luke-warm cheap coffee, that we really started to talk. It was then that my weak-in-the-knees feeling transitioned into tingles in my core and butterflies in my stomach. It was then that I allowed myself to realize that I desperately desired this woman in a way I had never felt towards another human being before. Somewhere in the conversation, I realized that I desperately wanted my interactions with this woman to outlive this singular conversation that we were having above the flowing waters of a river.

                    Five years later, I can look back on that moment as one of the pivotal moments in my life. I now realize that was the moment I accepted that my sexuality didn't have to be a binary choice. It was that moment that I realized that love was not restricted to societal norms or gender-based restrictions. And five years later, I realize that was the moment that I met the love of my life.

                    I am eternally lucky to be in a position to have found my true partner in life. I can know that our love knows no boundaries of cultural expectations, but that we are simply two human beings meant to share our lives together in love and acceptance. We're still finding out new things about ourselves and each other thanks to the freedom that true trust grants. 

4 comments:

  1. I'm happy for you to have found your partner. Honestly I thought as much, seeing that the female characters in your stories often are bi-sexual. I wonder, however, what is a skeptics meet-up?

    Also, I would like to use this occasion to thank you for releasing stories that are better written and thought out than many official BT ones. I just finished Schmetzer's latest, "Shell Games", which was a waste of time and money. And frankly, the multi-parter tie-in for "MechWarrior 5" by Randall Bills was just atrocious. Your stories are crafted with so much more love. Appreciate the fan service, too. ;-)

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  2. Skeptics groups are gatherings of like-minded people whose common link is a skeptical world-view. It's not skepticism in the traditional philosophical sense, but more a modern movement for people who value science, rational thought, and critical thinking. There is a lot of crossover with other communities. I was looking for people with similar views and outlooks to myself to meet up with and network with, and at the time, it fit the bill perfectly. I was not anywhere near in touch with myself to have joined LGBTQ+ groups, and in this area, the Atheist community is small, and was even more underground at the time.

    So, getting back on track, these meetups were basically gatherings where people would geek out on science and all kinds of cool rational based things and just hang out and have a good time. And luckily for me, it was a broad enough tent that I found my love there.

    As to BattleTech fiction, I'm a junkie, pure and simple. They publish it, I'll read. I really don't know specifically why, but I've loved the universe since I was first exposed to it. The new stuff is all over the map. I'm currently reading Blaine Pardoe's new novella on the Wolf's Dragoons, and I haven't yet finished it just because it doesn't seem to grab me. A lot of the Dark Age stuff is like that. I love the possibilities of the setting, and I have even written in it, but much of what comes out just doesn't really hit the spot for me.

    My own stories usually start with the spark of a single character. My main protagonists are almost exclusively female due to my writing style. For me, I have to get into the cahracter's head, I have to role-play them in my mind, and I simply don't have the confidence in my understanding of the male mindset to be able to make a male character the spotlight of my work. I love introducing varied male characters, and I do my best with them, but I generally stick to what I am rock-solid comfortable with.

    The other thing is that my stories tend to focus on the characters lives more than the action or a major plot point. I don't want to re-write Battletech history, I want to live the life of characters within the established canon. I try to make my stories as canon-compliant as possible, telling the stories of people's lives as they go through the events that have been laid out for us.

    That said, there are themes that definitely pop up in my work often. I thrive on the idea of a woman knocked down to her lowest point and building herself up into something awesome from her own determination and will. My main characters are also big on vice. This is utterly selfish on my part, as it is just fun to explore vices and taboos that you might not ordinarily be able to in real life.

    Finally, thanks for this comment, as it has given me a great perspective on my readership. I've got most of the next installment of the Fiona story ready to go, but after reading this feedback to my personal post, I've realized the need to possibly give my audience a basic introduction to myself, and I'm working on that now.

    Thank you so much for your feedback.

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  3. I think it's a good idea to stick to protagonists of the same sex as you. I have read a great many stories and novels of male authors wrinting from a female perspective, and some were downright cringeworthy. The same applies for female authors, too. Male protagonists written by women always seem a bit "off" and often seem to have a gay streak. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it rubs me the wrong way when not executed properly.

    As for sticking to canon, that's what I like about your stories. I hate AUs (alternate universes) with a passion. After all, BT canon offers so much space, story-wise. You and Dubble_G are my favorite authors, not least because you actually know how to spell.

    To clarify: I'm from Germany, so I'm not a native English speaker at all, but even I know the difference between there, their and they're. And I know that BattleMechs are parked in hangars, not hangers. In a time where literacy seems to be on the decline, I really really appreciate that you know your English.

    Regarding the skeptics club, it's interesting to see how the differences between German and American culture can manifest themselves. Since the vast majority of the native German population are either atheist or so low-key religious that they barely ever visit a church, I guess this is just not necessary.

    One thing I wanted to mention: The new BattleTech magazine "Shrapnel" looks to be a reboot of the old BattleCorps website, and authors are encouraged to send in stories for commercial publication. Just wanted you to know. Here is more insight on that:

    https://thebattletechstate.blogspot.com/2020/05/submitting-to-shrapnel.html

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  4. Awesome, thank you so much for the feedback. I know there is a huge difference between American and european culture. Here the default assumption is one one of religion, namely the Christian one in some shape or form. It can be daunting at times, but we do our best.

    And finally, it's nice to see that people appreciate canon-compliant stuff. I'm not averse to stretching the canon where I can get away with it, but for me, part of the challenge is making my story realistic within the established canon. I've been known to go and buy the .pdf of an old sourcebook that I don't own just to read up on every little bit of the canon information on a given subject that I can. For me, it's almost like writing historical fiction, I want to get it as close to 'real' as you can be in a fictional universe.

    Thanks for all the encouragement, it helps me through all of the agonizing moments of writers block. :)

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