Seven years ago, I met a wonderful young man who I consider to be one of my best friends. He slowly became more than family to me and I fell so deeply in love with him. Mark is kind, loving, and pure. From living together to being engaged and getting married whilst in the middle of the pandemic, we shared beautiful years together that I will never throw away.
I have spent the best days of my life with him which I will always treasure. We’ve had the most amazing adventures and stories I will continue to share. He’s the perfect man, partner, and husband one can ever have. I will always be grateful for every single day I've been with him and every memory we've created together.
Even though it looked perfect and we were happy, I knew there was something about myself that I wasn’t being completely honest about. It killed me everyday knowing I had to bury this truth. I knew I was living for other people. I thought that this "normal" life was supposed to make me happy. Having reached the peak of my career in music, I was getting ready to make a shift to being an innovator while being married to the perfect man. Any outsider would think that I'm living a fairy tale.
As much as Mark was the perfect husband, I was never going to be the perfect wife. Because I knew deep down in my soul that I wasn’t being who I really am. There were many days I questioned and hated myself, “Why am I like this?”, “What's wrong with me?”, “This is a mistake!” Then, I’d choose to wear my mask and continue to hide who I truly am.
I'm still attracted to women. No matter how much I tried not to. Coming to terms with this realization took a long time with lots of sleepless nights, solitary struggles, and silent tears in between.
But life is too short, to be wearing different masks, to try to be who we are not, and to be with someone who we do not deserve. Things change over time, evolution is as certain to us as gravity and death. My relationship with Mark has evolved into something deeper and more accepting. He has shown me what unconditional love is and what true unwavering commitment looks like. Happiness and pain are part of our growth. We both went through it together with tears and silent nods that only the two of us understood. There is nothing more beautiful in life than to experience both pain and peace while rising above it.
"In the grand scheme of things, I want to be the only person who can tell my story with complete authenticity."
I am going through a condition that I have had for years ever since I was 15 years old, and I’ve been very blessed to be given a third life. These are visible with the amount of battle scars I have on my body. I wear them with honor and PRIDE because not everyone can survive what I have gone through, and what I continue to go through everyday.
I have always fought hard to live. I have always stayed alive to serve and to love. All my life, I have fought for what I wanted to be and have been shamed for it. I have had to fight for myself, redeem myself, and prove that I was meant to do everything I am doing, have done, and about to do.
I have always chased my dreams, aspirations and goals because they were always beyond my wildest imagination. But I always made sure to run after them. I tried to reach it with every ounce of my strength even if it meant chasing, running, walking, and crawling till my hands and feet bled—all because I knew I am meant to do GREAT things.
But I no longer want to run away from who I really am. In the grand scheme of things, I want to be the only person who can tell my story with complete authenticity. I'm coming out and I’m destroying all the masks I used to wear just to make others accept me, respect me, acknowledge me, or love me. I’m no longer sorry for who I truly am, a bisexual woman. I'm no longer ashamed of what I want, and who I will eventually fall in love with again.
In this journey we all call life, we are always in the process of working on ourselves, and just when we think we know who we are, I've learned that we should never stop this process of discovery. Because it’s okay to be a work of art and a work in progress simultaneously. We all have different ways of processing things and we all have varying sets of priorities that may change over the course of time for several reasons. But we must never stop searching and looking deep within us. It is in the constant process of discovery that we are led closer to the truth about ourselves. In the midst of it all, there’s one thing that we can always come back to—LOVE—the steady anchor that holds us when our situations get a bit out of hand, chaotic, and confusing. The one that keeps us breathing and fighting to live another day. Love is a force that binds us together. It breaks down barriers and builds lasting bridges. Knowing that we are loved, keeps us from falling apart. After all, love is ultimately what we are made of - and love always wins.
