I Have a Secret

by Goldie Cameron

I have a secret.

Worst part is my friends knew this secret before I even did.

Albeit not a well kept one a secret that remains within my mind. Hell, I made a yik yak about it and told just about everyone I bump into.

I have a crush on a GIRL!

While not inherently profound initially, something about the whimsical experience of it dawned on me just last night.

Having a crush, isn’t something I have often, a rarity if you will

I met a girl (I know right?) in a call with some friends from back home, about three weeks ago.

New people! I love that, if you know me, you’d know that I’ll introduce myself to just about anyone I bump into and this is just another one of those cases. I was simultaneously meeting a few others, and from the moment I met them all I adored their company, I knew that I would be looking forward to this.

Something about this was, well, new. It wasn’t immediate, not like before. Whether it's the hormonal changes in my body since the last time this happened, or simply me being actually comfortable in my skin, unknown to myself (but INCREDIBLY apparent to two of my friends) It seems I had begun to develop a crush.

I’m silly so of course I didn’t know this, but apparently I began to talk about them,,, like a lot. Unrelated conversations BLAM random snippets about something about them I enjoyed. I would suddenly pipe up and say something about them, and eventually just when it came to the way I expressed myself toward her, it was “obvious”.

Being an “open book of a human” according to my dear friend Katie, I was very clearly head over heels for this girl.

Like I said before it wasn’t, immediate. It's a lot of little things that piled into the unbelievably embarrassing crush I now have. I mean they weren’t wrong, there were just a lot of things to admire about her. I love her laugh, and she’s really funny and smart. God she’s so silly.

But… there felt like something that was, well, different.

I have had crushes before, but for some reason this was different. I felt like me.

I wasn’t just crushing on a girl, I was comfortable enough with myself to not be ashamed by it.

Maybe, this crush isn’t my secret. I mean, it would be laughable if it was! I’m pretty sure even she knows at this point. Not to mention half of everyone I know.

I started to realize, this was the first time I had allowed myself to be vulnerable, the first time I had felt comfortable enough being me to let myself be, well, who I am.

I was unapologetically gushy, and all the people around me, well, they treated me like it was a normal thing to be. Just silly and in love. But, why was that so… meaningful to me at this moment? Why were the conversations different?

And then, I started to realize. I was me, I was thinking of myself for who I am, rather than a pretender. I had never done that before.

Growing up I had always been so caught up in confusion about why I was so bad at being a boy. I really wasn’t good at it. I didn’t like doing the things the “other men” did, and struggled deeply with the idea that I was just wrong.

I kept racking my brain to figure it out. What has changed? And then I realized.

I wasn’t “a boy” before at all, I was just pretending. I had realized that subconsciously, I was treating myself differently.

I am unbelievably blessed to be treated by others, as who I am. And I never “wanted to be something else” , that's just who I am. But I now feel blessed to be able to treat myself that way too.

So truly, I do have a secret. Or did.

And it might not seem so secret to you, but for the longest most confusing time, it was one to me.

I am a girl.