Thursday, March 28, 2024

My Alternative Lifestyle: Lesbian or Thespian … Who Art Thou?

*How do you mend a broken heart after being betrayed? It’s a question that all of us struggle with at one time or another. Recently I tried not to get lost in my own grief as I listened to my best friend cry. She could barely speak.

“But Monika, she said she wanted to spend the rest of her life with me!” she sobbed. “I just bought a 400-thousand-dollar house. I don’t know who she is anymore. Was this who she was the whole time? Was she pretending to love me? Was this all an act? Who is she? I don’t deserve this!”

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I spent the next hour consoling her. I cringed at her stories of deception and denial, all the acting and pretending she’d witnessed, as I gently prodded her. “Were there any signs that she wanted something or someone else?” I listened as she spoke of her ex-partners demands for space. “I knew it was over when she started sleeping in the other room,” she confided. “She said she didn’t want to be accountable to anyone.”

I said, “Why couldn’t she just say she didn’t want the relationship anymore? Be grown enough to say it. You were so good to her. See, this is how women end up on Snapped or Lifetime!”

“I think she’s seeing a man,” she blurted. I was floored, then asked her why had she come to that conclusion. She said, “She started drinking a lot. I know her. She had to get drunk to do something that she was not comfortable doing. She kept saying she was at happy hour with her friends. Ain’t nobody at happy hour until three o’clock in the morning on a weeknight! Another woman would not put up with that. But a man who knows she’s cheating on her girlfriend would.” My heart ached for my friend, but also for myself as a familiar sadness consumed me.

The anguish of my own separation resurfaced. I was ashamed to admit I’d been grieving alone. Emotionally, my ex-partner had left the relationship long before we called it quits. I thought of how I had given her the benefit of the doubt. I fooled myself into thinking she would love me enough to tell me the truth even if it broke my heart. I questioned my own judgment. Did I overlook the red flags? What did I miss? I concluded that I had not missed anything. When you spend a decade of your life with someone, you know them almost better than yourself.

I’ve had three major relationships in my life and they all ended with a common denominator: Me. I thought of how I kept falling in love with women who were in the closet or wanted to lead “private” lives. For the sake of love, I allowed myself to be unacknowledged and hidden. I was playing a role in my own life, and it wasn’t the lead. As a result, I lost myself. I was humiliated at having sacrificed my self-worth. The memories of denial and deception in my own relationships came flooding back. With the most recent and devastating separation, I wasn’t the last to know, I was the first. I felt it, deep down inside, before I saw it. I remember feeling like an afterthought whenever her “friend” was around. My heart sank when I saw an excitement in her eyes when the “friend” showed up that was once only reserved for me.

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I am in awe of how God will show you things that you are unwilling to see. One day, while we were still together, my ex asked me to pay a bill. I checked the balance and transactions before paying it. I felt sick to my stomach when I discovered the last transaction she’d made. Based on the vendor and the amount, someone had received a beautiful floral arrangement … and that someone wasn’t me. I knew the arrangement was beautiful because I remember what she used to send me.

I scolded myself for clinging to hope until the very end. I knew I had to leave with grace and dignity. My heart was broken but I refused to allow my spirit to be broken. The words played over and over in my head. Love me enough to tell me the truth. Love me enough, damn it! Please … love me enough. My voice quivered as I asked her, “Are you seeing someone?” I was taken aback when she lashed out with anger. “How shallow! I need space!”

In response, I made a simple request. “Bae, if you ever want to be with someone else, please love and respect me enough to tell me. Don’t do me dirty. I would be devastated, but having you betray me will hurt more. It’s not what you do but how you do it,” I told her.

I thought we could withstand anything. I foolishly believed that above anything else, we had a friendship based on integrity, on being real. In this case, I was wrong. The pain is overwhelming when your best friend and lover can no longer look you in the eyes. I remembered how we would laugh nervously as we rehashed horror stories of friends and their break-ups. I tried to shake those thoughts and suspicions from my head but they had become my reality.

I turned to my sister for strength and she reminded me of who I truly am. She said, “You’re the same person you’ve always been. If the little girl you were at 13 – who came out to the world without any role models – if that little girl knew the woman you are today, you would be her role model. So, you see, you’ve become your own hero. You are the prize.”

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I smiled through my tears as I thought of the adage “lessons will be repeated until they are learned.” From this day forward, I will remember the little girl I was. She was fierce in her sense of self-awareness. I am the prize.

Now I laugh at myself as I look forward to dating again. I’m tempted to wear a sign across my chest that reads, “If you are not ‘out’ to your Mammy, your Pappy or your Pastor … do not apply for the position.”

I vow to never lose myself in someone else again.

Monika Pickett (headshot)
Monika Pickett

Monika M. Pickett is a veteran of the United States Army. Her debut novel, PRETTY BOY BLUE, is available on Amazon. Pickett is an Advocate and Activist for the LGBTQ community. For more information, please visit, www.MonikaMPickett.com. For other inquiries email [email protected]

 

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