Still Here, Still Queer.

On Pride, feeling blah, and what if I'm the one I've been waiting for?

do these rainbow sequins make me look gay?

Pride is hitting different this year.

It’s Monday morning, and I’m at home in Charleston, SC, sipping my morning latte scrolling through Instagram. Last night was the final night of the Spoleto Festival — a preeminent 17-day performing arts festival here in Charleston. It hosts hundreds of performances spanning ballet, theatre, dance, and musicians. Notably, last night: Brandi Carlile.

If you don’t know Brandi, start here, but she is a massive lesbian icon. I was introduced to her through one of my best friends (hi, Caroline) who has a knack for finding ‘the it thing’ way before it hits: Le Labo Santal 33? First to wear the human catnip. Golden Goose sneakers? Rocking them way before they were co-opted by rich women in sundresses. Brandi Carlile? She’s basically been an acolyte from day one. Which is how I found myself experiencing Brandi years ago at the magical backdrop of Red Rocks in Colorado. Folk rock has never been my preferred style of music, but after hours of watching this magical being perform, I was converted. It was a religious experience.

Now this is where you’ll have to fill in the blanks, because I’ll never share details about my separation and divorce — only musing about myself and what I’ve learned from it, but just like the sundress ladies absorbed Golden Goose sneakers, Brandi swiftly belonged to someone else.

Bring it back to today — me scrolling on Instagram where apparently all of Charleston attended the Brandi concert under an idyllic canopy of live oaks with captions like, “Top 10 musical experience of my life.” Of course all my queer friends were there, which left me with major fomo and a case of feeling like a bad gay.

Lest you forget, you’re in my haunted haus, and yes — even famous singers can attract ghosts, and in true Ghostbusters form — I didn’t want to show up and get slimed.

I open with this vague-ass anecdote as it sums up my entire mood around Pride this year: like I’m missing out. It’s hard to shake your rainbow tail feather when love doesn’t feel like love anymore. I’ve fought for marriage equality (and always will) but find myself fighting harder against the urge to tell people to run in the opposite direction. That love might be love, but marriage is a contract with the state.

Yet outside of marriage, this is the month for my queer family to be SEEN. Visibility has always been wildly important, and normally I thrive off of it all: the public display of affection, the candid videos of people claiming their sexuality, sharing their stories, and yes — the glorious celebration of it all.

But this year I just feel — blah. Normally seeing two women loving on each other would evoke the warm bubbly-tingly feelings. It used to be tied to my feeling of how lucky I was. That I too had that kind of love! And yup, I’d post beautiful photos of us every year, to which people would double tap and fill the comment section with colorful heart emojis. But this year I’ve been dolefully silent — well, I posted a Pride reading list (which is really good, btw), but it seems I don’t know how to celebrate my queerness without a wife. How do I embrace my queerness as a single woman? Post a picture of me dripping in rainbow sequins, with a simple caption like, “Yup, still here, still queer.”

My queerness feels so quiet now that I’m single and actively not looking. I might have a cunty little purple bob and a swath of tattoos, but I’m still straight-passing. I worry that people will think my queerness was a phase (turns out men were), but also — why am I worrying about what label people want to smack on me? Maybe it’s because I still want other women to find me attractive or desirable on what (currently) feels like the off chance I’ll ever want to date again.

Which leads me to the ultimate point of today’s article: I can still be queer and single. People keep telling me something better is out there. That someone better is waiting for me. And while that may be true, and I appreciate the supportive words, what if I am that wonderful someone who has been waiting for me? What if being single by choice is the most empowered choice I’ve ever made?

Is it possible to normalize a world in which people are deeply fulfilled without romantic love? No longer feeding off the old fairytale of ‘someday my prince/ss will come’? I’m embarrassed to write this, but I remember the crack of dreadful lightning that filled my heart the second I decided no more.

I will be a double divorcée in her mid forties who’ll never find love again.

As it turns out, I AM a double divorcée in her mid forties, but will I find love again? Turns out, I already have. For the first time in my life, I’ve chosen to date me. To give myself all the time I need to restore my central nervous system. To fall in love with myself and understand what truly lights me up. I choose myself — and that my friends, is a modern-day fairytale.

Oh, and I’m still here, still queer.

PS. You know where we are actively celebrating Pride? At Haus of Phoenix! And we have a June special so you can join the party. Hope to see you on that mat!