Isaac in kindergarten, Thomas in second grade, and Angelo in seventh grade, all boys I had crushes on. And then came J. in eighth grade, a girl. She was in my home economics class at the end of the day. Butterflies would fill my stomach and red would color my cheeks when I saw her. Even away from her I would be nervous, not because I was thinking of her, but because I had never had a crush on a girl before. Discovering I was a lesbian was exhilarating… and terrifying.
When I first thought I might be gay it was because of Spotify. I had seen videos online discussing a singer called girl in red. By reading the comments under the video I discovered that girl in red was a lesbian singer and that asking someone “Do you listen to girl in red?” was really asking “Are you gay?” This discovery made my heart race, but I wasn’t fully convinced that I was gay yet. Spotify made seven personalized playlists for you called Daily Mixes and Daily Mix #1 was comprised of the songs that they thought you would like the best. I told myself that if girl in red appeared in my Daily Mix #1 that I would accept the fact that I liked girls. Sure enough, her songs showed up in my personalized playlist within a few short weeks. I listened to her songs: “girls,” “we fell in love in october,” and “i wanna be your girlfriend,” each one was a girl singing about liking other girls. A girl like me. I sat in my room listening to these songs as quietly as they could go. A rush of emotions came over me; relief, fear, hope, joy, pain. It was overwhelming, but also one of the most extraordinary things that has ever happened to me. I finally knew who I was.
It was around this same time that I started having a crush on J. At first I didn’t understand what I was feeling for her, I thought I just really wanted to be her friend. Slowly, I came to know what the feeling was: a crush. I had never had a crush like her before. All my past crushes had been on boys, they weren’t genuine. I finally understood what the other girls in my grade felt when they had a crush. I just felt it for girls. I still do.
The girl in eighth grade sitting on her bedroom floor listening to lesbian songs in private could never imagine the woman she would become. A woman that isn’t afraid to show who she is in front of the whole world. If she saw me now she would be filled with one thing: pride.
Praise: I love how much you explain your internal thoughts and specific moments and how you felt about them because it is very effective to the reader to understand your experience.
Question: Were you scared to tell people about being gay when you found out?
Polish: I think the part about the spotify songs gets a little bit wordy and confusing so it might be good to polish that part a little bit.
Praise: I love how open you are!! I think a lot of what you’ve written about here can be quite relatable.
Question: How did you know for sure that it was a crush?
Polish: I think the first sentence of the second paragraph is a bit wordy.
I love this whole essay – I really liked how descriptive you were in describing your inner thoughts and emotions. I especially like how the last paragraph really ties everything together.