Well I always knew there was something different about me , even when I was a young girl. I mean I'm not that old now, I'm only 23. But like I was saying, I've always had an interest in females but I knew that this was not acceptable by society or by my family. There I never really acted upon this attraction in my younger years. I suppressed my feelings for awhile and did what I thought was right.

Right?

I dated Men

Nope. I dated a young man that I will call "Sly", for the last three years of high school and sometime afterwards. This was my second relationship with a boy. Well Sly and I went through a lot together, a lot of ups and plenty of downs. But through it all we stayed together, mainly because I thought that he was who I was going to be with for the rest of my life. Totally disregarding all feelings for the same sex. I knew that a homosexual relationship is what I wanted all along but where was I going to find the nerves?

I even prayed

Sly and I talked about these feelings, and we even prayed about it but I don't think that those prayers were sincere at the time. Well I won't say that much because I was definitely trying not to act on those impulses of physical attraction to women but somewhere along the line I gave in and never looked back.

I was saving myself for her

Sly was understanding in the beginning and willing to let me "find myself", but that's what I had done, found myself.

This was me and I was going to me. Or so I thought. I had never been sexually active with Sly, we were saving ourselves for marriage. That's what we said but I was saving myself for "her". Wherever she was.
An older female approached me and that was my first relationship with a female. It wasn't much to talk to about but it opened me up the lifestyle that I knew I wanted to live. I was 18 and she was 32. Wow, is what I was thinking. But she turned out to be more than what I bargained for. Lets just say that she was way too experienced for me and a lot of things that she could probably teach me was things that I need not know. So that relationship lasted for a year or so. When the relationship ended I was left feeling lonely and very vulnerable.

I date an older woman

Shortly after that breakup, I met another older female and we began dating. She was 35 and I was 20 and I'll call her "M". The thing is this "M" was married with kids and never supposedly had a lesbian relationship. So we began seeing each other a lot, a whole lot, like everyday all day whenever possible. She was not very accepting of her relationship with me and not secure with her sexuality. She said that she was not gay or bi and that she just likes to be giving oral sex, no matter who is doing it. So I didn't really stress it and we carried on like this for three years.
We did a lot together and she kind of like isolated me from my family ,mainly because she tried to occupy all of my time. She took care of me like I was her child, and that's what she wanted to do, because she told me that I shouldn't have to ask my parents for anything and I didn't. But we did not display ourselves as a couple. With all that said and done, she was just trying to buy my love because she didn't know how to give it. Remember she is not gay and not attracted to females, its just a sexual thing. Like a fool I fell for this and became dependant on this woman.

I sleep with other women

In order for me to feel loved and to get the attention that I needed from a woman, I dated and slept with other females. So while in this relationship with "M", I dated four other women at the same time. Until I found the one person that made me complete and I found everything that I was looking for in her. I'll call her "Z".

I come out to my parents

So to make the story a little shorter, things got a little ugly when I tried to pull away from my keeper("M"). She was not too happy with my findings of a new love. So in the process , I had to let my parents know what was really going with their baby girl. Because during all of this dating and seeing these different women, I never came out to my parents or friends for that matter. I was surprised at how my parents, family and friends accepted me. It took some time for my mother to come around but she finally did and it felt good to have her back in my entire life and not just only certain aspects of it.

So that brings me to the present day. It has been a year, "Z" and I live together, along with her two children. We have our moments but we are very much in love and willing to weather the storms of love. She is the love of my life and I can show that to the world without any shame.

--Aolani, Columbia, SC