BHaB (Part 2): "Heavenly Creatures"
***
Nine years and nine months later
...
May 30th, 2:37 p.m.
The bell rang.
After all of her students had left, Ms. Greentree took a few moments to hang out in her classroom by herself, as she usually did once school let out. She swung her feet up on the desk and flipped through a few test papers and homework assignments. She shut her eyes and smiled.
And they think THEY love Fridays
, she thought.
She taught eighth grade health. The course material in this part of the curriculum dealt with subjects addressed at kids who were growing up and entering their teen years, and the kids thought a great deal of it was highly amusing. Most of them were perceptive enough to know that essentially, they were learning about sex, which they found quite entertaining. Especially the illustrations and photographs in the textbook. Before and after classes there were large pockets of giggling from students crowding around each other with their textbooks, pointing and snickering.
Ms. Greentree was teaching the health class now as a result of digging deep within herself to find out what she really wanted to do in her life. It was, basically, as the kids presumed, human sexuality class, cleverly disguised as "health," so as not to incur concern from parents. She didn't know if they talked about this with their parents. She could ask and they could say they did or they didn't, but they could be pretty inscrutable; who knew for sure if they were telling the truth. All Ms. Greentree knew was, when she was these kids' age, she was actually incredibly
un
comfortable learning about this, from her parents or teachers. She couldn't make eye contact discussing it, she became a little red in the cheeks and she idly put her hand over some part of her face just for a distraction. She
wanted
to put her hands over her ears and sing so she couldn't hear it at all.
The fact was, the first two decades of her life were spent in avoidance of sex. She didn't get it—in the sense of understanding it, that was to say—and she frankly just didn't want to. It made her squeamish. She familiarized herself with her body developing and the changes happening to her, but that was about as far as it went. Somehow, the whole idea seemed like it should be secret...almost forbidden, even. She didn't know why she perceived it this way, but upon learning about it, she questioned whether she
should
be learning about it. It seemed too adult and sophisticated for her. She thought for whatever reason she was too young to know about it. She thought she was too young to know about it up to the age of 20.
That was, until just a short time later.
Almost one full decade ago, something happened to her. She had undergone a terrible, traumatic incident which she kept buried in the recesses of her memory. No one ever knew it happened; she was too frightened to talk about it. And while it temporarily scarred her, it also very much opened her eyes. And she suddenly found herself very curious about such subjects which previously struck her as taboo. Out of nowhere, she
did
begin asking her folks things about sex. Questions which would've made the younger version of her jump up and run from the room peeing herself. She talked to her college "health" class professor about it. She talked to classmates about it. And when she wasn't talking about it, she was reading about it. She couldn't believe how intriguing it became to her after eight plus years of pubescent non-interest. As she advanced through her college career towards graduation, her fascination never decreased or wore off. Though she'd originally chosen a different major, she found she enjoyed gleaning knowledge on this so much, she decided she wanted to teach it. And now at 30, she knew just about everything there was to know.
The terrifying incident she experienced also taught her something else about herself: that she was gay. Prior to that point, she didn't think one way or the other about it. And she didn't realize it either until a year or two after the incident. When she was a teenager, she'd sit around school with some girl friends, and occasionally when a boy walked by, her friends would let out little whistles and giggle and whisper suggestive things to each other. She...didn't get it. And years later, grown up, in a group of college women friends, again out and about together, when they'd comment on a good-looking man to each other, she...
still
didn't get it.
What's so fascinating?
she was wondering.
They're just like us, only with one or two different body parts
.
Conversely, when
she
would eventually see something that caught
her
interest—like a nice rack on a cute young lady, for instance—and pointed it out to her friends, she was met with blank, confused stares. For some reason she didn't know, she was different from them. And she didn't see too many other girls around that were like she was, either. She thought,
SHOULD I be attracted to boys?
It didn't feel right. She just wasn't. She was attracted to other girls!
Why do all my friends like guys, but I don't? Why do I like girls instead?
I
'm a girl! Aren't I supposed to b—...is there something wrong with me?
she wondered for a long time.
Another year or two passed, she learned a few things, and the merciful truth descended upon her. She was simply gay. And that was it. And there
wasn't
anything wrong with her, she was happy to understand. She wasn't wired 'incorrectly,' just differently from her galpals. It was the part of her upbringing being exposed to nothing but hetero-relationships that placed the doubts in her mind. But after some realization, she was faced with another scary question:
Are my friends and family going to think I'm weird when I tell them this?
With her naïve mind, she had just newly discovered the concept of being gay—what she didn't know was that her peers were already well ahead of her with this knowledge. Unbeknownst to her, they were practically just waiting for her to discover it for herself and announce it for them. And much to her surprise, relief and delight, once she found herself inside and cautiously pried open its door, her friends and loved ones were standing right outside her proverbial closet with flowers, smiles and open arms.
More time went by, she learned more and more about herself and her identity, and she met other gay people. She didn't find a whole lot of them around, but she figured out they tended to hang out and buddy up together at their own clubs and bars and places. Not exactly her favorite milieu, but she made some new friends. After which she was startled and alarmed to be told by (not all but certain) other gay people that upon their coming out, a percentage of
their
loved ones were
not
exactly waiting with smiles and open arms. She couldn't understand. She thought,
Well, we didn't do anything wrong by just...being born, and...growing up, did we? Why woul—
...
But yet a few more years went by, bringing her 20s to a close, and she came to realize it was just the nature of the human race. Some people were simply nicer about certain things than others. And that was just the way it was. There were also lots of other things that some folks didn't wish to accept or acknowledge, but they too were real, in legitimate existence, and nothing would ever change that either. So, she decided not to let it bother her. She finished college, got her degree, went into teaching, and while out shopping one day, met a
