Sapphic Voices General Fiction

Lessons Learned While Falling Off The Earth

I saw her everywhere, it seemed…

There were days after school when I would walk by her classroom and her lights would be on. I’d find myself tugging on the handle ever so gently just to test whether it were locked or unlocked. After all, it could just be that the lights are on, but nobody’s home. Some days, it pulled toward me freely…others, it remained firmly in place, and even though she invited me to stop by and talk anytime, I lacked the intestinal fortitude to pull that door open and step inside. Seeing her in the corridors or at functions was one thing. It’s public domain. Our conversation at Open House? Meridith had been there, along with a few other friends. Being alone with her in a classroom is not the same, not by any stretch of the imagination. I'm not sure how composed I could be, enveloped by intimacy, be the door open or closed.

I knew what the right thing to do was: do nothing.

There I stood. 7:40 AM, outside Room 1-0-8. The door was locked. The lights were on. I knocked and she answered almost immediately. I warmly greeted her and vice-versa. We shared some witty, comical banter. And then it took me a few minutes to start because, and I told her this, I was so unaccustomed to feeling like I could just open up about personal matters, particularly those regarding being gay.

She first asked if I was in trouble. I nervously smiled and said, "Trouble? What do you mean by trouble? I mean, I'm not in trouble. I suppose I'm having troubles, just like anyone else, except...I can't just talk about these troubles with just anyone else, that's why I came to you." She smiled and laughed.

She was so refreshingly open about herself, and I think this was to alleviate my nervousness. I started by talking about my enlistment with the Reserves and she was stunned. She asked why I would do that to myself. I laughed.

She openly (to me, at the least) admitted to being with her partner for nearly nine years now. Wow, I thought to myself, well at least I know now, and now that I know that, I can stop crushing so badly. After all, there's nothing worse than having a crush on a happily partnered gay female who is nearly twenty years older than you and a teacher. Mind you, she was not my teacher, but she was a teacher...and that still counts. As soon as she said that, I relaxed a little. I'm the type of person who, when she learns someone is taken, is turned off immediately. That's why affairs completely baffle me. If they're not available, the connection just dies and I go on.

But I digress.

My military issue brought up, for her, the topic of giving back. That sense of “civic duty.” She said she went through the whole police officer thing and then found out she'd have to work nights and weekends the first one or two years, so she gave that up flat out. And she decided to go into teaching...and I just think it's sad to be there trying to be a mentor, not just a 'teacher', but trying to open up the minds of these sheltered and ignorant teenagers...the future voters, the people who are going to be voting on whether or not she has the same rights as they will have someday with their spouses, etc....and that one issue is still taboo and could easily get her fired from her job, and possibly ruin her reputation. She hated having to lie to her students...hated it. And why shouldn’t she hate it?

She said she never thought she'd live to see the door to "the closet," and yet, here she was, a first-year teacher having to change her pronouns and watch how she talks to her students in their discussions. It's hard, it's so hard. She was always used to being out and proud. She went to pride celebrations all the time, her partner was high up in Frito-Lay, PepsiCo and she participated in a wide variety many gay-oriented activities, not to mention the fact that they attended the GLAAD Media Awards together every year.

What absolutely stunned me was that she was doing so much for "our" community and then she came to work and had to say to her students, despite owning a home with a beautiful and loving wife, that she was not married. And also, and this is the clincher for me, if everyone were to know and she were to be completely open, all it takes is one a-hole girl to cry wolf and say "she looked at me funny" or "she came onto me" out of spite. Her career as a teacher would be over, her character defamed and her life devastated.

***

So naturally, her compunction when I told her about my endeavour to go into teaching was to ask me to consider such a choice very carefully. Could I handle putting myself in the closet for three years? Three years are better than eight with the Army, I say! But at the same time...she raised a couple of good points there. The whole point in wanting to be an educator is to teach the subject one is qualified to teach. But the whole point in wanting to be a mentor is to take the lessons to the next level, to the world and to the human heart and soul---especially in the humanities/fine arts courses such as English and Theatre Arts.

We joked around the subjects I really wanted to discuss, but we were still able to talk about some of the things that had been on my mind. I told her about my coming out process. We talked about the "issues" surrounding gay marriage. We agreed on so much. What was frightening now was that she was I, practically speaking.

She said she's been "out" since twenty years old. I was eighteen. Round up.
 
And then she asked how long I've been officially out and I said since I was fourteen. So yeh. You know, and all I wanted at that point was to bask in this opportunity to know a fellow lesbian who has lived so much life...and how she has been able to be so strong.


We talked a great deal about her, but I was fine with that. I truly was. I was and am so damned fascinated by her life and by her as a whole person. To be truthful, I'm more curious about her life than discussing my own. Then she told me I should go to Long Beach Pride the upcoming weekend and we got off on that tangent. And then the bell rang.

***

I ducked back into her room after school to ask for details about Pride...which, to be honest, has never really been my thing. There was another person who came into the room, and I knew she'd be coming, that's why I didn't want to stay too long, lest the pronouns begin shifting. They inevitably did, turning out to be quite a farcical spectacle, particularly the time when that other student came while we were talking about my parents’ concerns regarding my dating habits, and she said “There will be a beautiful...” followed by a brief, shift worthy pause and then, “man...in your life someday, you're just young and they probably don't think you should be looking for that, that you should be focused on college and nothing else."

But there's more, when it comes to me, surprise surprise, so I asked if I could stop by again tomorrow morning to get to the whole point of my going to talk to her in the first place. She said of course. I left, my heart spilling over with infatuation, one that was to remain forever and rightfully unrequited, but nonetheless everlasting.

In a way, I knew I was jealous of her partner...but, if I am so much like her, I said to myself as I walked away, rationalising like I usually do, then there's a great chance out there for someone just as wonderful to come into my life.

It’s as simple as saying that there are just some barriers we never crossed. I see her everywhere it seems, at the shops and in my dreams, even ten years later. I recall her every feature, particularly her smile…and I smile.

If you have enjoyed Katharyn R. King's "Lessons Learned While Falling Off The Earth", then please be certain to e-mail her at  king.kr[at]live.com  and thank her for posting this Story.

Click here for a list of all of Katharyn R. King's  Stories and Poetry at  Sapphic Voices Authoresses.

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