Chapter 23 #2
“Jeff was the first love of my life. We were young when we met, at U of T, in the fall of eighty-one.” When he named the year, a shadow seemed to pass over his eyes.
“At that point, AIDS just seemed like a rumor coming out of the States. Oh, you’re telling me gay men in San Francisco and New York are getting some mysterious ‘cancer’?
Sounds to me like ultra-conservative propaganda.
But then in eighty-two, we had the first reported case in Canada.
Jeff got sick in eighty-three, and he passed away a few months later. ”
“Oh my God,” she whispered, horrified. “Glen, I am so, so—”
He slid his hand out from under Simone’s and held it up, gently cutting her off. “I really do appreciate your sympathy, but that’s not the reason I’m sharing all this. I’m sharing this because I know what it’s like to be bisexual but to feel like you’re not ‘enough’ for your own community.”
Simone swallowed hard.
Glen returned his hand to the table, laying it next to Simone’s.
“When I lost Jeff, I thought I’d never love anyone like that again.
And for years, I didn’t. Then, in ninety-two, I met Rose at an AIDS activists’ meeting in the Village.
She was straight, but she’d lost a dear friend around the same time I lost Jeff.
When we started to fall in love… jeez, it’s hard to explain all the things I was feeling at once.
One, I felt like I was betraying Jeff by moving on with someone else; and two, I felt like I was betraying the whole community by moving on with a straight woman.
Regardless of her being this radical, outspoken ally—I still felt like I was abandoning a piece of my own identity. ”
“I get that—the identity part.” In fact, Simone got it all too well.
A strange mix of feelings came over her as she realized they’d had parallel experiences, decades apart: There was frustration, sure, but there was also this strange sense of belonging.
Like Simone was part of a queer narrative that was bigger than herself.
“But despite all that, you and Rose ended up happily married for a really long time.”
“That we did,” he said proudly.
“How?”
Glen smirked. “How did I stay in touch with my queerness while married to a straight woman for twenty-one years?”
“Yes!” she cried.
He chuckled. “Oh, Simone, there were so many ways. I mean, for starters, I chose a partner who knew and respected the fact that I was bisexual, so I never felt like I had to hide around her.”
“Right,” Simone said, nodding. She thought of Ryan schooling her mother at the performative Pride-themed brunch.
“Having queer friends was important, too—true friends, who knew my heart, so I never felt like I had to prove anything to them.” Now, Simone thought of Lucy, who’d talked her through too many identity crises to count; who’d brought her to queer karaoke night; who’d texted her nearly every day this past week, checking in.
“I found other ways to stay connected to the community, too,” Glen went on. “I volunteered, I marched, I started working in the nonprofit world.”
Simone nodded even harder, a warmth like a fire spreading in her belly.
“But,” he said, holding up his index finger, “I do want to be very clear about something. Those things were fulfilling for me, personally, but even if I hadn’t done any of them, I still would have been queer.
And my marriage to Rose still would have been queer, too.
Listen to me, Simone: Queerness isn’t about what you do, or who your friends are, or who you love.
Queerness is who you are. Which means that any relationship you’re in, Simone, will be a queer relationship, because you’re queer. ”
Tears sprang to her eyes, and her bottom lip trembled. “Glen, I might need you to repeat that to me for the rest of my life.”
He smiled. “It would be my pleasure. And speaking of relationships,” Glen went on, and here he let out a wistful sigh, “if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my sixty-three years—losing Jeff, and then Rose—it’s that nothing in the universe is more important than love.
Whether that love is romantic or platonic, what have you—what matters is that we soak in every last drop of it that we can, because we don’t know how much time we’re gonna get.
” Glen took a final sip of tea, his eyes on the cherry blossom petal.
He put down his mug and picked up the petal, twirling it between his thumb and forefinger.
Simone noticed he had that melancholy smile again.
“Rose adored cherry blossoms, and Jeff’s birthday was in April,” he mused.
“I always miss them extra this time of year.” Glen turned back to Simone, glassy-eyed.
“Thank you for the opportunity to remember them.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, wiping her own eyes. “For everything.”
They sat in silence for a minute or so, Glen thoughtfully twirling the cherry blossom, and Simone thinking about Ryan.
She’d been so down on herself this past week that she’d reverted to blaming herself for their breakup.
She’d forgotten how irrationally angry he’d been, how suffocated she’d felt by his trust issues.
She wanted to do what Glen said, to soak in every last drop of love that she could, but she also deserved a love that made her feel free.
Freedom was the whole point of being queer, was it not?
Simone and Glen hugged goodbye on the sidewalk, promising to talk soon. “Remember,” Glen said before they parted ways, “being bi isn’t about who you date—it’s who you are. And you are one of us. You hear me?”
“I hear you,” she promised.
“Loud and clear?”
“Loud and clear.”
She was walking back to her car when Glen called her name, and she turned around.
“One more thing!” he said, hurrying over.
“I forget if I mentioned it, but one of the things we do at Loving Minds is facilitate free support groups for different subsets of the community. We do one for people under the bisexual and pansexual umbrella. You’re welcome to come check it out sometime.
It might be helpful to meet other people in the same situation. ”
Simone grinned. “I’d love that.”