And on a completely unrelated note, is "Megling" a reference to A Wrinkle in Time? I have a deep and abiding love for that whole series.

I'm just starting at my screen unable to think anything but IT'S NOT JUST ME over and over. I so completely get you.

This is exactly why we need more representation of queer affection for younger aged people! If I had seen it, known it was a beautiful possibility when I was a child, it would have changed the entire trajectory of my life.

"There are many of us who are living a life that's not so bad a life...it's just not...living. Living right?"

That's exactly it. And thank you. I was afraid to say anything here, because I'm not sure how this community would respond to someone who is keeping their essential self hidden. I was afraid of being told I wasn't welcome, or didn't belong. And stories like this are why I need The Toast- because I can read about experiences shared (like this article) and experiences that, had I looked into myself sooner, I might have shared. And both speak to the deepest part of me.

Joy and regret, all twisted together. Places like The Toast help immeasurably.

There's also the fierce determination that my kids will always know they're free to be true to their own selves, with the complete and total love & support of their parents.

It's the only line I remember from Toni Morrison's 'Beloved.'

"I did not say it was love because I was young and I thought some friendships just ached like that. I would say it now, because I know how to call love by its right name."

I wish I had found The Toast, and the community, back in college. I grew up so strictly religious that I didn't even consider looking who I was in the face until I was married to a very nice man, with babies.

The few times I was caught vaguely leaning outside my boundaries I was jerked back . I made a giant poster collage on my dorm room wall freshman year of women, beautiful women that I cut out of magazines. I didn't even consider why I was doing it, and before I could really begin TO consider it, mom came by for a visit, and gave me that look and asked what it was, and I took it down and pushed that part of me back back BACK again. I first noticed in my best friend because at a party she had another woman's head in her lap while watching a movie, with her arm draped over that friend's shoulders, and I thought it just looked so *nice,* but nothing ever happened and I realized she was straight and there are more more dozens of moments like that that I remember all my life, and it just squeezes me down into nothing.

Reading things like this, it's so beautiful and exactly right, it kills, because I'm living the life I committed to, and I just ache. And I don't know why I'm saying this buried in this comments section, but this is my favorite place online, and I feel a part of everyone here, and this article has brought me to tears, and it just needed to be said, even whispered in anonymity.