First off, I would like to start by saying I love you. Out of all of my characteristics and identities, you are the one that I am most proud of. Despite the confusing, messy, difficult journey that we've been on together, I wouldn't change it for the world. That being said, I want to take this time to apologize for pushing you away for so long and not acknowledging your so obvious existence.

I apologize that I was so extremely embarrassed and almost repulsed by you for the longest time and majority of my childhood and young teenage years. From my perspective, I wanted to believe that ignorance is bliss and if I kept you in the dark depths of the back of my brain for long enough, that you would eventually just disappear and I would be just like everybody else.

In that moment (or multiple rather), I have never been more wrong. To my surprise, (as a young teen/early high schooler) this was not the case. I started to think about you more and more and almost became consumed in the idea of you. Are you normal? Can people actually live full happy lives in a homosexual relationship? These were thoughts that flooded my brain over and over again. The answer is yes. Absolutely yes.

As I became older and social media began to play a bigger role in figuring out and learning about the LGBTQA+ community, I became more comfortable with you. I honestly could not tell you how many "Coming Out" videos on YouTube I had watched. I was thinking about you all the time. Every minute of every day was me trying to imagine scenarios in my head of me coming out to various people. Even though I would do this, I was still mortified to open up to people about you because I never knew how people would react and there is always that fear of losing people because of you.

It is a terrifying thought, but after a while, you stop caring what people will think. It is truly exhausting worrying about what each individual person will think when you come out to them. However, I started developing a much thicker skin when coming out to people and trying to take every reaction with a grain of salt. As time went on, slowly, I was becoming more accepting and loving towards you. After a while of being comfortable and trying to become engaged in a community that I felt so accepted and loved in, I just wanted to tell the world about you, shout it from the rooftops. I wanted everyone to know how proud and happy was to be blessed to have you apart of my life and the beautiful people you brought into it as well. So again, from the bottom of my heart, I am so truly sorry for all of the years that i didn't understand and did not want to acknowledge your existence and the happiness i would encompass by doing just that.