Women are hard to understand....

"Men often say, 'Women, who could ever understand them?'
Don't ask a lesbian for an answer.

All you'll get is a sympathetic nod."
~ Joanne Brigden

I totally get this now! Women are hard to understand. I should know, I am one. I also live with and love one. I even have one for a daughter! Had one for a mom too! I don't understand any of us much of the time.

Relationships are hard work. Especially when you can't understand the person that you are in a relationship with.

It doesn't matter if you are in a straight, gay, transgendered, Martian or somewhere in between, relationship. It is work.

HARD WORK!

You just have to figure out if it is worth it. The relationship, that is.

Of course, with my daughter (and my mom when she was alive), we are stuck together...forever...bonded! Even if I didn't love her, which I do very much, we are forever. Families are like that. At least mine is!

With my lover, people say "there is a choice". " You can always just leave". We are not married after all...nothing holding us together....right???

That scares me. I am very heterosexual in my way of thinking about this subject. I like the idea of something holding us together...but paper doesn't do that. Your heart does. I had the paper in my other life. It did not make everything "work out". My heart was not in that relationship.

BUT, my heart is in this one. I just get scared sometimes because we are not given the same rights and opportunities and chances as "normal" (ha...right) relationships are. I see people in same sex relationships walk away all the time....just walk away...and I get scared.

I am emotional. I wish I were not. So much for wishes...

My sweety is not. I don't always understand that and when she shows no emotion on a subject I am emotional about...fear kicks in...again. This frustrates her and I understand! It frustrates me as well.

I want to talk about it. She is not a talker. But, she is trying to get better at it. I am not the most patient person. I get frustrated. I hope she can understand.

I don't understand women. Myself included.

But, I love this woman. And, I want to be with her.

Always!

Yep, relationships are hard work. But if they are worth it to you, then it really shouldn't matter how hard it is.

"Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work."

~Booker T. Washington

She is worth it to me. She is my family now. We are stuck together...forever...bonded. Families are like that. At least mine is. I hope she will one day know just how true that is.

The way to her heart is pancakes....

Me and the sweety have been on a low-cal, low-fat, low-cholesterol diet for a while now. We have been doing so well but the other night while waiting on American Idol to come on, we were both craving something; and by something I mean something with calories, fat, and cholesterol!! My sweety was staring into the refrigerator longingly and I was contemplating any and every thing in the cupboards. She wanted chocolate cake of course and I wanted chips, my favorite! But we had cleaned the house of any of the things that could sabotage us...or so we thought! Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a half empty box of pancake mix!! Oh happy day!

I yelled out, "I want pancakes!" while holding the box above my head and doing a happy dance. "Yes", she cried, "pancakes!"

Then the guilt set in!

"Oh honey, we can't have pancakes. You have to go back to the doctor and i need to take care of you and ....."

"But I want pancakes now" she pouted, "you said it and you made me want it."

Well, I hate to see a grown woman pout, even tough I do it quite often, so I looked at the box to check the calorie count...not bad! I checked the cholesterol...again, not too bad...

So I said, 'Yes baby, I will fix you the pancakes!"

"Oh thank you" she said, "thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"Anything for you honey" I replied, eyeing the picture on the box hungrily.

So cook pancakes I did! I fixed a big stack of them and set them out on the plates, poured the skim milk for my sweety..she IS still watching her cholesterol after all...and served them to her with a flourish.

She took a bite of her stack of delicious, calorie laden pancakes, looked at me with love in her eyes and said, "Damn baby, I just fell in love with you all over again!"

Now isn't that romantic....

Can't I just be me?

As if coming out was not hard enough, now I hear that I should classify myself as to what type of lesbian I am. Huh? What kind of lesbian I am? Well, I am the kind that loves, lives with and sleeps with a woman! Period. Or so I thought.

While reading up on my terminology, which is a part of my sweety guided "lesbian education", I came across many different types of lesbians. Hmmmm....I knew femme (me, I thought) and dyke (my sweety claims this one)...but stone butch or chapstick lesbian...what the hell? So I set about learning. Here is what I found out:

A Baby Dyke is a young lesbian or someone who is just coming out of the closet. <-----I guess I fit here!

A Blue Jean Femme is a lesbian who identifies as femme but likes jeans and more casual clothing to dresses and skirts. <-----I think this is me!

A Bull Dyke is a very masculine lesbian. Considered offensive by some.

A Butch is a woman who adopts more masculine characteristics, mannerisms and clothing.

A Chapstick lesbian is also known as a soft butch. She usually dresses quite casually and does not wear make-up.

A Diesel Dyke is a very butch or manly lesbian, especially one who is very aggressive or drives trucks or heavy equipment.

A Dyke is another word for lesbian. Usually is only used by people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. Some consider this an offensive term. <-----My sweety says this is her!

A Femme is a feminine lesbian. <-----Could be me....

A Glamour butch is a butch who likes to wear fancy suits, tuxedos, clothing, frequently.

A Gold Star lesbian is a lesbian who has never slept with a man .

A Lipstick lesbian is a lesbian that loves her clothes and makeup and shoes. She tends to dress girly.

A Pillow Queen is someone who likes to be on the receiving end of sex. She likes to be pleasured and may not reciprocate.

A Power Dyke is a lesbian who has gained a position of power, whether within the LGBT community or in the business world. <-----This could be my sweety!

A Soft butch is a lesbian whose appearance may be androgynous. She may dress and act in a masculine manner, but be soft and more feminine in the inside. She could be someone who falls somewhere between butch and femme, but closer to the butch side.

A Sport dyke is a lesbian, who identifies as being an athlete. She may also dress like an athlete, as in baseball caps, sweatshirts and jeans.

A Stem Lesbian is a lesbian who identifies somewhere between "stud" and "femme."

A Stone butch is a lesbian who gets her pleasure from pleasing her partner. She may not like to be touched sexually. <-----This is definately NOT me!

A Stud is a dominant lesbian, usually butch.

There are many more I am sure but I am so confused now that I just can't read anymore! I don't know what I am...I don't know much of anything now. I just know that I love my sweety and she loves me, with or without a label. Shouldn't that be enough?

...and then, I fell in love...

My life turned upside down a little over a year ago when I met my sweety. I was definately NOT looking for anyone and neither was she. We met at a party and the rest, as they say, is history. The life I was leading was not a bad life. It was just a life. And then, I fell in love!

I was raised in a small Georgia town as an only child of conservative Christian parents. I was taught from an early age that "good girls" grew up, got married to the right boy, had children and stayed home. That did not feel like a fit for me but I ALWAYS did what I was told. So, I was the cheerleader with straight A's that dated the boys from good families. I graduated, got married, had children and became a teacher. I was happy with my family but always felt a little removed from my marriage. I had always been more attracted to females that to males but that was not "allowable" where I came from so I simply shoved it aside. I did all the right things, went to all the right functions and existed for my children. Then, after moving to Florida, I was at a party...

I saw her the minute I walked in. I made my way over to her and introduced myself...and I fell into her eyes. She has the most incredible eyes. I knew that my life was forever changed. We met again a few days later when she came to my house for a visit. I was so flustered that I acted like an idiot and figured that I would never see her again. She brought me a book a few days after that and much to my surprise, I asked her to kiss me before she left. That was so out of character for me. I was the proper southern belle. She was not. And here I was hitting on her!

Fast forward 17 months and here we are...the hardcore lesbian and the southern belle. We live together with our little dog, 2 BIG puppies and a cat. My life has changed in so many ways....mostly for the better...haha. I laugh a lot, cry sometimes and feel loved in ways I never even imagined. Is it easy? No, not always. Would I change it? Well, not today...not most days...but catch me after a "discussion" and I may say "OH YEA"...but, honestly, NO, I would not change it...not today, not tomorrow, not ever. I love her. Simply that!

I am writing this blog to talk about the things that I experience in day to day life now. I am learning so much about myself. I am learning how to be a lesbian...haha! It is a totally different way of life and not in the way you may be thinking. It is more than just loving a woman. It is a lifestyle. It is funny..sometimes downright hilarious and that is what I want to share the most. The fun, the laughter and the love.

Here's to us honey....