Table Talk

Table Talk



Most stories of lesbian woes start off as “All my life”, well not this time, because it hasn’t been all my life just the biggest part. Most say that being gay and approaching forty years old is tough especially when you’re single. I have seen and done much in my gay lifetime. Tough is not really how I would describe my lifetime. I remember sitting at a pub in Birmingham, Alabama with several friends after, of course, playing softball all day and after several Michelob Ultras getting into an in depth conversation about coming out and being gay. This conversation was being had due to the fact we had a “straight” member of the team struggling with her new marriage and the fact that she had feelings for a certain person, not yet divulged, on the team who was female. This small sampling of our community included me in my late thirties, the coach of the team in her mid fifties, her ex-girlfriend late forties to early fifties, two twenty-something’s and maybe a few others but due to the beer I am not able to remember everyone. This twenty-something sat there and endured our ranting of how hard being gay was in our time meanwhile the generation gap kicked in and the other twenty-something, milk breathe as I called her, said it was not that bad anymore. I remember thinking back and saying I am not so old that I can make statements like “In my day”, but there I was playing the old wise one and saying those words.

Thus, leading me to my first right of passage as an old wise lesbian who had been in that community long enough to actually get recognized when she went out to the struggling gay bars in the area. I sat at that table laughing and spinning tails of when I was a young lesbian. Who am I kidding? I went through my young lesbian life fairly quiet and typical. I bounced from relationship to relationship looking for that one thing that would make me “whole” or “complete” and you know what? I am still looking. Oh I have come close and maybe even now have that in my life and refuse to admit to it, but still here I am at the ripe old age of thirty-nine reflecting. I have even been called the typical lesbian and well maybe she was right. That day at that particular table with those particular people another saga in the life of Krista started and since I have looked at my life in chapters, each one separate but each one unique to itself. At that table, over chicken wings, buffalo shrimp and Michelob Ultra I realized that I had arrived as a lesbian. Funny how that happens, huh?