Nowhere, by Gillian

This is going to be very repetitive for some of you who have been part of this group for some time, but I'm not going to apologize for that. When you have shared little pieces of your life story almost every week for about three years, even at seventy-something there just isn't enough life to go round and a little repetition is inevitable! And, for all that I have had some practice, I doubt that I shall be able to express this whole thing any more clearly this time around. As far as explaining it, I don't even try.

So .... nowhere is pretty much where I was for the first 40-odd years of my life. I was living nowhere, going nowhere. You see, you have to be someone to be somewhere. And I was not.

Oh sure, I was a human body going about it's business on this earth. But that's all I was. I wasn't real. The real me, my essence, my soul if you like, wasn't with me. At least it wasn't part of me: in me. For as far back as I can remember, maybe the age of about three or four, the real me hovered somewhere above or occasionally beside what I think of as the faux me. The real me simply watched. Observed. The faux me went on acting a part on the world wide stage, all the time knowing she was playing a part as the real me looked on. I thought perhaps everyone felt this way, though now I know better. In fact I have never once, since I have, only recently, started to try to describe all this, had anyone say to me,

"Oh yes, I know exactly what you mean! I felt the same way."

Never.

The moment I came out to myself, at around forty, I literally felt the faux me and the real me merge. It was like an expertly guided boat bumping gently against the old worn wood of the dock. A softly whispered thunk, and my soul was safely home.

It has never left again.

I have no fear that it will.

I have, as I said, absolutely no explanation. It most certainly was not some schizophrenic kind of thing. I never felt like two people; just two separated parts of the same one. I never, rather to my regret, heard voices telling me what to do. I am actually rather resentful about that. Why did my soul sit silently like a lump on a log instead of offering a little guidance once in a while? I certainly could have used it. Or, giving her some benefit of the doubt, maybe she did. Without her I might still be in the closet. But if so, why didn't she save me sooner? A case of, for everything there is a season, perhaps.

No, I never will understand it.

I never will be able to explain it.

I'm just so happy we are now united.

There's a Country song, I'm Half Way to Nowhere.

"I'm half way to nowhere but it's too late to turn back now."

When I came out, I was half way from nowhere, and it was way too late to turn back.

And why would I?

I was finally whole.

I have finally found my way out of nowhere. I never intend to live there again.


© December 2014

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.