Hello Steemians :-) I'm Tida, 28, LGBT and Finally Honest

Hello Steemians! My name is Tida and I have spent the last several years emerging from the shadows. As of October 2015, I have finally have the courage to admit that I am gay. But being proud in my being has been a lifelong struggle, going back to insecurities regarding my childhood.

I’m originally from the Bronx, New York but have since moved to my own slice of Small Town America in East Tennessee. My younger sister and I were adopted by my mother Dorothy, who was 54 years old the day that she brought me home from the hospital after I detoxed. My biological mother was unfortunately a victim of the late 1980s crack epidemic in the United States. It’s made for a uniquely blended family of 12 younger and much older siblings, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

By middle school I was a quintessential tomboy: sneaking peaks at porn with my hormonal teenage guy friends, ramping up basketball court time to become Lisa Leslie’s prodigy. At 14 after a devastating knee injury, I hung up my hoop dreams and shifted my energy toward religion. Through attending church I met some of my closest friends in life (@introspector, @kokibyivana and @theferalone). We were zealots, quickly forming a Christian band (haha) and always studying our faith together. But not before long, my best friend and now wife @instrospector became my heartthrob.

As you can imagine, the newfound affair was thrilling but also wreaked emotional havoc on my soul. We couldn’t possibly be lesbian and Christian, right? This question spiraled me into depression and bitterness toward God as I tirelessly worked to reconcile my faith and love. The deeper I explored, the more archaic and hollow religion became, and the less I felt guilty about being a two-faced Christian.

For several years I presented a false self by continuing to be an active leader in church, while manipulating others in order to steal lesbian kisses underneath the steeple. I hated the cycle, but the perceived risk was losing everything and everyone we loved.

Deception is insidious. It subtly steals your joy. Deception makes our closest relationships all about power plays and destroys genuine connection. Coming out of the closet started my journey toward being human again. I’m grateful for the day @inspector and I took the leap and made our relationship public because my cold soul began the long, slow thaw process.

Each day continues to bring reasons I should hide some part of myself so that I am more palatable to the world. But these are also opportunities to choose to be real. When I choose the real, I can sense a slight shift closer to congruence with myself.

It is truly a privilege to be joining a community that grows through cultivating raw, real connections around the things that matter to us the most. For me, in this season, that thing is authenticity.

So what am I bringing here? I am confident that this will evolve with time, as my interest are so varied: I enjoy traveling and exploring with my lady, cryptocurrency banter, exercising on occasion, pretending to be a vegetarian (because I cheat sometimes, okay, I said it!), journaling and writing poetry. But mostly I’m on Steemit as part of the LGBTQ+ community to affirm that this will be a safe space for all people to grow into their truth. No one deserves to live in fear or to live a lie. We become our worse selves when we do.

I look forward to sharing more of my journey toward honesty, vulnerability and better being here on Steemit.