~Love Letter For My Monogamous Sister~

“The reason you hang out with those alternative people”, she says, “is because they condone your bad behavior. Like drug addicts, who make each other feel like what they’re doing is alright. Good, even.”

Silence.

A million thoughts dart behind my eyes. And then, as she continues to speak, her words fade, and I settle into one single emotion.

Anger.

How dare you call my adult, consensual, loving relationship bad behavior. You would rather see me, I don’t know, miserable and repressed in an abusive marriage? Oh wait, I did that already. I am not here to fulfill the roles and labels that you or anyone else has put on me from the time I was born. Wholesome. And pure. Because good girls don’t.

Well fuck that, because good girls fucking DO.

Good girls are kind and loving. Good girls take responsibility for their happiness and work goddamn hard to hold on to it. Good girls get to have fun, have friends, and have orgasms, all in abundance. Good girls make their own choices and admit their mistakes. Good girls fucking DO.

My mad love is not your choice. It is mine. And “those alternative people” let me own that decision, regardless of whether or not they quite get it. I spent almost forty years letting “those mainstream people” dictate my role within my gender, my family, my career, and my place in greater society. So fuck that.

But what I say, instead, is this: “I am happy. Leave it alone now.”

The silence comes again, and my anger quiets into a slow resignation. She does not get it. She is as socially conditioned as I have been and has not had that shift in consciousness that I am now constantly aware of in myself.

I’ve stepped through the proverbial looking glass. I just miss her.

for h.