Like Me Too

I have decided that my next mission in life is to make Chely Wright fall in love with me.


I have not yet figured out how to make this happen, but it will. Oh yes, it will.

The newly-out country singer has written a book and recorded an album, titled "Like Me" and "Lifted Off the Ground," respectively. (Go buy them. Seriously. Worth it.)

After reading the book, listening to the album, and watching her string of completely charming video blogs on YouTube, I am more than a little smitten. She is undeniably beautiful (she looks like one of those people who is beautiful even when her makeup is off and her hair is a mess) and undeniably brave, being the first openly gay artist in a field notorious for its' intolerance.


And, more than that, her story is quite a bit like mine. Gay woman in a Republican-dominated industry (just who do you think makes up the donor pool for opera houses, hmm?), in a relationship with another closeted, married woman, had romantic and sexual relationships with men while being aware of her sexuality and feeling like a jerk because of it, and generally having to hide for whatever reason.

Add in the fact that I now know how to play two chords on the guitar and you can see that we are a perfect match.

...

...

Okay, maybe I'm kidding myself.

(Maybe, Rach? More like definitely. She is waaaaay out of your league.)

Maybe I'm kidding myself, but it sure does feel good to have a crush, albeit an impossible one. The fact that Chely is definitely gay and definitely not married puts her two points ahead of my ex, so I will count that as progress. I am growing as a person.

Chely Wright. Patriot. Philanthropist. Singer. Songwriter. Artist. First-class human being. The future love of my life.

(She just doesn't know that last one yet.)

A New Era

Now is the winter of our discontent.
- Richard III, Act I, scene 1

Well... not exactly.

It's summer. And the discontent isn't ours, exactly, it's mine. But you get the point. There is a season and somebody is unhappy.

(I know that's not the meaning in the actual play. Just go with me, here.)

Five days ago, I was dumped by my girlfriend of a year. For a man.

There are more details that make her sound less like a villain, but that is her story to tell, not mine. In my story, all that matters is that she chose a man over me.

Hence, discontent.

I thought she was the love of my life and that I would spend forever kissing her mouth and poking fun at the slightly OCD way she took off her makeup.

Instead, I am living with my parents in the Chicago suburbs wondering what the hell I'm going to do with my life, now that her mouth and her OCD are out of the equation.

...

I'll let you know when I figure that one out.

I think that is what this blog is about. Figuring it out.

I'm starting a new chapter in my life. I am done with college. I am done with my relationship. I am done trying to be straight because society thinks I "should" be.

I am a lesbian.

I am single.

I am a musician.

I am an adult.

And I am terrified.

BUT

Do you know how the phrase ends? Now is the winter of our discontent?

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious by the sun of York.

I means that the unhappy times are past. And in that, there is hope. Maybe not for Richard III, but there is for me.