By

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I'd like to say that I always knew I was different, or that I always felt like there was more to who I was than what I knew I was. But that's not true, I always thought I was just like everyone one else. Now, im not saying that being part of the LGBT+ Community is a bad thing. But I never thought I was part of it, I never thought I was part of anything.

I was programmed in my mind that I would marry a man and have a family and all the other cliché crap along the lines of that.

But here I am, almost 20 years old and with a different mindset.

A beautiful girl caught my eye during the summer of 2015. At first I didn't think much of it. I knew a beautiful girl when I saw one and I was never one to shy away and not say anything about it. So this was not a big deal. Not to me.

I always had more girl celebrity crushes than of guys. I always admired how a girl looked. It was normal, I thought girls notice this sort of thing about other girls.

Anyway, that girl. She worked the cafe I always went to before work, to get coffee and occasionally breakfast.

And since she was the one who got my order every morning, it was easy to strike up a conversation. We would chat a bit as she made my coffee, I'd tell her cheesy jokes that she always laughed at, and we'd talk about university - it had turned out we went to the same one.

The girl who I'll refer to as V, since that's the first letter of her name, wasn't traditionally beautiful. She had the kind of beauty that you don't notice at first sight, but as you take in every detail of her face you realize how beautiful she truly is.

Anyway, as a month passed, I still didn't see anything wrong. I didn't think that maybe I was not straight.

But one day when I was going through one of my bad days again (I seem to be always stuck somewhere in my head, mostly in a bad place), and it hit me. It all hit me at once and it was so overwhelming that I couldn't breathe properly.

The first thing I did was call my best friend. I was in tears and I was choking on my own words because despite knowing that she would never judge me, that she would never ever leave me, I was scared that she'll hang up and never want to see me again. I was afraid of losing everything at once. But I still told her everything.

After that, I slowly started feeling okay again. I was building myself back up, and I was slowly accepting myself because God knows it is so much harder to accept yourself than to accept others.

I have a few homosexual friends and I love each and every one of them to bits. And yet it was so hard to accept myself.

That was almost a year ago. I am okay now and I am proud of being who I am, because I finally realised that my sexuality doesn't define me. My sexuality doesn't change me. My sexuality doesn't make me different from the time I didn't know anything about it.

I am okay now and I have learned to accept myself for everything that is a part of me. Especially the parts I cannot change for the life of me, and yet im going to be okay.

And I'm also happier. I mean, I may not be able to be with a girl for a while (Homophobia is a common thing in my country), but I know that I will leave to a place where people will be okay with who I love because it simply doesn't concern them, it doesn't affect them.

That's my milestone, and I'd love to hear yours.