By: Maria Ximena

I had remembered our place and the sunset falling with warm orange shades, warning us that we should leave and return to our reality. You in your house pretending that everything was fine and me in mine saying that I had been late because of university work. With the fear that when I arrived my family would repeat to me what was always right for them: "since you came to that I wanted to see you with a husband and children", "don't you feel disgusted", "don't worry, this is just a stage", "I want to see you with a husband and children". But the truth is that I didn't want a husband, I didn't want a man to touch me, much less share a family with him.

Every day it was repeated and the fear of telling the truth only grew, why was it so hard to say that I was with you, that everything was okay because I felt full and safe; that there was no better place than being by your side, even if it sounded a bit cliché. That I wanted to share my dreams with them, that you were on family trips, that they could see who I was without needing to remember that I was with someone just like me; without needing to look at me with disgust. I wanted to tell them that I dreamed of a family Christmas, like the one I never had. But I was afraid to tell them that you were the woman who made me happy, that you were the person I was in love with and, yes, that you were my bride. I was afraid that they would see your face and that you would be nothing more than the person who had corrupted me, when the truth is that you taught me that there were people who, by tickling me, were not going to abuse me or take advantage of me to touch me; that if someone spoke to me it was not because they only wanted to have sex with me or to treat me as a piece of meatbut that I could be loved. That someone could be interested in me because of the way I looked, the way I dressed, the way I spoke or my little quirks.

At the end of the day, all I expected was to be able to tell them about you, the way you made me happy, to be able to tell them that we had argued or that we had achieved a goal together. Maybe the same way my sisters would talk about their boyfriends or husbands and everyone would be happy about it; or how they would go to celebrations and say their words of thanks. But all I had in return was a love locked in the wardrobe and a family that told me I was going to be the spinster aunt if I didn't get a boyfriend. At the end of the day I couldn't tell them that I wanted a love like Leonardo and Felipe's: unconditional, unrestrained and unabashed, as Fernando Molano wrote.

I wanted them to realise that I was more than a person who liked another woman, although the correct form was 'loved another woman'. But I was trapped in the wardrobe with you, hiding something that didn't hurt anyone, scared that they would stop paying for my studies because I was with someone like me. But you know, in the end when I found out that I had the keys to the wardrobe, that I could walk with you in the street, that in my house I was the one who decided about my life and my body: I stopped hiding it. I stopped telling them that I was with my best friend or that I was alone: I came out of the wardrobe regardless of the insults, the looks or everything that came with saying that you were with me, saying that you were my girlfriend and that yes, that was my life. And that no one could ever again decide about my sexuality or what identifies me.

To them I can only say from a distance that, although I am and love a woman, I am still a daughter, a sister, a granddaughter, an aunt and a family. Because at the end of the day I end up being the same woman they saw growing up, only resisting from the letters, loving with freedom and with my diverse essence.