[100 Challenge] Roberta Gattel_55

The well of loneliness, Radcliffe Hall, 1928

Someone recently pointed out to me that when I talk about my relationships, I only mention those with men. I never say the relationships I've had with women.

This observation struck me and made me think a lot. In a certain sense, it's as if I don't consider romantic stories with my same sex to be real romantic stories. I fear that this is the result of the involuntary internalization of heterosexual norms: the only authentic relationships are the binary ones between man and woman; all the others must be called differently. It is sad to believe that we are beyond patriarchal thinking only to find ourselves, instead, still using its categories to read reality. But it's not just about that.

I thought about my first crush at 15: it was on a girl. I remember that, confused and excited, I confided in one of my peers and that, after several questions, he concluded with a very contemptuous "How disgusting."

This sentence had the effect of a seal on me: it closed all my transparency in the bud. I never again spoke to anyone about my "inclination," and I began to fear it as a dangerous stigma.

That verbal "how disgusting" had turned into a physical "how disgusting": it had gotten under my skin as if it were someone else's sweat and had dirtied a very pure feeling.

Although I have had several relationships with women over time, some of which were truly precious to me, I have not been able to lose this sense of shame.

It's a contradictory feeling: I'm not ashamed of being like this; I'm embarrassed that others know it. Maybe because I feared - and still fear - that I would receive that "how disgusting" even from my family members,who have very often expressed homophobic feelings.

Carrying the burden of "diversity" also means constantly doubting that the people you love might no longer love you if they see you for who you are. You inhabit the gloomy space of “maybe” and “if,” and it's a space that makes you feel incredibly alone.

Around my twenties, I began a desperate search for books that told stories similar to mine. I say "desperate" because at the end of the 2000s, there wasn't that much queer bibliography in Italy, and what little there was wasn't sponsored in mainstream bookstores. I found a translation of "The Well of Solitude" online and ordered it. I still remember paying around thirty euros for it, an amount that I had never spent on a book and which, at the time, seemed like theft.

Radcliffe Hall's novel tells the love story between two women at the beginning of the twentieth century. Many sentences in this book were heartening, like a mother's hug after a bad dream. And infinitely inspiring:

“You're neither unnatural, abominable, nor mad; you're as much a part of what people call nature as anyone else; only you're unexplained as yet--you've not got your niche in creation. But someday that will come, and meanwhile, don't shrink from yourself, but face yourself calmly and bravely. Have courage; do the best you can with your burden. But above all, be honorable. Cling to your honor for the sake of those others who share the same burden. For their sakes, show the world that people like you and they can be quite as selfless and fine as the rest of humanity. Let your life go to prove this--it would be a life work”.