Not surprisingly, I’ve done a lot of thinking about labels over the past few months. How I define myself has never seemed quite so important. At the same time, I’m beginning to learn that it isn’t really important at all.

I’m not a huge fan of labels. Labels can reduce us to archetypes, limit our growth, box us in. Reducing a person to a label often means we lose the chance to really glimpse the depth and breadth of their humanity, to connect with them in any real way. Labels can be dangerous - breeding ground for the misunderstandings, separation and generalizations that lead us on the slippery slope toward exclusionary behavior. They can be confining in their definitions – leaving us chafing to become more (or less, or something different altogether) than what our label says we should be.

At the same time labels are useful. We like to define people, to group like with like. It gives us comfort to know, ‘I fit with this group, but not with that one’. Labels can help us gain that sense of inclusion in a community that can be so vitally important to our wellbeing. They can be a security blanket, a safety net in a big crazy world. In a culture that sometimes seems defined by chaos and disorder, adopting a label can tell us where we fit, where to look for like-minded individuals, where to search for connection.

Some labels are with us for life, some we claim for only a short time in the midst of our journey of self-exploration, others shift and change day by day, based on our moods and relationship with the world around us. In this fluid world, it is much easier than ever before to adopt and discard labels as it suits us. I can be Vegan-Buddhist-Democrat one year, and a Carnivorous-Fundamentalist Christian-Republican the next. Not likely that I’d ever claim the second label, but possible, because anything is possible.

But enough of this esoteric bullshit already, what has all this got to do with me?

Labeling my sexual orientation seemed pretty darn easy most of my life. I liked men. Hetero. Straight as an arrow. Easy-peasy. It was all too easy to sweep whatever feelings I had for women under the rug (or into the closet, as it were).

Now, it’s not quite so clear.

When all of this first came to the forefront of my life - in early August - my first assumption was that I was bisexual. I loved my husband, was incredibly attracted to him. We had a solid, strong relationship – better than most. But….I was attracted to women too. A little bit of a mental adjustment sure, but we could deal.

I won’t try and minimize the turmoil I was in at that point, but all in all – it seemed like something I could come to terms with. Aside from the curiosity and longing for the opportunity to explore that part of myself, it seemed more than possible that I could accept the label Bisexual, and still carry on with life as I knew it.

Over time it became clear that, for reasons I didn’t even understand – bisexual didn’t feel right to me either. The more I acknowledged this, the more I moved into this space, the more I realized the level at which I was drawn to women - the more freaked out I got. I remember the night my friend M. first suggested to me that I might end up closer to the other end of the spectrum. I remember sobbing in her arms later that night, saying over and over that I didn’t ask for this, didn’t want it, wasn’t ready for it.

After all, happily married bisexual? Difficult, but certainly possible. Happily married lesbian? Things just got a little bit trickier.

I kept looking, inside and out, for some clear answer. I was sure that in order to find my answer I was going to have to explore, to experience the reality of being with a woman. Otherwise, how would I know if this was just a curiosity, something physical that would be satisfied by a casual encounter – or if it was something real and lasting? But….how could I have this experience without betraying my marriage?

It was the wise and wonderful M. who again provided me with her incomparable wisdom. She asked me…

‘If you were not married, would you feel you needed to experience being with a woman to have clarity, or would you already know?”

As always, she was dead on. That was one of those defining moments of this journey, as her question made me realize that I already had all the clarity I needed.

I wanted to be with women. I didn’t need to date a woman, kiss a woman, fuck a woman to know that. I didn’t need to do any of those things, because clarity never really comes from outside oneself, but always from inside. This wasn’t about anyone else – it was all about me – and right here, right now I want to be with women. I can’t talk about the future right now, because if this has taught me anything, it is that the future is one great big unpredictable mystery. I can only speak of now, and right now – I know exactly what I want. In this moment I already know exactly who I am.

Big picture – I believe that sexuality can very much be a fluid thing. In a perfect world we wouldn’t need to reduce it to something as narrow and confining as gender. In my perfect world, we could be with who we wanted to be with, when we wanted to be with them – without the stress and pressure of labeling ourselves at all. Sure, there would still be people who would exclusively be interested in one gender or the other, and to insinuate otherwise would be totally insulting to those people. However, I’m willing to bet that there are a whole lot more people out there who would fall somewhere in the middle, or who would slide along the spectrum of sexuality as they encountered people of either gender who they reacted too, physically, mentally and emotionally.

Am I a lesbian? I don’t know. Why am I reluctant to own that label? I’m not sure. If I’m not totally sure I’m a lesbian but I’m pretty sure I’m not bisexual, then what the heck am I? I still don’t know. Will I ever have a forever answer? Who knows. Does it matter? Some days it seems to be the only thing that matters, other days I think that it doesn’t matter at all.

At the risk of being cliché by quoting them twice in one week - I find myself singing the Indigo Girls again, “The less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine.” Cliché perhaps (as this is probably the biggest coming out song ever) but so true. In the moments where I give myself over to the experience and trust myself without looking for the definitive answer, I find myself approaching some semblance of inner peace, of just being, instead of constantly searching.

If my reality was different I truly wouldn’t feel the need to label myself right now, or to define or limit this experience. If I were not a married mother of two, on the edge of potentially throwing away everything I always thought I wanted, I would be content to live in the moment. I would give myself the space to seek out the experiences I desired and to let time and life answer my questions.

But the fact is, this IS my reality, and somehow the idea of walking away from my marriage and my life based on a maybe (even a pretty solid maybe) feels more than a little bit scary.

What if I’m wrong? What if I change my mind? What if I make the biggest mistake of my life and I end up alone?

It is a strange place I am in, being so steady and sure in one breath, and being utterly dizzy and discombobulated in the next. All I can do is keep moving forward, keeping owning my experience, keep seeking my truth.

In the end, that’s all any of us can ever do.