From about the age of nine, I knew I had an extra interest in both the male and female bodies. Now, being so young, I never knew what this meant. Was I a "perv" for always staring at girls and guys with wonder and desire? Was there something wrong with me because I looked at both girls and boys in the same way? What was going on in my brain? These were questions I asked myself in only the 5th grade.

At the time, sexuality wasn't even a concept I could fathom in my tiny brain. I was going through the stages of becoming a woman and making new friends at a different school. I didn't even really have time to think about who I like-liked or didn't like-like.

Middle school arrived and I had a hard time fitting in. My parents had just gotten divorced, I had got my period for the first time, my boobs were bigger than most girls in my grade, and I had been diagnosed with Lyme Disease. Basically, 6th grade sucked, majorly. I was trying to fit in while all this crap that was happening to, and around me.

I had a friend, a friend who I thought I was really close to because I'd been friends with her all throughout elementary school. We did everything together, from boating trips, to playing in the mud, to swimming in her pool. But around the middle of 6th grade, something happened in our friendship.

We were at a sleepover with a bunch of other friends like any other occasion. Later in the night we were all changing in her bedroom from regular clothes into pajamas, and I caught myself glancing over at her changing. I couldn't help myself, but I would consider her the first girl I ever "like-liked" without really consciously knowing it. Unfortunately for me, she saw me looking and made some snide remark about me staring at her. The next week I had people talking about me behind my back about how I was a "perv" who watches my friends change. I was humiliated and I lost a friend who I thought was going to be my friend forever.

But I realized from that moment I liked girls the same exact way I liked boys.

I didn't really acknowledge that it was a real feeling until my sophomore year of high school, however. Before then, I simply shoved that feeling down and suffocated it because I thought it was just me being weird. I didn't want to get judged or get called a "perv" for looking at girls longingly.

My first official girl crush was not cool on my part though because it was a friend of mine, so thank you brain for that. After that I told my friends and sister about who I had a crush on, boy or girl. But I dared not tell my parents and the rest of my family. Mostly because I was absolutely terrified, but also because I had no idea what to say.

The day I told my mom was one of the hardest conversations I've ever had. Her, of all people, was the one person I thought would be the most accepting because she's so understanding and worldly with her spiritual-like beliefs. But she brushed my feelings off as a "phase" like all those horror coming out stories you hear of. She told me I was just in that experimental phase of my life and that I would pass the feeling and find a nice boyfriend soon. I was crushed, but there was nothing I could do. She just didn't get it. Maybe she never will, who knows.

Now, on the flip side, I've never officially said anything to my dad (hi dad love you), but I've brushed the topic around my sexuality to him before. When I was in my early high school years, he would have been the last person I would have told anything to, and he ended up being the one person (besides my friends and sister) who really took me as I was. He knew that my sexuality didn't define who I was as a person, and that it didn't change how I was personality wise at all.

No matter how terrified you are to come out to your parents, or even your friends, just know that almost every closeted person feels that way. But whatever the outcome of you telling someone you're gay, lesbian, bisexual, whatever, you are still you, in all your perfect, beautiful glory. You will have friends who support you and family members who support you, and sometimes you may not.

But those people can suck it because I love you and you're awesome.