"Surprise. I'm bi."

The funny thing about coming out is that it never really ends. It's quite anti-climatic actually. Once you do it, there's like this big sigh of relief that you keep reliving the rest of the day because you can hardly believe you've said the word out loud (even though you could never get out the full word, bisexual), almost as if you expected the person listening to not understand English. But then you wake up the next day and realize you have to come out to someone else. And then this other friend and oh yeah I can't forget them, and oh maybe I shouldn't tell that person yet...before you know it, your coming out story doesn't even belong to you anymore, and you've started talking about the entire experience in second person perspective.

That's why I've decided to reclaim my story this time around. For myself. And no one else.

Before I decided to just go through with it and write this article in timing with National Coming Out Day, I experienced the same fear just as I had and do every time I come out to someone in person. I kept thinking, "I'm not as ready as I thought. This isn't who I am. I can fix this." Each of those internalized thoughts would simultaneously break me, and I couldn't believe I so easily placed myself back in the place where I had worked so hard to get away from: hating myself for something I couldn't change. Everyone knows it's scary being vulnerable and coming out to those close to you, but it's terrifying actually feeling that again now as I think about revealing a part of myself I haven't really shared with many people, let alone all of the internet. Even though I can't see a physical person in front of me now, I'm already imagining the faces of those reading this article and the many reactions it may cause.

I've always known that I'm an emotional, sensitive, and highly empathetic person, even if I didn't have those exact words to grasp onto before. Perfect combination, don't you think, to create a people pleaser like myself, which in the past I interpreted as a fault I should work on. Now I realize those are just the side effects of being an extremely caring person. Unfortunately, that caring sometimes came at a cost to myself, but I've also always stubbornly held the value of standing up for what I believe in and stand for. So this coming out story is in light of me proving that to myself, that I am indeed proud of who I am and I should not have to hide that.

"It's powerful and beautiful to be vulnerable and emotional. It's powerful and beautiful to accept myself. It's powerful and beautiful to be bisexual."

These are the words I so earnestly yearn to believe, and with every letter I type I can feel myself healing a little bit more. Of course, now even as I have come out to my close friends back home, those at school, and even my parents, I keep thinking this should be the end of my story. Everyone else has seemed to move on, so why can't I?

Honestly I can't help but think of all those out there now who are like what I was at one point, sitting in front of their laptop screen, marathoning YouTube coming out videos and sobbing for reasons I couldn't understand at the time. Those who always felt comfortable chiming in with the girls to talk about cute boys, but end up confused going through their old diaries and rereading daily entries, pages dedicated to describing the cute outfits of a girl in my middle school class, convinced I had just been into fashion, not the face behind it. Those who are looking at the TV screen, and are already used to the fact that I've never seen myself represented in my many other identities as an Indian-American woman, so why would I now as a feminine bisexual woman interested in other feminine women. Those who are realizing that it was always easier to be an aggressive ally because being "normal" and a cisgendered straight person meant people might actually listen to me.

I've learned so much because of my coming out experience, but I think the most important, and perhaps hardest lesson is that I really can't please everyone. I am who I am. Sometimes I just have to let go of not being able to change that one person's mind of something they think is wrong, simply because I care so much about them. It doesn't make me any less valid as a person and it certainly doesn't make them correct. It just means I can continue to be at peace with myself and put my own sanity first.

I'm a perfectionist planner who loves happy endings, so I don't think I will ever be satisfied with my coming out story and its constant shifts. The words on this page you're looking at will never be able to fully convey how much of a struggle, how much of curse, how much of a blessing, how much of a mess coming out and being bisexual really has been. But I think I can be satisfied with how far I've already gotten and the fact that I'm trying. I'm trying my hardest to love myself for everything that I am, and share that with others so that someone else reading this may also love themselves a little bit more despite what others may think of them. And honestly, that's a pretty damn powerful and beautiful thing to do.