June, to me, has always been about pride. It’s historically been a month of culmination and celebration. Until I was about 19, it also used to be the month where I had to mentally prepare myself for a “changing of the guard,” in a way.
I know this instinct isn’t exactly universal. I’d usually spend the first half of the month wondering: “how am I going to adjust my personality when I’m surrounded by Ukrainians all summer long?” Because- if you grew up in any sort of cultural environment, you know- I come across as a completely different person in Ukrainian than I do in English.
Let me explain: I made it through the entire US public education system speaking and learning English, then I went to college where courses were taught in English. While I spoke Ukrainian at home and learned it as my first language, I didn’t pursue the same route of education. I attended weekend Ukrainian schools for about 10 years, which consisted of mostly reading and grammar lessons, plus a few religious lessons here and there (which always came across as “we’ve got to make sure you KNOW you’re Catholic and that’s the one true religion, otherwise you’re going to hell!”).
Any other subject was covered by youth organizations- think of them as coed Boy Scout/Girl Scout troops. I was heavily involved in one particular organization through my early 20’s, but also attended meetings and camps held by a second organization for a few years. There was a time, back at their respective inceptions, where these two groups were bitter rivals. Although most of that sentiment has dissolved on the surface, some older folks still won’t shy away from letting you know how they feel about “those guys,” wherever their allegiance may lay.
Peeling back the layers even further, my mom and grandmother were both active members of the second organization. I only got into the other group because we couldn’t find a local branch near where we lived at the time, and it ended up sticking.
In terms of their respective ideologies, I look at it as a difference between academia/political-based learning and practical/kinesthetic-based learning. One organization prioritized absorbing as much information as you could by memorizing packets of history, art, culture, and politics in order “…to be prepared when you need to educate the youth on these topics,” dependent on their age level. A camp I attended within this organization required everyone to take 3 years of child psychology and development classes- in Ukrainian- in order to receive a passing grade. The other group focused more on learning through movement and the environment. I remember a lot of hikes, field trips, and generally spending a lot more time outside with them. They offered a merit-based learning system, similar to Boy/Girl Scouts getting patches for participating in various events or completing certain milestones.
“Dianna,” you may be wondering at this point, “what on earth does any of this have to do with Pride Month and whatever ‘changing of the guard’ means?” We’re getting there. There’s just a loooooot of context that we need to get through first.
My entire summers would be spent outside of the realm of all the friends I had spent the past year making in “American School,” as some of my peers called it. Any line of thought about other religions, sexualities, or other taboo topics in the Ukrainian world were discarded on the bus ride home from my last day of class. Each year, without fail, I’d always go into June wondering if I’d come across as “too American” for the Ukrainian community. By September, I’d worry about being “too Ukrainian,” and the cycle continued until I landed my first radio job. What a way to spend the first two decades of your life.
There was an unspoken expectation, beyond the camps and conferences, that if you spent enough time being a good, model Ukrainian-American citizen, you’d land the love of your life within the diaspora. Every adult you interacted with had a Ukrainian spouse, every camp counselor divulged their crush on another counselor of the opposite gender, nearly everyone’s parents met through a function within the Ukrainian community. Some that married outside of the community were seen as sellouts, in a way. And with heteronormativity abound, there was no space to even think about whether or not other options were available. It felt like the unwritten rule was “if you’re going to be an active member of this community, you must marry another Ukrainian of the opposite gender and also stick to your Catholic roots, because That Is The Only Religion (and if you defect, you’re full of sin!).”
That’s a few too many rules for my liking. And I don’t agree with any of them.
The cool thing about being a person who has never had a spiritual connection to Catholicism is that you can just dissociate through Masses and catechism classes undetected. So long as you didn’t challenge authority, no one would suspect a thing. That part was easy.
On the other hand… there was the relationship aspect. I harbored intense crushes in my teens, but rarely acted on them following a series of mortifying rejections. Most of those were on guys in “American School,” but a select few Ukrainian boys caught my attention during some of the later summers. It took years, but I realized that in most cases, I wasn’t ever romantically attracted to them. They were strong platonic feelings with a small fizzle of physical attraction.
Here’s another fun fact: I’ve only been in one “relationship,” of the traditional sense. Yes, he was half-Ukrainian. That relationship gave me a perspective I had always wanted to be a part of- one that had always been sold to me as “The One True Way.” My friends- Ukrainian and American alike- were always in this position, rotating boyfriends faster than I could keep track. What was it like to be in that club?
Well, as it turns out, having strong platonic feelings for someone (with a hint of physical attraction) only goes so far. I realized about a month in that I wasn’t happy with the role I had put myself in. The relationship didn’t last much longer after that. It didn’t feel fair to me that I couldn’t provide this person something that I couldn’t offer. Even years later, having slowly broken off from many of those aforementioned cultural norms and catapulting out of the closet, that Sword of Damocles is still hanging over my head. I thought that figuring out who I was attracted to would “fix” me. Every once in a blue moon I’d start talking to someone, we’d arrange a date, and then I’d go home feeling empty because I knew that they’d be much better off with someone who can check all the boxes. It felt unnatural for me to fake those kinds of emotions for the sake of getting to know someone on a deeper level.
Years ago, when I first began learning about various orientations, I wrote a journal entry that ended like this:
“I guess the moral of these stories is that discovering your identity is not always going to be immediate. It might have been there all along. It might change over and over and over again. It could be eighty years before you realize ‘oh sh*t I’m pansexual.’ But the important thing to know is that when you do figure out what you’re into- if you’re into anything at all- is to be comfortable with that identity. F**king flaunt that sh*t! It’s who you are. Don’t force yourself into uncomfortable romantic/platonic/sexual situations just because society/the media claims it’s the right way to go. All that sh*t is fluid. And you’re the one making the waves for yourself.”
I love those last two lines. Eventually, those same words solidified my stance when I decided to burn all the labels I self-imposed while I was learning about those identities. I teetered for a long time between some of the labels, but never found myself comfortable with them once I had settled on something. It’s not a point of pride or rebellion the same way it felt when I was 21. I know I won’t see myself on an RSVP mailing list with another person on the other side of the ampersand. That’s not a future I see myself being happy with. What gives me pride is knowing that I feel incredibly comfortable in my identity, the life I’ve created for myself, and the work I do to serve a larger community.
At the end of the day, isn’t that what we could all ask for?
The post Beyond The Morning News – The Blank Space On The Other Side Of The Ampersand first appeared on My Bellingham Now.