THE WORLD’S BEST PROCRASTINATOR

Paper from English Composition Class. Prompt: “World’s Best _____”

I would like to pride myself on being one of the best procrastinators I have ever met. Now, I know that is an outrageous claim, but I was a rather determined--and close-minded--little child. Being raised in a conservative and catholic household has its perks, I must say. Rather early on in my youth, I was taught to not curse, do not do drugs, do not drink, don’t ever even think of sex, and worst of all: homosexuality is a sin and you will surely burn in hell. 

Yes, catholicism was the shining glory of my childhood. I knew I should have seen that there was something wrong in the equation of “Elyse Blatz + Catholicism” when I became violently ill on the day of my first holy communion. I was a shining pupil of VBS, which was probably only a result of my mother being the teacher, and I tried to sing the loudest in the choir. I was determined to be the bible-hugging, purity ring-wearing daughter my mother had always wanted, but alas, fate had a different plan for me. 

For the longest time, I had always liked the idea that my mother had done something wrong over the years, and that I had a reason for how I am today. It’s taken years for me to realize that it is completely okay to be different and not be exactly what is expected of me. 

You see when I was an innocent little kid--I’m talking about third grade--I had started to get a grasp on the forbidden topic of homosexuality. I didn’t even know that it had a name at the time; I literally thought there was about five men on this earth who liked men like they were supposed to like women. And of course, they were going to hell, or so I was taught. It was such a foreign idea to me and I did not dare bring it up to my mother. Even though she was an interior designer and had “worked with many gay men in her time” and had “no problem with the gay people”, she always got this slight twitch in her face when homosexuality was mentioned. Of course, only those who knew her as well as I did would be able to notice this quirk; it was the same, only more subtle, as the one that would appear on my grandma’s face. 

It became a taboo for me and I kept my questions close to me, almost as if I hoped the deeper I kept those questions, the faster they would be answered. I was almost offended when those questions turned on me and transformed into nagging little thoughts. My tiny little brain could not handle such inquisitions. 

I swear my little brain almost exploded when I learned about lesbians. Girls could like girls; what a novel idea! I remember being so amazed and feeling like my eyes were going to bulge out like in those comics I used to watch all the time. My little world was expanding and growing and I was starting to realize that there was more to the universe than the little catholic school taught me. I had started public middle school and the information was astounding. I started to learn all new terms, even some I recognized from overhearing my older sister’s jokes with her friends. I’m pretty sure I was still convinced that sex was not much more than kissing until upper elementary school. My new friends were teaching me things that I had never even ventured to think about before and thus thrust onto me an unexpected situation: attraction.

Let’s backtrack for a second. When I first found out about lesbians, I remember clearly being on the playground of Spears Elementary playground mulling over the question I had been wondering about: how does one know if they are gay? I thought about it all day and I remember sitting there and wondering if I was gay. I started to ask myself:

Do I like girls? 

Am I willing to submit to living the life of an “Abomination”? 

What would I do if I did like girls?

Would I break all the rules of my religion, basically everything I was raised to know, just for an attraction?

Fortunately, my little brain was too overwhelmed and unprepared for the identity crisis that would come years down the road. I simply thought to myself: “I’m not ready for this, I’ll deal with it later”. And just like that, I had procrastinated on my sexuality. 

Now, picking back up where we left off, I was coming to the age of attraction, where people were starting to get more serious than the simple classroom crushes. I could no longer pin all of my love onto Josh Sessa, who lived in the same neighborhood. He was simply a bully, but of course, love is love; romance movies really need to stop romanticizing being rude as being shy about attraction. 

Boyfriends became a thing. It was a horrible and embarrassing endeavor to get a boyfriend.  All my friends were cute and flirty girls who had no problem with tying the boys around their pretty little fingers; I was in a tougher situation. I have never been a super girly girl and I never realized that until quite recently, but there I was, forcing myself into clothing I did not like and wearing a smile that did not belong to me. I knew how to do the talking and get the poor suckers interested, but getting them to swoon was a skill I could never master. My friends were out getting kisses and I was making excuses on why I didn’t want to go further than a hug. 

I was often called a prude, so a prude I became. It was my excuse for everything in my head. A guy would try to kiss me and I would finagle my way out of it and make up the excuse that I “was not ready” or “too scared”. I was kissed by Brady Lewis the summer of my sophomore year and thank god that horrific experience happened because I had to deal with the sudden realization that I have never once wanted to kiss a man.

The problem was that I went from a catholic strict childhood to a limbo of nothing, with a side of middle school, shoved straight back into the clean-cut and uniformed lifestyle of the catholic high school. No one knew the prayers that they dumbly recited every day, but the one thing that everyone seemed to know and agree on was that homosexuality was still the biggest scandal. Borderline teen pregnancy cases would sneer at the idea of a gay kid among them. The boys that everyone knows to steer clear of, those accused of getting a little too rough with the drunk girls, spat at the mention of queers. My peers committed every sin known to man; there is no more sinful place than a catholic high school. Even though it was a beacon of sin, still there was no tolerance for homosexuality. 

My poor little soul was terrified. Here I was, wondering what to do with the fact that I did not seem to be attracted to men at all, watching as people bullied one of my closest friends into tears for being “gay” because he hung out with too many girls. Here I was with friends who would sneer and make gay jokes, not noticing when I went quiet. Here I was, listening to some of my closest friends “joke” and say, “You’re not a lesbian, are you?” with such venom that I could never bring up my questions to them. 

Honestly, my saving grace for anything was Tumblr, as cliche as that is. I was able to secretly learn about everything I could get my hands on. I learned about the whole LGBT+ culture and how it is natural to feel feminine and also more masculine some days. Gender and sexuality separated and the veil was lifted from my eyes one fateful March day in my sophomore year when my best friend, Tianna, and I decided to create a fan blog for Emma Watson. Every single good url we could think of was taken except for “idfuckemmawatson”. 

I spent every moment for the rest of the day, asking myself again and again:

 “Would I fuck Emma Watson?”

And at the end of the day, I realized I was 100% into girls and sat back, feeling nirvana settle over me. Everything started to click into place and I was suddenly in fifth grade again, on that playground. I remember the exact conversation I had with myself; if only I knew what I knew now. I still had a while to go until I figured everything out, but it was a start. My mother always gave me crap about how I am such a horrible procrastinator, but I do not think it would surprise her at all to hear that I actually procrastinated on my own goddamn sexuality.