Heard It in a Past Life: Accepting My Queerness Through Love and Loss
About the Series: Heard It in a Past Life
Our favorite witchy queen Maggie Rogers sings the haunting phrase of “maybe there’s a past life comin’ out inside of me” to close out her most somber song, “Past Life," of her 2019 debut album. Her somewhat pensive tone encapsulates how many of us feel when looking back on our past lives — regret, sorrow, disappointment, even anger. Yet, Maggie is attempting to make amends with her past selves through this song, even through her whole album that carries a similar theme. How can we reconcile with our pasts and bring them into our present selves, or even into our future selves?
At Camp Thirlby, we not only encourage our readers to reflect on their past lives, similar to what Maggie Rogers does in her moving song, but to delve into those experiences headfirst through their own personal memoir. Our series to ring in the new year, “Heard It in a Past Life,” to cite her album title, does just this — it showcases the ways in which our Camp Counselors have reconciled with their origins and past selves, relating to queerness, mental health, and more, to bring into the here and now, no matter how difficult that may be. Because maybe, our pasts are more present than what we ever once imagined.
I was 22 when I met her. I didn’t know queer was an adjective I could apply to myself, but I didn’t expect to want to feel her lips against mine as much as I did. When the moment happened, when she kissed me, they were exactly how I anticipated, although this much I expected. They were soft. People speak of soft kisses often, but never have I felt one like this. With every parting, there was a confessional. An intangible prayer spoken directly into each other’s mouths. I was begging for absolution with every brush of her hand.
When I close my eyes, I can smell her immediately. On the last night we were together, I debated going out the next morning and buying a bottle of her perfume so I could keep her in my presence, even if she wouldn’t physically be there, possibly ever again. Ultimately, I forwent spending the $20. I didn’t have the money, and I knew it wouldn’t smell the same if it wasn’t wafting off her skin, mingled with her sweat. The specific chemistry of her body interacting with the notes of vanilla and flowers. I never really liked floral scents before. But with her, I liked all the things I never thought I would.
I remember, without question, the first moment I saw her, because at that moment, I wished I hadn’t. It was if the blood in my veins suddenly started pumping in the other direction. I had the innate understanding she would mean something to me.
I prayed to god she wasn’t gay. She was.
I was fresh from a breakup, and so was she. My heart, already tumultuous, didn’t think it could handle a queer awakening on top of a bone-cutting loss. But I felt both of them in my tissue. Some days they were at war. Most days, they were at an impasse. My past and my present were trading places with my future frequently. Incessantly. Who I would become upon admitting my feelings would mean more than a surrendering of the future I had envisioned with a man I was no longer with. It meant a grappling deeper than a forgetting. The thought of she meant that I was —
I was no longer my past self. But something much bigger, more whole. Full. In some ways, it was like I had been starving. Forever staring at my plate, unable to eat, afraid of what it might do. It’s like the way people describe chocolate cake as sinful. At least, that’s what growing up in the church had taught me. For years, I ignored the higher calling the priests had often spoken of. But it was not a god on the other end, although I would describe it as a type of sanctification. Coming into my queerness — coming out — for a time, seemed like an indulgence; when in reality, it was a liberation.
In this present timeline, she and I do not work out. Ultimately, my past wins, and I become too caught up in trying to do what I thought was the right thing. I wish I held her hand more. I wish I reached for her in the light, as much as I did in the dark. I wish I saw her past 2 am. I wish in the moments I did, it wasn’t five feet from my boss. I have many wishes, but one resolve. That she knows she is more than a character in the narrative of my life.
My past self carried numerous fears. She lived in irreverent, emotional, fantastical Brooklyn. She feared staying, and getting stuck. So she left. I left. Though with every leaving, pieces of my present self still remain stuck. I have on loop overly romanticized moments, of dancing on abandoned subway platforms in the middle of the night, and holding each other on floors of crowded raves in abandoned warehouses. Nights I play over, because I did not get enough. I look at my past self and I envy her. Despite her pain, she did not know the end of the story.
The end of the essay is that we don’t choose who we meet or when; that just because someone doesn’t express their emotions the same way you do, that the emotions themselves are unequal; that there are no guarantees, only how you handle things. The end, essentially, is a lesson from my past self to my future self, as I am constantly trying to glean some knowledge from my missteps, so as not to make the same heartbreak twice.
You are queer. You will fall in love with men and women. It will be messy no matter who it is. You will cry, and you will relish in your love, the way you always do. This much has not changed. You will be too vulnerable, too often, most people will not know how to handle you. You will disregard them anyways. You will continue to try your best, as you must. You will break other people’s hearts and it will break your own, constantly. You will remember, forever in fondness, the woman who changed you, but you did not get to love properly, the way you intended to. It will be okay. You will write about each other, and hopefully laugh about it. And you will.
About the Author
Maura Fallon (she/her) is a recent graduate from the George Washington University with a degree in journalism and film. Currently, she lives in Brooklyn where she works for American Documentary and spends her time reading on roofs and dancing in the streets. Prior to the publication of this piece, Maura got a tattoo of a ghost, which reminds her of the body’s impermanence and the importance of the soul that inhabits it.
