By Helen K.
The first icebreaker question at a new employee orientation was, “who is your celebrity crush?” I answered both Andre Iguodala and Jessie Graff back when I still classified myself as straight and before dying my hair a striking indigo. During my lunch break in the back-alley parking lot, the maintenance guy, Kevin, asked if purple hair meant I was gay. “I just like purple” was not a sufficient answer for Kevin in his quest to identify my dating potential. In hindsight, it was fair to assume the lady with glasses who drives a Subaru and works at an “abortion clinic” in a rundown strip mall is a lesbian. Any answer can be an invitation to be hypersexualized, so I decided on the conventional but effective reply from women who want men to leave us be: I have a husband. A man. Boring response. Good enough for Kevin, apparently.
Later. Just a lot of misconceptions, including my own, in a place full of rainbows and trans-pride-colored gift bags. A clear, cheap silicone dildo can double as a stress-grab toy during phlebotomy. Where all the bathrooms are gender-neutral and we have team meetings that address the proper protocol for condom inventory. Who you are fucking and the genitalia involved doesn’t necessarily equal sexuality, but men who have sex with men are automatically gay men. Unlearning requires the ability to be wrong.
So, you start asking yourself questions like oh, do I just like purple? Most people’s first hunch is lesbian until they meet my husband. Then, straight. And I felt like an awkward thirteen-year-old again (she’s always present) while texting a few friend-colleagues: “I think I’m Bi?” (The question mark included.) I felt the visceral panic of being a beginner because unraveling yourself is terrifying work.
Yet, I sit with strangers’ most intimate disclosures on the daily. I am witness to their messiness and discomfort and capability to grow. Gender and sexuality are often front-row themes that shift over the months between appointments. I try not to see my patients as a checkbox or ICD10 code as we review their HIV labs and how their best-laid wellness plans were disrupted by shitty insurance, loss of housing, and the catch-all phrase “barriers to care.” It is hard to create safety in fifteen minutes after a lifetime of medical trauma. But I try, however imperfectly, in a busted healthcare system.
My CV implies without stating, “I am an expert at listening to the vulnerability of others.” My own vulnerabilities can elicit expert-level dissociation. That’s a learned ability often necessary for survival, but one that can adapt.
Which is why I am a science-lover that flirts with tarot cards and astrology to return back to myself. The wounded healer of Greek mythology, Chiron, is squaring my Virgo moon. This translates to friction between needs and unsettled emotions, craving comfort but often choosing a vault. Eventually patients ask indirect questions about me and I skillfully pivot back. But I don’t always have time to answer when one gleefully announces, “We are all gay here!” And can they give me a hug? Side hug. Yes, I can accept that and I do.
There’s a weird line around maintaining professional boundaries and being earnest. I sat with the work kids at a smoky dive bar while eating BBQ chicken wings and drinking a mediocre old fashioned. We were biding time before drag bingo while discussing the value of lived experience and parents who didn’t approve of identities. And the parents at the table who support their kids without reservation. Bar conversation weaved as it does. I shared that assumptions can be disheartening. Like, y’all may assume otherwise but I’m part of the community too. The responses were unfazed and supportive. “Oh, I knew it!” “Okay, cool, that makes sense!”
The kids are alright, the events start too late, and the smoke gives me a massive headache. The stars say that my wallflower era is over, which I won’t interpret as an invitation to party like I’m 23 with my co-workers on routine Wednesdays. Perhaps, rather, just a call to show up as myself fully when the timing is right.
I’ll also argue that wallflowers are hardy plants whose name derives from the ability to take root in the smallest cracks of a stone wall. And there is even a loud purple version.
Helen K. lives in the Southwestern U.S. where she works as a Family Nurse Practitioner and HIV Specialist, saving the world one syphilis case at a time. She has finally made space for creative writing after a years-long hiatus. Her first novel (handwritten in pencil) is lost somewhere in a childhood closet.