I’m not exactly the kind of woman who writes on this site: they’re usually quite young, and I’m seventy-four now.
However, my niece, who I love with all my heart, convinced me to share my testimony which, I hope, will inspire other women to take the plunge and take full responsibility for themselves. Here you are : I discovered my attraction to women at seventy-two.
I grew up in a conservative family
Let’s go back in time. Born in 1946, I was educated, among my five brothers and sisters, in a strict and conservative family. My mother was a housewife while my father worked in a factory.
As far as I can remember, he has never kissed me or shown any evidence of love towards me. It was a time when men didn’t cry, didn’t hold their children on their knees and never showed their weaknesses. It was violent. It brings tears to my eyes when I remember the evenings when, drunk, he beat my mother for absurd reasons.
I grew up with the strictest religious upbringing. My parents shared a fervent faith and we went to church every Sunday. Of course, on the issue of homosexuality, my parents followed the Scriptures scrupulously.
As it is written in the first letter to the Corinthians:
“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor fornicators, nor those who lie with men, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. “
If I had even suggested the idea that I might fall in love with a girl, my father would probably have beaten me to a pulp and my mother would not have found anything wrong with it.
That’s how my childhood was.
My arranged marriage and family life
At the age of twenty-two, my family married me to a man from my village, whom I barely knew, ten years older than me. We never loved each other. He sure was kind and I couldn’t say we didn’t have happy days together. Simply, We weren’t meant for each other.
With him I had three children, a girl and two boys, who then gave birth to five grandchildren, who for me are the dearest thing in the world. We lived a quiet life, without agitation.
My husband, in fragile health, died of a stroke in June 2016. His death threw me, as well as my children and grandchildren, into infinite sadness. I still find it difficult to evoke the memory of him, despite the years that separate us from the event.
To heal my wounds after my husband left us, I was able to count on my circle of friends. Every week, for twenty years, I found them at the patchwork club where we had fun telling each other the latest gossip while we sewed.
The day I understood my homosexuality
One in particular supported me more than any other. I saw her almost every day. She invited me to have tea at her house and I finally had the opportunity to say everything that was on my mind.
He gave me invaluable help during this terribly difficult time for me. After I finally started to heal, I continued to see her. She had become my closest friend. We haven’t stopped seeing each other since then.
One day, while we were chatting, I asked her about her married life. In fact, I had never seen her in the company of a man and she had never spoken to me about her husband. At the time, For me it was unthinkable that a woman my age couldn’t have a partner.. She reluctantly admitted to me that she only liked women.
At that moment, my religious upbringing, buried deep within me but ready to explode at any moment, resurfaced like a geyser. I was deeply outraged and left. When I returned home, I never stopped meditating on this episode. I can’t sleep all night: how could I be so cruel to the one who had helped me so much ?
The next day I went to his house. She opened it for me and I fell into her arms, crying and apologizing. She pulled me onto her and looked deep into her eyes.
His face didn’t seem to show any animosity towards me. My gaze looked at hers for long seconds and, without saying a word, we kissed. In an instant everything became clear to me: if I had rejected her so harshly the day before, it’s because until then I had repressed the feelings I had towards him.
I had repressed these emotions my whole life, due to my Catholic upbringing, and suddenly they came flooding back, without warning. It was, for a few moments, a tornado of love that overwhelmed me.
Until then the thought had never occurred to me that I could be attracted to a woman. No doubt there were emotions within me stirring, working on me, patiently transforming me as water destroys rock through years and years of flow, but I was never really aware of it.
The first manifestation of my attraction to women was undoubtedly the paradoxical one of my friend’s total rejection of homosexuality. It was, in a certain sense, the last dam that separated me from homosexuality.
It had to be broken so that I could finally live as I am. I was finally myself. Freed from the gaze of others, from my rigid upbringing, from my parents’ homophobia. Finally free.
Building a lesbian relationship at 72
Since then we have each kept our respective homes, so we don’t live together, but we see each other almost every day to have meals, be together, go to the cinema, to the theater… This way of life took root naturally, without consultation. Nobody knows how it will evolve.
We didn’t tell anyone the extent of our relationship, but after a while everyone knew. One of our friends must have noticed us, he told another friend and one thing led to another, everyone around me knew about our relationship, despite our silence.
It didn’t take long for people to question me, and I have to say that this period of inquisition was very painful for me and my partner. We planned to announce it to our respective entourages, but slowly, at our own pace. The abrupt way in which the elements unfolded proved very unpleasant.
However, the result is the same: people learned the “news”. We didn’t encounter any major problems, no friendship was broken at the announcement of this idyll. People were surprised, for a few weeks I was a bit at odds with some of my children, but very soon everything went back to normal.
Don’t wait until you’re 72 to be yourself
I revealed everything to one of my nineteen year old nieces. She belongs to another generation than mine, much more open and tolerant, she had no problems with what I had just told her. It was she who suggested that I write this testimony to you, which I hope will help other women of all ages to fully embrace themselves.
Don’t make the mistakes I made, don’t wait so long to accept yourself as you arelive your life as you want.
Never let religion, your parents’ narrow-minded opinions, or the opinions of others come between you and love. Don’t wait until you’re seventy-two to live life to the fullest !
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Source: Madmoizelle

Mary Crossley is an author at “The Fashion Vibes”. She is a seasoned journalist who is dedicated to delivering the latest news to her readers. With a keen sense of what’s important, Mary covers a wide range of topics, from politics to lifestyle and everything in between.