Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

Misguided Perception
by Matthew Stephen Hyder
(August 26, 2011 Friday A.D.)
Part 1

Hello. My name is Rose. I am 14 and have been a Catholic my whole life, until one fateful day, I heard of something strange. Men and women can fall in love with each other! I thought it was so oddly enchanting, that I wanted to see it for myself.
One day at school in the hallway, I saw it. Two guys kissing each other! I could feel the heat rising to my face as I got flustered and looked away. Two of some of the hottest guys in the school were gay?! It can't be! I was hoping I could ask one of them out and my friend Rachel could have the other one! It would seem you can't always get what you want, but this in itself wasn't so bad.
Little did I know, people were picking on them right afterward. Why?! What's so wrong about their love?! I could hear the words "f*****t" and "queer" ringing in the air. I've never heard those words before in my life, and I've heard a lot of bad words, being a teenager and all. It's horrible how many offensive words one person can say...
The two guys then walked to their classes which were about to start. I didn't have time to dwell on this, but I couldn't help myself. English was next and I was then called upon to read aloud. The teacher got so upset at my distractions, I was sent to the office. This is the first time I've ever gotten in trouble! Well, in a long time anyway. It's amazing how much we can remember.
The principal told me what was wrong, so I told her. "Is it wrong for people of the same sex to fall in love with each other?" The principal then seemed to have acted strange. I could tell she didn't like that question, even if she tried to hide it. "It is not my place to say, but I think you should confront your friends and family if you're really unsure. If dwelling on this question is the only problem, then I'll have to ask you to return to your class. You have all the time in the world during lunch and after school to daydream. If you don't focus now, you'll never get the grades you need to pass. You know as well as I do that finals are coming up." I replied with the usual "Yes, yes, I know..." What did it matter though? These finals were only for the first semester. Even so, I knew that I had to work diligently or my parents will kill me. Not literally, but I could be grounded for weeks, maybe even a month with no TV, cellphone, CD player... Oh, I can't bear to think about it!
A little before lunch started, I had to go to the girl's bathroom because I still haven't fully digested my breakfast. Today I ate a muffin and drank some milk. It was very hearty and delicious! Anyways, as I walked into the girl's bathroom, I saw two girls kissing this time. It seems they had the right to do it in a more private area. Unfortunately, another girl walked in after me, but this one girl was my friend, Rachel, and she looked at them in shock and looked away. Could it be that she finds this wrong too? Why?! I don't understand... Why am I the only one who doesn't understand?!
"Rachel, what's wrong?" I asked her. Rachel looked at me in shock. "Don't you know? God doesn't approve of this. It's against the bible. I don't know why, but it just is. As a catholic, I thought you would know. How much of the bible have you read?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I never knew something like that was in there! I never read the whole bible before because it was so long, and I was to caught up in my studies, although I did have many summers to read it, I never really cared that much about life lessons yet. What kind of teen wants to get lectured? Even so, I tried reading bit by bit every now and then. Maybe I have already gotten to that point, but I forgot about it. How many things is God against? How many things does he approve of?
"Why are you looking at me like that?" said Rachel. "I... I don't see why this would be such a problem." The two girls soon overheard us whispering and couldn't help but be curious. "What are you two talking about?" said one of them. "Oh, nothing." said Rachel. "We were just discussing what we should do on Saturday." "Ooh, you two go shopping! I know some cute clothes I could pick out for you two, and because the holidays are just around the corner, everything is on half price! What do you say?" said the other girl, getting really excited. "U-um... No thanks. We're good." I said, getting embarrassed. These girls really are lesbians! I can only imagine just what kind of clothes they wanted us to where...
"Well, if you ever change your mind, you know who to call. I'm Monica and this is Ashley. Here are our phone numbers." "Don't you two think you're rushing things? We've only just met." said Rachel. "Well, isn't it more fun this way? We can get to know each other on the way there. You never know, we could find you some good clothes you two have never thought about wearing until you met us! We got some pretty daring clothes in mind." "Um... we'll think about it." said Rachel, and we soon left after we... Well, you know.
There's not much else I could say about what happened in school. Just the usual boring work. Oh, I guess I got a little ahead of myself! I didn't properly introduce myself! Along with my name and age, I am a Cancer, born on June 24, 1985. The year is 1999. The next millennium is going to be here! I can't wait! Today was December 15. There was only 10 days until Christmas. I know I should have been more excited, but I couldn't help it. I never felt so conflicted about my own religion. I thought only sinners go to hell. No, that's not right... Even non-believers go to Hell. I never thought much about that though, because I don't really know what people of other religions believe in.
I guess you could say I'm a pretty lucky girl. I live in New York, a very famous place in the United States. It snows here just about every year. Even now as I speak, more snow is starting to fall! I tried to cheer up by catching snowflakes on my tongue. Big mistake. I forgot that they didn't taste as good as some people make them out to be... I then wiped the snow off my tongue with my hands covered in mittens. I must have looked pretty silly.
Before I went home, I went to my favorite bookstore to look for a new book. As you can see, I really love romance, and I just had to find a book on lesbians or gays. It's just so intriguing. I can't even begin to tell you how many books I've read over the years, and every one of them was about a boy and a girl. I must have read at least 20! Maybe I'm a little obsessive, but it's not like it can hurt me, can it? I asked the clerk if they had any books like that, and he smiled and told me the name of one I could find. I just hoped that no one in my family like my older brother David wouldn't get into my privacy like he did with my diary. We do boys have to be so nosy? At least he only did it because he was worried about me one day... But of course, what he read first were my earlier entries about who my crushes were, and it became too much for him to handle. I don't see how boys like this can get any girls. I know I'm not that type of girl!
So then I went home and took off my jacket, scarf and other winder clothes that were soaked with wet snow that quickly melted into water in my closet and hurried back down to talk to my family, who always wanted to know how I was doing. Some days I wish I could just have some privacy to myself, you know? It's not always easy to express your feelings to everyone. Emotions like anger can be surprisingly dangerous. I don't think some people realize how strong yet weak our hearts can be. Some people are just so insensitive about how others feel... I still feel bad about that gay couple that was picked on today. I wonder what being friends with those kinds of people would be like...
So my mom and dad said the usual, and my brother told me how he's surprised I haven't caught a cold yet. Jerk... I bet he wishes that I did. Of course, my parents told me we needed to go get some flu shots tomorrow. Ugh, I hate needles! They hurt! Couldn't there be an easier way? Some medicines have to be taken in the form of pills, or a strange liquid that you could surprisingly drink. Science can be hard to understand... I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up.
So then I went to my room, finally all alone. I didn't even bother with my homework until the end of the day. I was tired of grades... I just wanted Christmas to be here. So I opened up my book and read the first chapter. It seemed pretty good. The main character was just like me. A religious girl like me, except she was Christian, who didn't know it was wrong to be a lesbian, except unlike me she was one, which made matters worse. I wonder what would happen to her if her parents found out... I wonder if people were born that way or if it was by choice.
I started to get tired of the book for now and went on a chat site. You've probably noticed how I didn't say what bookstore I went to, or what chat site I go to. Well, I figured I'd keep things secretive to make things more interesting. If I gave out too much information, I could be stalked, and everyone knows how scary that can be... I talked to my other friends, Jessica and Kaitlyn. I only had 3. I told them what they thought about gays and lesbians. They said that they didn't mind it, but that it was against the bible, just like Rachel. I told them if they ever talked to anybody that wasn't a Christian, Catholic, Jew and so on like us, to see what their views are about it, and they of course said no. There doesn't seem to be many people who don't believe in God, or Jesus here in America but I know there are some. I wonder what those people are like... My friends have often told me that I'm a little too curious about things, as if I'm a cat. You know the saying, don't you? Well, I'm not a cat. What could possibly be go wrong? Not even learning about all of this has really phased me that badly. It's not like I'm a lesbian. I've liked boys my whole life, even though a lot of them are jerks, like my brother.
After finally doing some homework and going downstairs to eat some dinner, I went to sleep. I didn't even bother to go outside much today. Not until I get my flu shots. I was too mentally exhausted to do anything anyway. And so, I had a dream tonight... I bet you were expecting that, huh? Well, just because it was predictable doesn't me it's a bad thing right? So anyways, my dream started like this...
Everyone around me was a talking flower. Pretty weird, huh? It's probably because my name is Rose. Almost everyone was an ordinary flower, like a tulip, or a daisy, and then the people who were gays or lesbians were poisonous. People didn't understand the point of there being a poisonous flower because all they do is bring harm to people. They didn't care about how beautiful they were because they couldn't come near them, maybe even smell them. They all felt worthless... I tried to cry, but the tears wouldn't come. It's not like I was one of them, and was only a flower... A lonely rose... That nobody wanted either because of my thorns.
I woke up the next day, crying. Not hard mind you, just a few tears. What a sad dream...

(To be continued)