A year ago today, I came out of the closet – or rather, my mother shattered the closet I didn't even realise had been there. I've been debating all day whether I actually wanted to write about and share my journey since then, but introspection is generally a good idea, so. Here we go. (Thank you Anja and Sian for holding my hand.)

In December 2016, I told my parents I wanted to dye my hair blue. This elicited no reaction, so I upped the stakes by telling them I also wanted a tattoo, and when that did nothing, I blurted "oh, and I like girls too!" Much like the previous two statements, all that got me was "that's nice, dear, good for you". My family's not conservative politically, but I suppose we could be described as rather traditional – we were all raised Catholic (faith'll be a blog post for another time, because hoo boy is there a lot to unpack there too), and there are Standards To Be Upheld Because You Belong To A Lineage that have been drilled into me for over two decades. I'm the eldest of my siblings, and as any older sibling will know, that tends to add a load of pressure because you're expected to be the youth's reference point.

So, when I first mentioned that I liked girls that year, I thought I was joking. There was no way I was actually bisexual, was I? It wasn't right, wasn't proper, not for me at least – I have zero issues with anyone else's sexuality, I just personally happened to be straight. Ha, ha.

For some reason I kept making allusions to bisexuality (that I kept mentioning the possibility really should've been my first clue that I probably wasn't quite as straight as I thought), most likely as a way to test the waters. Flash forward to June 3^rd 2017, where mum is reading a magazine and talking about the actor on the cover to dad and I.

Mum: I always thought he was like you, Val, at wind and at sails (this is a direct translation from French, but the original version still doesn't make any form of sense)

Me: what does that mean?

Mum: it means he's bi.

And on went the conversation about the actor in question, while I quietly proceeded to have an existential crisis on the couch. My mum had, for all intents and purposes, taken a rocket launcher to the closet I hadn't even realised was there, let alone that I was standing in: hearing her say "he's like you, bisexual" made me realise that oh, yes, yes I am bisexual, that's what's been going on in my head for the past months. The fact that there's no term to accurately capture what happened during this conversation bothers me: I didn't come out to her nor did she out me, technically, because you don't out people to themselves, do you?

My dad, however, required a proper coming out, and that didn't go quite so well. He made a joke about me bringing a woman home in front of a (conservative) friend, so I confronted him about it and asked him to watch his mouth because I wasn't yelling about it to the general public yet.  Dad, who thought he was being funny, hadn't been privy to my existential crisis a few days before, didn't realise I was serious, and wasn't too happy that I'd fight him on this.

He then went through every item on the 'What Not To Ask A Bisexual Person 101' list, most notably "well at some point you'll have to choose" (no) and "if you marry a man, does that make you straight?" ("no, dad, I'm not gay if in a relationship with a woman and straight if with a man, I'm just bi all the time"), and was generally super uncomfortable with the entire thing. Pro tip: have these conversations in the car: whoever you're talking to can't run away. (Admittedly, neither can you.)

My sister, much younger than I, was the next person I told, and for a kid who goes to private Catholic school and is surrounded by bigots, her reaction was amazing. She told me she was proud of me for telling her, but I still think I have more reasons to be proud of her because she apparently argues with anyone who expresses a homophobic opinion. My brother was surprised, because that boy is blind as a bat and hadn't seen a thing coming, and disappointed that I hadn't told him first. Honestly, that boy.

Now (phew, that was long, I'd apologise for the word vomit but I simply can't not talk in circles), where do I stand a year later?

I still struggle, sometimes, with the bisexual label. But as a friend once told me, bisexuality is still valid even if it's not 50/50 attraction to two genders. Including myself under the LGBTQ+ umbrella doesn't come naturally; that's probably those two decades of Catholic education I mentioned earlier.

Moving countries for my postgrad degree has definitely helped in that regard, though – I found myself in a super friendly, non-judgemental environment and was out to most of my friend group really, really quickly. The friend group from my undergrad is another story – only a select few know, because the others are far less inclusive and I don't feel comfortable with them knowing.

My dad still has trouble with the concept, in a "non-straight people are fine but I'd rather it weren't my children" way. I reference bisexuality a lot to normalise it, and am proud to announce that we've finally reached a point where my dad does too, but it's also obvious that he's not 100% convinced I mean it and is kind of hoping it's just talk. The bigger problem is that he sometimes makes comments in front of people and accidentally outs me, and doesn't understand why it's an issue, but I'm working on that. I'm lucky enough to live an environment where being accidentally outed doesn't put me in any kind of danger, so annoying as it is in some respects he's almost doing me a favour: it spares me having to do the announcement myself, which I still find difficult.

This blog post is probably the most I've directly called myself bi, ever, which shows that a fair bit of road remains ahead. Overall, though, I'm looking forward to the trip.