My latest photoshoot has a lot of inspiration. Coming out of the closet later in life is quite a journey. I feel very connected to my teenage self right now. When you are a teenager you are having epic crushes, trying to figure out how to date for the first time and I feel like I am going through that now but in an authentic way. I stuffed gayness so far in the closet at a teenager. Growing up in Y2K Wyoming it felt like you could be murdered for being gay because of actual events and also Brokeback Mountain came out when I was in high school. I made a crew of my girlie besties go with me to a premiere in Jackson. I was so excited I had no idea what the story line was, i just knew it was gay cowboys (closet was glass). I was devastated. I remember sitting in the high school auditorium watching a reading of the Matthew Shepard story. I was devastated. At home I watched endless hours of Bravo esp. Queer Eye. I loved WIll and Grace. I knew if I could make it through high school without becoming a lesbian and not getting pregnant I would be ok. I just had to get to NYC. Fashion called my name always. I had a boyfriend, you needed a boyfriend, everyone had one.
Cut to 35, multiple boyfriends later, I'm back in Wyoming. The Cowgirl Mermaid came to me a couple years ago, she pushes me to become an artist full time. I'm making so much art, I keep seeing tangible evidence of how I feel. I have never expressed myself so clearly. Through lots of EMDR therapy I have changed my brain. I see it clearly now. I am definitely gay. I have to come out. I have to lose the person closest to me for this. It is all very heartbreaking. It has been such a crazy year and half since coming out. But the shame is subsiding. The joy of being excited to be myself is getting bigger.
I've spent the year going on some epic gay Wyoming adventures. Turns out Wyoming is a very gay place, there are epic people doing very cool gay things all over the state. And lots of happy endings. I've learned we've also always been here.
I watched a lot of queer movies this year, there are a lot of sad endings in most of them. Most characters end up alone. But doesn't everyone really in the end? But recently I watched G.B.F. it had a happy ending, not in the prince and princess get married like everything I was shown as a kid. The happy ending was everyone came out of the closet. Then went off to live their lives how they wanted. I love this so much. That is where I feel like I am now. I did it, I came out, I feel better because of it. I see hope in a way that I might actually get to have a family in whatever way I want someday. I might actually meet a person one day where its just right. I never felt that way before. So I feel like I found a happy ending of my "straight" life and a very happy beginning of my gay one.
xo Courtney + The Cowgirl Mermaid (she stills helps me be brave enough to write this and put it on the internet)
Photos Shot by Bentley Wederski