'Three months after I married my husband, I started contemplating my sexuality.'

This piece is one of the trickiest I’ve ever written.

I’m doing my best to phrase things in a way that will not cause offence as I digest and process the complexity of my sexuality in this space.

As a privileged, outwardly acting cis white woman, there are a lot of slip-ups and mistakes I could very possibly make in this piece.

I apologise in advance for any offence I may cause, and am extremely open to feedback for anything I might say which is problematic. Please don’t hesitate, dear reader, to leave a note to shed light in those instances.

And with that said, I guess I’ll get started in breaking this all down.

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I believe in soulmates, and I believe I’ve found mine.

There’s no one I would rather spend my life with — my husband is my life partner, and he is the absolute best person I know. An eternity will never be long enough with him.

And now that I’m a married woman, the prospect of losing my partner is even scarier than before.

As if our souls are linked, to lose him would be the deepest devastation.

So what does this have to do with my sexuality?

Recently, my husband and I discussed what we would do if the other died.

For the party who remains alive, we couldn’t imagine ever being with anyone else ever again.

For the party that world theoretically be dead, we expressed a deep desire for our spouse to once again find partnership, and someone to share their life with.

That got me thinking —  if he were to die, would I only seek partnership in another man?

Or would I consider a woman?

This speaks to a natural shift taking place in the undertone of society’s acceptance — and my own, with myself.

I’ve always considered myself a cis woman (cis being cisgendered, meaning my gender identity aligns with that I was assigned at birth).

That said, I’ve never really given myself permission to explore all corners of my sexuality more.

What was most interesting to me in that moment of consideration was the prospect of having a girlfriend didn’t feel outlandish at all to me.

It felt no different than if I considered dating a man.

Which has never been my cis woman inner dialogue. And yet, my inner voice sounds the same.

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Without my noticing it, having been in a heterosexual relationship for four years now and strictly only dating men before my husband, I think my sexuality has always been far more complex, and I’ve just never given it the space or respect it needed to possibly blossom into its full self.

I think that my sexuality is just naturally more fluid than strictly heterosexual.

Only, I just never gave it permission to be anything more than that.

The older I get, the clearer it becomes that sexuality is complex.

And it doesn’t always need labels.

If I had been more adventurous in university, I probably would have kissed a woman.

I say that now —  but back in the day, an abusive ex of mine once told me that under the right drunken circumstance, I would probably kiss a woman.

I remember being offended —  not because I was disgusted with the prospect sexually engaged with the same sex, but because I was insulted by someone else trying to force my sexuality, something that was mine and only mine, into a box based on their own selfish agenda.

I knew a threesome with another woman was his fantasy. Seeing as I was saving myself for marriage, it was unlikely that would ever happen.

At least not with my consent (which he later proved didn’t mean sh*t to him anyway. But that’s another story for another time).

Truthfully, I think the right circumstance, and a super cool chick, would have truly interested me in university.

Hell, if a super-cool chick had come along before my husband and initiated flirting, I probably would have given my sexuality a chance to explore its fluidity a little further.

I’m not sure what label that would have made me, and I’m not sure I care.

Because I think, the older I get, the more attracted I just am to confident, kind and intelligent people in general.

Gender is less and less a factor in that respect.

I want to be clear in my disclaimer here — as it stands, and as far as I am concerned, I am a privileged cis woman.

It’s not my intention to undermine or take advantage of the efforts of my LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters who have fought to have their choices and sexuality acknowledged as valid.

I hesitate to call myself any given title beyond cis — I don’t believe I deserve the respect or honour that comes with using the LGBTQ+ title, as I have never explored beyond the cis side of my sexuality.

I also don’t believe in sexual orientation being “phases” — and that is the part I’m trying my best to get across.

I don’t think I’m going through a phase or anything like that — since I was a child, I was always a little bit curious about the genders. This is exactly how I was born.

I simply never gave myself permission to further explore what that curiosity could mean.

Instead, I aligned with society’s expectations that I, a Christian-raised girl, would one day have a husband.

I’m just finally giving myself permission, for no one else other than myself, to respect and appreciate that my sexuality is more complex and colourful than that.

And whether or not that gets explored more, I don’t know. And I’m not sure that matters.

Because the fluidity and complexity of sexuality is a beautiful thing — and it is my own.

And I’m happy to own it in whichever shape, form, or colour it was created to be.