Figuring things out, Anonymous (16)

I’m gay. My family is super religious, and I don’t mind it at all. They are accepting enough, and I’ve made some really good friends and learned lots of important lessons through church. But, there has always been an underlying sense of limitation, confusion, and repression in trying to balance these two different parts of me. In church, I’m told that I shouldn’t act on the attractions I experience, but every other instinct tells me that it’s perfectly fine to love who I love. And I’ve considered countless times just separating the two and choosing to simply be who I am, but the difficult part of that is that despite all the sadness and pain I have felt from it, religion is still important to me and has shaped so much of who I am today. It’s strange and I am scared for the future. I’m scared that I won’t find someone who understands my situation, who won’t be able to process my illogical reasons for trying to adhere to conflicting beliefs. I don’t even know exactly why I do, but a big part of it just feels right. I just want to love someone without feeling guilty about it. I want to love someone without being an inconvenience. I want to be easy to love. And I have no idea if any of those things will ever happen.