All it took was a moment.
A moment and a quick decision fueled by a painful burst of confidence to hit "publish." A moment that changed my life, and possibly many others for the years to come. A moment of sharing my personal experiences with people online. A moment where others could read my struggles and realize that we weren't alone.
I remember how scared I had been while writing my first lesbian romance story. I remember staying up until two in the morning on the weekends fleshing out characters that resembled my thirteen-year-old self all too well. How I would write in the secrecy of my bedroom, hoping my parents didn't awake in the middle of the night only to discover my secret. I remember locking my laptop and hiding it under my bed, afraid that if my mother found it while cleaning, she would discover what I had been relentlessly working on every night that summer.
It made me feel paranoid, but something inside of me couldn't stop. It was like I needed to get these stories out, even if I never found the courage to share them. They were clawing at my brain and manifesting onto my computer screen as my fingers typed away through the late hours of the night.
Looking back now, I'm so glad I didn't chicken out.
That was over ten years ago. Ten years of navigating and developing my secret talent of telling stories that people all over the world apparently love to read. Ten years of writing in secret and using other sources of talent to cover up what truly made me happy. It took me ten years to finally become comfortable telling strangers that I am, in fact, a LGBTQ+ fiction writer, and can honestly say I've never been prouder of who I am.
This "moment" I had at the turn of my teenage years, the decision to share my stories with people on the internet, quite frankly changed my life as a young lesbian. It opened me up to an entirely new, underground world of writers and young people who were doing and feeling the same things as me. It introduced me to people who would later reach out and tell me their stories in return for me sharing mine.
It was amazing, because I was allowed to share personal stories with strangers across the globe when I was too afraid to share them with my closest friends and family.
I was afraid of my family's possible rejection. I was afraid of the opinions of my friends. These are real fears that are unfortunately very common in the LGBTQ+ community when we even think about coming out. It's traumatic, and it has the capability to follow us even after we've spoken our truth.
I, myself, didn't come out until I was nineteen years old.
I had been dating girls since I was fifteen. I had been writing lesbian romance since I was thirteen.
Now, at twenty-three-years-old, I couldn't imagine ever giving up my dream of becoming a LGBTQ+ fiction writer because of the thousands of people on Wattpad who encourage me daily to never give up.
They tell me my characters reached and comforted them in times of hardship. They tell me my stories made them laugh, cry, pound their fists in anger, sigh in defeat, and smile in relief. They tell me to never stop, because I give people hope and teach lessons through the struggles of my characters. My stories not only helped save my own life, but they've quite possibly saved others as well.
So be proud of who you are, love who you love, and always pursue and share what makes you happy, because you never know which moment is going to change someone's life.
This is my #UnlimitedPride story. What's yours?
Be Proud. Stay You,
Lauryn A Brooks
