Maria on "Sesame Street" was my first crush. I didn't call it a crush at the time, of course, because I was only four or five years old. All I knew was my innocent and organic response to seeing her on the television set. My heart would lift, a grin would come upon my little face, and my attention would focus specifically on her, no matter which Muppet or other actor was also on screen.
Crushes on various women continued throughout my childhood and grew more intense. It wasn't until I was 10 that I thought something was really wrong with me. Because, well, I was a Catholic school kid in Louisville, Kentucky, in Reagan's America, where romance and coupledom were synonymous with a straight, male/female dynamic. My special feelings were not reflected anywhere outside of me. There were no out lesbians in my neighborhood, in my family, in my church, in the shows I was watching, in the books I was reading, in the romantic lyrics to any pop song, or in the class lesson on "sex and family life." It was a complete and total void. I didn't know that I was gay because I didn't know what gay was. I didn't know that gay existed.
