I was a late bloomer regarding coming out and trying the kind of relationship about which I had always dreamed and fantasised. Growing up in a small community, I never really questioned my thoughts and the demands that society in general place on one, that a woman meets a man, marries, has 2.3 children and lives happily ever after. Any ideas of loving and being loved by a woman were either quickly dismissed or buried, to be examined late at night when alone and lonely. That caused many hot and frustrated evenings!

I did the whole marriage and children bit, got divorced after a few years, still yearned late at night but continued to date men, which was the acceptable things to do. Somehow though, the yearning never went away and the connection with men was never on the level I hoped it would be. Many fantasies and dreams were built. How I would meet the perfect person, love her, her love me, never hurting one another because, after all, we are both women and know how women think. Wanting something is one thing, but getting it is not always as easy as it would appear. How do you meet other like-minded women? Where do you go when you don't even know any lesbians? How do you even know who has Sapphic tendencies? These questions plagued me on long, lonely nights. Enter the Internet! Was I excited when I realised I could log in under two nicknames, one that I used on the regular channels I visited and another I could use in the lesbian channels!

Many exciting evenings were spent chatting, flirting, and getting to know other women, some young, some older. Much time was spent kicking out men who were out for a cheap thrill. The excitement of finally making contact! My first experience of visiting a gay club was a trip to Champions to meet women and go dancing. What a dilemma! First the dangerous trip through the city centre looking for a club that was tucked away, then actually getting out of the car, hoping I was appropriately dressed, nervous about what the people would be like. What sights for middle-aged women from the platteland!

Wonderfully colourful, bright, sleazy, a riot of shapes, sizes and colours, each with a mission of their own, no one particularly worried about what the other was getting up to, and with whom! Heaven for someone who has always been concerned with what others might say or think. Here was a place I could at last be me, and no one would care or be in the slightest bit shocked. What an evening I had, drinking in the sights, dancing, gyrating to music that had a pulse of its own.

Slowly I got to know more people and made a special connection with a woman in Durban. An opportunity came for me to do there for a weekend and meet her in person. I packed carefully for that trip, knowing I was staying over elsewhere but hopingwe might get a chance to be alone and maybe, just maybe something would happen so I could finally see if reality lived up to fantasy. Well, it did happen and yes, it did live up to the fantasies. It was not all I had dreamed of, but it came damn close. Back in Johannesburg I went with a friend to a dance where there were more than 200 lesbians. After much coaxing by her friends, a rather shy but beautiful woman asked me to dance. My friends decided to leave and fortunately she took pity on me, or fancied me, and invited me over to her table. So started a wonderful relationship that lasted for nearly two years. We laughed so much, loved so much and learnt so much from one another. There were, however, cracks. No matter how much we spoke, fought or tried to sort these out, eventually the cracks became an abyss which was difficult for either of us to cross. The relationship ended, but from this has grown a friendship that I hold very dear. She is and always will remain a part of my life and maybe children's second mother. The sad thing about the lesbian community is that it is either so out there and in your face or so closeted that never the twain shall meet. I am not someone who shouts from the rooftop who and what I am, but I am not ashamed of it either, and I don't try to hide it when questioned. I have also found among the women I have met both in real life and on the Internet that a high percentage of them have at some stage or other been abused in some way. More often than not the abuse has been sexual. This does not make for healthy, happy lesbians and does not bode well for relationships. Living and dealing daily with a "survivor" can be taxing mentally and emotionally. My second long-term relationship was dealing with exactly this type of person. From the word go, without realising it, I became her crutch. There was crisis after crisis, with me coming to her rescue every time. My problems were neglected or dismissed as non-issues compared to whatever she was going through. My children, my work and my family took a back seat to her and her problems. Despite this, the love I was shown, the way she cared for me, and the physical bond we built, were absolutely amazing! For the first time in my life and, I believe, in hers, we could be and do things to one another, and for each other, that had only ever existed in our fantasies.

Eventually though, her childhood problems and resultant behaviour overshadowed the love that was there. Substances were used to try to dull her pain and the more that happened, the more I withdrew. Eventually I asked her to leave, hoping that the tough love approach might make her see what she was doing. The pain of doing this was immense and because we had connected on so many levels, we could not stay away from one another for long. Each time I resolved never again, but when the call or SMS came for help, I was there for her. We usually ended up in bed, making wonderful, passionate love and reaffirming our love, only to have everything crumble within a few days.

Twice I tried to move on and forge new relationships, only to be quickly abandoned when her call for help came. I sat one day at work and wrote something to explain to myself what had happened and what it had done to me, hoping to find some peace within myself and maybe help others who read it. I sent her a copy, hoping this would explain what I couldn't put into words. Not long after I got a call to say she wanted to change, wanted to get help and wanted to sort out her life as she had realised what she was doing to herself and others. What joy that call brought me! Hope at last after months of despair. Once again I was inundated with loving messages, full of hope and promise.

Reality was a different kettle of fish. After so much time apart and other people having entered our lives, there was a lot of hurt and mistrust. I broke off the relationship I was in only to discover the same night that she was in a new relationship which she had denied.

She wanted to try and make it work, yet she didn't want to give up on me or me give up on her. I tried to explain to a friend, who couldn't understand how I could keep going back for more, what makes me do it. I asked her how you walk away from someone, who, when you are togethe,r is loving, caring, beautiful. That when you make love to her you feel as one and you both end up crying, not from pain but because it feels so right and so good. How can you see your own need for love and acceptance reflected in her face and turn and walk away? How, though, do I reconcile myself on Valentine's night, sitting here alone, having received a gift left on my car this morning and SMSs all day on how she loves me and will forever, with the knowledge that she is out there with someone else right now. That tonight she will lie in another's arms while I yearn to be with her, and she supposedly with me? Why do I allow this? How do I go forward? Where to from here? Do I love her? (YES!) Does she love me or is this all a mind game? Why can I not just walk away?

Lesbian relationships. Have they lived up to what I expected? On so many levels yes, but on others the pain one feels can be devastating. My first love did warn me that as good as they could be, more of them hurt. I don't think I believed her at that stage.

How could oa woman hurt another? We are the soft, loving, nuturing gender. We know what hurts us so should not knowingly hurt someone else, right? Wrong!

Would I change the path I have been on? No. Where to from here, though, is anyone's guess. There's a cost on my mental, physical and emotional health. I love, I cry, I want, I need, I cannot have. My moods swing from extreme highs when I hear from her to low when I ask myself how much does she really care if she can put me through this? She is confused. I am not. Do I keep trying to be patient. Do I try against my better judgement to give her the time she needs? Patience has never been one of my strengths...

The views and opinions expressed in this publication, are not necessarily the viewpoints of Womyn Ink. Publishers or its staff.