My name is Karine. I’m from Brooklyn, New York. 

I grew up in a very conservative… conservative environment in Haiti. We went to church every week, sometimes twice a week. I did hear a lot of homophobic slurs when I was growing up, particularly the word “masisi”. They would describe when certain behaviors were masisi behaviors.

I continued going to church with my mom and my sister when we moved here, we still went every Sunday. Once I got to college is when I was able to separate myself from the religion. 

I went to junior year abroad in France. I think I started figuring out my sexuality when I was in France because one of the women that I was on a trip with, I had a massive crush on her. We never did anything. I didn’t really focus on it. I put it away because I was going to law school. I had things that I had to accomplish in my life. 

I went to law school, graduated, and started working at a firm. And while I was a first year associate, we were asked to accompany the summer associates, which were… they were incoming into the firm as potential employees as, you know, the following year.  So we were asked to accompany them on their events, which law firms usually take summer associates to various events throughout the summer.

On one of these excursions, which was to go look at gallery spaces in Chelsea of artists. They wanted my presence there so that I could, you know, give some good advice to the summer associates. 

While at the excursion at the Chelsea Gallery, I met this woman who was also a summer associate. At a certain point, at one of the galleries, her and I actually started talking. And we found that we had a lot of things in common. We both loved theater. We both loved dancing. 

And I didn’t realize that I’d actually stopped talking to everyone else. I only spoke to her for the entire time that we were at this gallery space. And I just remember feeling just this lightness, this just absolute comfort and just this moment of just relaxation.

There was a moment when we were walking in one of the spaces and I remember that the space was unfinished. So there was a lot of light coming in through the windows, through the roof. And I remember at one point I was feeling uncomfortable because I was getting warm, but then I looked at her and I had what I could only be described as “coup de foudre”, which is a French expression. It’s like a lightning bolt hitting you. 

I had what I could only be described as “coup de foudre”

And I had just this moment of understanding that I could actually be in love with a woman, and I could be with a woman. Even though I’d had those feelings before, when I was younger, when I was in France. But this was the moment where it just felt like it was coming together. Just this single moment, on an excursion and a day that I didn’t even want to go to because I had so much work to do. But I went anyways and fell in love. 

The entire group went out to dinner after. I did not join them because I went back to work. So I had more work to do. But as soon as I got back to my office, I called my best friend who I call my gay husband and told him what happened. 

My gay husband basically said that “You’re a lesbian,” and was like, “I’ve told you before that you’re a lesbian and you just don’t want to own up to it.” I didn’t really have an answer to him, but I still, you know, I still think of myself as the identity of, of being bisexual. 

After that day, me and her, her and I spent more time together at various different events, getting to know each other more. I never really said how I was feeling. I think in her mind, we were just developing a friendship. 

After the summer program, she was hired to be an associate at the firm. She was actually placed in my office at one point. And we spent – we still spent a lot of time together going out, going out dancing. There was one night that we were at a gay club with go-go boys surrounding us and we’d been dancing for hours and it was the first time that we actually kissed was at the gay club.

It felt like everything in the club just went mute. my heart stopped beating. Everything just cleared. It just.. it felt like this was normal, despite how I grew up, like this was normal, this was okay, this was fine to be with someone of the same sex. 

After that first kiss in the club, our relationship did change. It got a little bit more romantic and we would have, we would do little gestures of affection for each other throughout the day. She would leave me things on my desk. I would leave her things on her desk.. 

We were on and off for a number of years, But eventually it just… it just didn’t work out. But such is life. You know, things don’t, not all relationships work out. 

The feelings of meeting her that very first time still make me very happy because it was just a moment of discovery. I met this woman 20 years ago, and to this day, I remember the feel of meeting her. It impacted my life in a way that  it became clear that I could have a real relationship with a woman, that I could love a woman, and that I could be loved in return by a woman.