This is the start of something new. The episodes you have told us you love most are the ones where the three of us sit down together, so we are making them a monthly gathering. Once a month, Tonda, Barbara, and I will open the letters and answer the questions women are actually asking: the real ones, the tender ones, the slightly awkward ones, and the ones you would only ask us at two in the morning with the door shut.
If you are new to the show, here is who you are sitting with. I came out in my fifties, and I have kept all the receipts. Barbara is a psychotherapist who will advise you gently, and she means it as the highest compliment. Tonda has been out for more than forty years, so she has quietly seen most of it. We think of ourselves as the slightly older, slightly wiser, occasionally ridiculous friends who happened to get here first.
This month we read five letters, and the same quiet question ran underneath every one of them. Woman after woman, wondering whether she is allowed to believe what she feels.
Here is what we opened this month:
How do I know if what I'm feeling is real, or if I am imagining it?
I have never been with a woman. Am I allowed to call myself sapphic or queer at all?
Is there such a thing as too late? (from a listener in her late sixties)
What is compulsory heterosexuality, and how do I know if I have been living inside it?
I know I am not straight, but I do not feel drawn to women the way I expected. Where do I fit?
We talk about the comfort zone and the fear that shows up the moment you step out of it, the gatekeepers who think they get to decide who belongs (they do not), why it is never too late, and the grace you deserve when the feelings arrive on their own timeline instead of the one you imagined. Pour something you like, get comfortable, and come sit with us.
🌈Email your questions to support@annemariezanzal.com. You might hear yours answered on a future episode.
🌈Leave your questions in the comments below.
🌈If you are already inside Authentically Us, you can privately message Anne-Marie or Barbara with your question.
🌈This Authentic Life, the community course Barbara and Anne-Marie are hosting together, begins the first week of October. Registration is open now at https://annemariezanzal.com/this-authentic-life-community-course/
🌈Join Authentically Us, our online community, at https://community.annemariezanzal.com/
If the questions in this episode sound like the ones living quietly in you, you do not have to sit with them alone. Authentically Us is our online community, a growing circle of women who are all somewhere in this process of coming out and coming home to themselves. You can ask your own questions there and hear from us, and from women who understand because they are walking it too. We would love to see you inside.
Join us here: https://bit.ly/Authentically-Us
