okay let's do this then! https://twitter.com/MtrKDJoyce/status/1319428691978403840

I will try to make the story relatively concise, but in true lesbian fashion, it spans years before we even started dating

bailey and I had a class together in the spring of 2014. she doesn't count this as us meeting, but I do, because I remember noticing that her whole laptop was in japanese and asking her about it, and she told me about how she taught at immersion summer camp, and I liked her

but she's correct that we didn't become friends at that point. that happened because we happened to be seated next to each other at "negotiating boundaries," the Saturday misconduct prevention workshop at yale div

and during lunch break I saw that she was on tumblr. and I asked if I could follow her. and I told her I was grumpy because the workshop seemed to (wrongly) assume everyone was very interested in having lots of sex, and she offered to bring it up to the facilitator for me

so we became tumblr mutuals, and I was *super* active on tumblr back then. but she was more active on twitter, which I hadn't used in... three years at that point? but I reactivated my twitter to follow her

so we talked more via social media than we did IRL, and because she saw my online stuff, she knew how sad I was all the time in a way none of my IRL div school friends did. and she volunteered to proof my senior sermon for me

okay so THEN I had a cancer scare that lasted for like... weeks. and so when I finally got definitive word that I didn't have cancer, I invited a few ppl to go to Archie Moore's for wings and drinks to celebrate, and Bailey was one of only two friends who could make it

and she got a shirley temple and said she was a calvinist and introduced me to marilynne robinson and I became quickly and deeply smitten with her

(at this point I would like to pause to say that, based on how she was online, I didn't think it was possible that she was straight. I felt really sure, totally inexplicably, that she was bi)

so anyway, fall break comes, and B and I are texting, and somehow (I truly don't remember) we got on the topic of crushes on classmates? anyway, at that point some friends talked me into telling her that I was smitten with her, which I did. (this is still 2014, mind)

bailey, who is the kindest soul on earth, told me that she had just gotten out of a serious relationship, and also that she had "no reason to believe" she was "anything other than straight" and I felt terrible but she was so nice, and was so nice when we got back from break

and we ate lunch together a lot, and sat next to each other in chapel a lot, and it was shockingly not-weird. and at the advent party that december I made the impulsive decision to quit smoking cold turkey, because she didn't like smoking

okay so THEN spring 2015 rolls around. I only took three classes that term, but Bailey was in all three of them with me. that's when we became pretty inseparable

it turned out that we were both quite inclined to try to take care of our friends, so we both did a lot of silly things to help the other out during that semester. it was possibly the best string of months in my life up to that point

at the same time, I felt like I had moved past my crush, because early that term it had come up that B didn't want to have kids. so I felt like it was no longer a sad unrequited thing - there were dealbreakers for *both* of us, and we'd just be good friends

when I graduated, bailey say with my parents. the only time I cried about graduating was because I had to move to phoenix to do CPE, and bailey was staying in new haven. we talked by phone every day that summer except when she was at camp

and she bought tickets for us to go see fun home on broadway that fall, before I left to study in the UK. so we did that together, and both cried and cried and cried. when I left for Durham, she drove me to the airport.

and then, as I mentioned the other day, starting in october 2015 I spent nine months just refusing to adjust to UK time, staying up to facetime with her after she finished classes. this is also when we first shared our google calendars with each other, lol.

and I flew back to the states from England for her graduation, and slept on @saramisgen's apartment floor, and bailey introduced me to her bewildered family and was like "this is Kelli, she'll be sitting with you for everything"

and I was supposed to fly back to the UK the day after graduation, to see a presentation and to study for a final. but the day of graduation Bailey told me she didn't want me to go. and I said "okay, I won't go then"

oh okay so another cool and important part of the story that I failed to include was that we started telling each other "I love you" in like, march of 2015, lol. by this point in the story, we're at May 2016

okay so I stayed for like *five* more days, and most of her family went home and it was just me and Bailey and her brother and we talked about theology and ate thai food and it was just wonderful. *then* I went back to the UK

now, bailey was going to be on staff at camp in minnesota again that summer. and I'd never been to chicago, her favorite city. the obvious solution was for us to roadtrip together from CT to MN, stopping for several days in chicago

it was in chicago that I (finally, lol) realized that, whether she wanted kids or not, I had feelings for her that couldn't actually be classed under any normal definition of friendship. I was *very* unhappy about this realization

so that was july. I finished my MA thesis in NC and flew back to Durham to submit it early september. it turned out that my arrival from the UK into NYC lined up with a road trip Bailey was going to take to see her brother in NC. I was also going to NC! we did another road trip.

she hung out with her brother and I hung out with my extended family but we did go to church together on sunday morning, and afterward I cried to my dad because while I'd hoped I might be able to force a return to friend feelings, that clearly wasn't happening

I moved to AZ in October. We talked on the phone for hours, daily. *Every* day. Still ostensibly not dating, I nevertheless informed her that I thought she would like Tucson a lot and should consider moving to AZ after her CPE year.

so, at this point I feel certain that I'm going to have to tell her. we tell each other everything. sure, telling might ruin this wonderful relationship, but hiding the truth would ruin it just as surely, by introducing a secret

but it's best done in person, I think, which works out, because it was already the plan for me to fly back to new haven for Thanksgiving with B and @nicolebenevenia and @kaylabethmoore and others

but one by one, all other attendees found themselves unable to attend friendsgiving. it was going to be bailey-and-kellisgiving.

so I have my whole little speech worked up, and I'm gonna tell her on tuesday night when I get there, and I'll tell her that it's fine and it doesn't have to change anything and I'm not asking anything of her, I just need her to know

she picks me up in hartford. we got vietnamese for dinner. dinner wasn't... it wasn't *awkward*, but it was *weird*, and charged, and I chalked it up to my own nerves

we got to new haven and we were gonna watch a TV show and I was like "I'll tell her after the show" so we're in the living room and I'm setting up my laptop

but Bailey goes and sits in the little armchair (the chair I'm sitting in right now, as it happens) instead of on the couch next to me, and I'm like ???