How Accepting My Bisexuality Soothes My Deepest, Most Selfish Fear

Maybe this sounds morbid, but if my husband is ever abducted by aliens…

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Eloise paused over the plate of roasted Brussels sprouts we were sharing for dinner. “Mom, what is your biggest fear?”

I know what my answer would’ve been when I was her age — death. Not the actual act of dying, but instead what came afterwards.

I long grappled with what might come after this life. Is it Heaven or Hell, as my mother had told me? Is it nothing at all — just lights out forever? Or would I somehow be conscious of an eternity of emptiness? Maybe reincarnation is real — a new life starts as another one ends, with no recollection of the ones prior.

All thoughts of death terrified me then, and truth be told, they still don’t sit easy. But now I have a fear far greater — another inevitability, unless my own death comes first.

I paused over those Brussels sprouts, unsure how I should respond to my little girl. I could elaborate on my fear of heights, especially roller coasters. I could turn this conversation into a lesson on facing your fears; I could remind Eloise how scared I was to go zip-lining with her teenage siblings on our vacation last spring, but how fulfilled I felt afterwards.