Every little girl dreams of her fairytale wedding. Apparently boys weren't supposed to also do that. He would be standing there, sun glistening on him, my groom. The grass would be green and everything would smell like flowers. It was a wonderful dream.
I never thought of myself as gay. Even though my husband in my dream was always just that - a husband, I never really connected the two concepts. The thing was, in my imagination, I was always a girl. Really. I had the same haircut I do now, same green eyes. It was fine this way, it really was.
I would cross dress. No one ever minded, I didn't care. I surrounded myself with pink. That didn't make me gay, right? My closest government officials would worry, but they just thought I was young, not quite in my right mind yet. I remember one conversation in particular.
He said to me, "Poland, I'm starting to get concerned. You do know that the vest your wearing is, ahem, pink. It was made specially for you, like the rest of your outfits, and you ordered the tailors to make it this color. Why?"
I couldn't quite answer, it was such a common thing for them to say things like this.
"It's, like, so totally pretty!" Was my only response. I was only about ten or eleven in human years then, but I can still feel the impact today. Was I supposed to think it was pretty? Never mind that for now. I know finally that there was no real answer, no real thing to say to it. I am a country; I can think whatever, or whoever, I want is pretty.
And then I was only talkative to the people closest to me, never strangers. I thought I was fine socially, I could talk to whoever, whenever. I was fine.
And then there was him. He came, forced into a marriage between our two countries' respective rulers. I guess, in a sense, we were married too. I opened up to him, without even fully realizing it. I would hear the officials talking to the foreign dignitaries about how much I seemed to like this Lithuania guy, how much I talked to him, and how willing I was to be social.
How could you not like him? he had his mousy brown hair, scraggily cut and tousled around, not really caring about his looks. Blue crystalline eyes that would avert their gaze if one stared too long. His blushing, rosy face would appear when even the slightest hint of inappropriate dialog would be said.
I saw that he had no intent on being the outspoken, unguarded one, so I was happy to fill that space. It was what I so naturally fit into, it was like I had been talking to him for years. And soon he started talking, sharing with me his reserved virtues. And I never talked so much that it would disturb him. You see, he wasn't the kind to shy away from conversation, quite to the contrary, actually. Once talking arose he is a very skilled socializer, or if something funny or interesting were to occur he would be the first to comment on it.
As we passed our days in the rye fields I became more and more aware of what he brought out in me, and that I must do the same to him in return. I must let him be more him, as he lets me be more me. Another thing I became aware of is how, even though I was the more "touchy-in-your-face" person in this relationship, I was more and more affected by our times spent together, his eyes glimmering in the sunlight, the way he carried himself as he walked.
I was getting a crush in Liet. More than "I think your cute", even though I did think that, I wanted him to smile at me and grab me and hug me and never let me go. Even then I didn't fully label myself as gay.
It wasn't until Elizaveta visited and asked me the terribly explicit question of, "Hey, did you kiss Toris yet?" that I understood fully. I blushed so furiously and attempted to hide myself under the table, that she totally caught on.
"Oh my gosh! You like him, don't you? Feliks, I'm so proud of you!" Hungary said to me. I nodded at her first question. There was no doubt in my mind what I had to do.
In the next few days I was cautious around Liet, waiting until the opportune moment to take action. It finally came, under a tree in the middle of our favorite place, the rye field. We were leaning up against that giant trunk. He slid down into a lying position, something he was only comfortable enough to do around me. I was still sitting up, now looking over him as he closed his delicate eyelids, lashes fluttering on his cheeks. I decided it would be now.
"Like, how do you think of me, Liet?" I just said it. My heart was pounding, not fast, not slow, just pounding, like the loudest drum on earth. And then he just did all of the work for me.
"I think of you as the brightest thing that ever existed. Your so happy, and you make me so happy," Red started to creep onto his face, while my beating heart calmed a bit. "I... Umm... Astiprashau... I really, really like you, so much more than I ever thought possible... Astiprashau..."
He was apologizing! I couldn't believe it, it was more perfect than what I wanted to hear. I sank down next to him on the ground and said, "Like, totally me too!"
At that moment, it wasn't so hard to imagine how things were going so much better than in my dreams.