I tagged along with those sisters for the next ten years, trying to understand their life, working with them on weekends, doing a lot of praying. In the middle of that, I went to Maryville College in Tennessee and enjoyed what I would call normal and healthy experiences of young adulthood. I was an athlete and I played basketball and volleyball competitively through college. I had a great time, made wonderful lifelong friends, went to parties and drank a lot of beer. During college, I kept my desire to join the convent a secret. When I felt comfortable, I would tell classmates that I'd go on retreats with nuns during vacations and that I desired to become a nun after graduation. They'd be like, "What?! You're loud, you're funny, you're not typical nun-type." And this was the mid-'70s -- none of them knew any black nuns. Still I never lost the desire to become a nun and two years after graduation I entered the Brooklyn convent in September 1981. In my role, I served as a childcare worker in a group home for kids who were unable to live at home, as many had suffered various trauma and crisis. Years later I actually became the director of that group home. I did everything from waking up the children in the morning to putting them to bed at night and anything they needed in between. I stayed in the convent for over 12 years, making my first and final vows. At that time I truly believed it would be my life choice forever.
But over the years, I began to realize I was becoming more and more unhappy being a nun, something was missing. Just struggling with whether or not it was the right thing for me. It was becoming difficult to stay for many reasons: being the youngest of the sisters I lived with, being the only African-American women in the order, just to mention two. Then between the eleventh and twelfth year, I met someone, a woman I later fell in love with. She volunteered in my group home and was thinking about joining the order. It was in meeting her that I came to a major realization in my life -- I had to admit to myself that I was a lesbian, that I had deep feelings for this woman and that I wanted to be with her. I soon petitioned my superior to leave the order.
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