How an Impromptu Road Trip from Ohio to Michigan Helped Me Embrace My Sexuality
The dispensary run that became the first step in a seven-year journey to authenticity
I would never consider Ohio beautiful. I live in Ireland now, near the north, and it meets every kitschy description: rolling hills, grazing area framed by stone fences and dotted with sheep, the nearby coast exhaling a cool, salty breeze over the town.
I come from farmland. Out where it’s sticky and hot in the summer, teeth-crackingly cold in the winter; routinely, it smells of manure from the nearby fields. It’s quiet and slow and distant. I made few friends in childhood, and when I returned home from college, most remained away. I socialized only with my parents and sister, slept in my childhood bed, and felt the past scratching at my skin like cheap fabric.
A town away lived an old friend, a woman who hadn't gone to college and shared a home with her girlfriend — both considered unnatural by locals: the former because she had no intention of studying a trade either, and the locals hated what they perceived to be a lack of work ethic; the latter fact for obvious reasons. I was the first of my friends to admit to the group as a whole that I was bisexual, as far as I remember, but the last to either date or sleep with a woman. My Christian roots clung tighter; my parents’ influence hovered.
My friend’s partner was L. They’re no longer together, but they’d merged hard at that point. L sold weed and once gave me a brownie with shatter in it, a cannabis concentrate akin to dab resin, and it put me through the floor for an entire evening, panting shallowly like a wounded rabbit. The girlfriends felt fundamentally different to me, so — as any repressed 20-year-old would be — I was intimidated.
One day, L texted me. This was unheard of; her number wasn’t even saved in my phone. She wanted company for a trip north over the border of Michigan to pick up something special from a dispensary. My friend was sick, slept-on-the-bathroom-floor type sick, and L couldn’t face going on her own.
This didn’t suit me. I’ve never enjoyed last-minute plans, I don’t care for weed-motivated adventures, and I was extremely nervous about being pinned in a car for half a day with someone who remained a mystery to me. I originally said no, claiming I had some prior engagement. I thought it was settled.
Then she texted again.
She said her anxiety was so high that she couldn’t bear going alone. The flat plains of Ohio seemed insurmountable — a feeling I’ve often had. My home felt like a sand trap, at times, one that was not only difficult to leave, but so opaque and oppressive that it made you feel there was no way to do so.
I conceded. I recall the brief slap of awkwardness when I slid into the car, clicked the seatbelt in, searched for a topic of discussion and stared solemnly out the window. Conversation became easier as the minutes gradually passed.
Time slipped, flowed faster, then flew. L bought me fast food that we ate in a parking lot before making for the border. We talked about our mutual friend, about movies, about my family, about the college I went to, about my goals, about her relationship history, about this and that, even if I don’t recall the details. What I do remember, however, is the mood.
The surreal emptiness of Ohio farmland on a sunny summer afternoon felt both unsettling and inviting. It was still, bright — sweet, even, utterly upending the apathy it inspired in me daily. I felt that I was glimpsing something rare out in the countryside, something unburdened.
We hit the border, passing the plain road sign that marked Michigan, just as the sun began to set. We pulled into a comically obvious dispensary that practically winked at visitors crossing the border. Being just over the state line, its owners knew their market — people nipping over and back — and didn’t bother trying to hide, like cheesy fireworks shops skirting the edges of Indiana.
I realized that day how close Michigan was to my hometown; it felt like an inaccessible destination, yet the afternoon passed in a blur. Eventually, with a comfortable, cheery energy I had lacked earlier in the day, she deposited me at home, the evening dark and balmy. She thanked me. We never hung out like that again, but I felt some invisible boundary between us had begun to fade.
Looking back, memories of this impromptu road trip clearly mirror the dynamic between myself and my own sexuality: imaginary yet powerful, warding me off with an inarticulable aura of fear, shame, uncertainty. L and I treaded lightly around each other, both anxious to prod that dense, smoky divide, yet it dissipated easily.
The quick trip to Michigan wasn’t a life-changing event. Afterward, L and I interacted more easily, more naturally. Eventually, the girlfriends broke up — like many lesbians I know, it was earth-shattering and catastrophic at first, but they’re now friends again, even as they’ve moved on to other relationships. The ties between L and I, however, broke.
I only came out in recent months, seven years after this trip. I had a lot to overcome in an annoyingly long path to becoming comfortable with my sexuality. For years, it felt like the world would collapse if my parents ever knew, yet I told them over email one evening without a care. The stress had built and built and built — then caved in. Collapsed like a soufflé.
Nothing catalyzed my sudden coming out, really. It just happened. Yet when I think back to some of the most memorable parts of my past, things that made me feel like my sexuality was not a condemnation, I think of L: the sudden decision, the tension, then the giving in, so easy I hadn’t noticed it.
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