Livre d'Or

Cool answer, thank you for joining in! I think I was in some ways fairly sheltered at 14, there was a lot I didn't know about the world and I'm not sure how much the internet would've helped if I hadn't known where to look.

I like that your younger self would feel smug about you! Yay for finding a career talking about literature and Arthuriana. I was about the same with doggedly pursuing educational goals in order to be able to get a career studying and teaching the material I was fascinated by, though unlike you I had a pretty good idea that academics exist, they make up a lot of my parents' social circle.

I maybe should have said something about how my religious position both would and wouldn't have surprised my 14-year-old self. But yes, queer stuff as hypothetical theological debate, wow, it was only a few years later that my community convened an emergency meeting to debate same-sex marriage, and I wasn't quite ready to articulate to myself that it was directly applicable to me but I somehow sensed that it was really important for the pro-gay arguments to prevail. I remember my parents finding it really difficult but very much wanting to do the right thing, and none of us really having any kind of gay rights framework to work in or against.

I was very much into pleasing, not rebelling against, authorities at that age. I think my teachers would be proud of me for making a career in academia, but I feel a bit squirmy to think that some of them might disapprove of my dating women. I'm going to pretend to myself that they've all moved with the times since I left school.