Jane Lynch - Happy Accidents

Looking back, I can see I was a repressed, judgmental adolescent who mistook my newfound adequacy as brilliance. As with most overcompensating virgins, my puffed-up ego would soon be deflated by a heavy crush.

IT WAS IN MY JUNIOR YEAR AT ILLINOIS STATE THAT I became mentally and emotionally consumed by a full-on crush. This was beyond the vague feeling of dread that I’d had since the Stevenson twins’ revelation. My “gay” now had a focus, and she was a petite, spritely professor with perfect handwriting. That she was straight didn’t matter. I wasn’t thinking I would ever actually win her love. And when I daydreamed about kissing her, I imagined myself as a handsome boy, so I still wasn’t entirely on board with the whole “gay” thing.

But nonetheless, the intensity of my obsession was almost overwhelming. Seeing her for class on M/W/F wasn’t enough, so I used to walk by her office just to smell the patchouli. I still hadn’t done anything about being gay, but the fantasy was awesome, and gay was getting good.

And then, suddenly, she left. She got a job somewhere else, and for the whole of that summer break home in Dolton, I couldn’t even get up in the morning. For the first time in my life, I understood what depression was. In order to get through it, I turned it into something noble, heroic almost. I even gave it a soundtrack. I was depressed to the song “Another Grey Morning” by James Taylor. I am pretty sure for him it’s a song about heroin addiction, but for me it was about the loss of a fantasy. And I grieved this loss like the death of a loved one.

Here comes another grey morning

A not so good morning after all …

Oy gevalt, the drama.

HAVING TASTED THE THRILL OF A FIRST CRUSH, I WAS primed for another. After the great summer of mourning, I returned to Normal for my senior year on the hunt for love. I found another teacher, but at least this time I picked an actual gay lady. She had spiky hair, unshaven legs, and a low, butchy voice. She didn’t rock my world, but there was enough projection on my part to get the crush going.

My initial reaction to her was shock, though. She was obviously a dyke, which made me extremely uncomfortable. But then I got to know her, and I really started to like her. She loved to party, and she loved to hang out with us undergrads, and we just thought that was so cool. Yeah, she was a professor, but she was only ten years older than we were, which at my age was just enough to make her seem wise and alluring. And she was out and proud about who she was, unlike so many of us Midwestern theater majors who were still firmly encased in our shells. Normal, Illinois, had not seen anything like her, and I found myself positively intrigued and excited. We began to flirt. She started it. But I followed. We’d sit too close, let our eyes linger too long, and brush our hands together. It was the first time I had ever flirted with anyone.

But we went back and forth with it. We’d flirt, but then one of us would pretend nothing had happened. Maybe the image of herself as a professor chasing a slightly unhinged undergrad in and out of happy hours was just too much for her. As for me, I was titillated and then terrified, with no in-between. I felt like if I went forward there would be no going back—I’d be for-real gay, not just in-my-head gay. Then one night we greased the wheels with a few dollar pitchers of beer, and things got interesting.

We were at a party and she was dancing to a Devo song with full punked-out abandon. I walked up to her, looked her straight in the eye, and put one hand through her spiky hair. I walked away, like a bold idiot, knowing that I had just made the first move. We ended up back at my apartment, drunk, and we fell asleep on the living room floor. In the middle of the night, someone rolled over, and just like that, we were kissing.

As we were making out, I thought, Oh my god, so this is what kissing is. I had kissed a few boys, but never felt anything and never understood what the big deal was or why people bothered to kiss each other at all. But for me, kissing a woman was different. It was the point of no return.

The next day in her apartment, I helped myself to her journal. Why would I do a thing like that? Because it was there, she was not, and I have no impulse control. In a fresh entry, written that morning, she asked of our night together, “Have I opened Pandora’s box?” After I went to the library and found out who this Pandora was (remember, I’m still a C student), I had to answer, “Yes, she has.”

Our relationship proceeded as smoothly as you’d expect between a teacher and a self-hating student who’s having her first-ever homosexual experience. I pulled her close, then pushed her away, then threw myself at her, then despised myself for doing it. I couldn’t stand to see her, and I couldn’t stand not to see her. I was tormented, guilt-ridden, ashamed … and out-of-my-mind excited. And I had no clue how to handle any one of those emotions, much less all of them together.

I hung out in Normal for the summer of my final year at ISU to marinate in the drama of the push and pull of love. To support myself, I got a job detasseling corn with migrant workers in the endless cornfields outside town. I wanted to do something physical and be outside so maybe I could get a tan. What I got was cuts all over my arms because I went sleeveless.

At the end of the summer, I reluctantly left Normal to start an MFA program at Cornell in upstate New York. I had auditioned for a bunch of grad programs earlier in the year, and to my absolute surprise, Cornell had offered me one of their six graduate positions. Cornell wasn’t Juilliard or Yale in terms of actor-training-program gravitas, but they wanted me! I got a free ride and the promise of two more years doing what I loved in the safety of academia. And seeing as I had projected every last ounce of neediness onto the gay teacher lady, I would imagine my exit came not a moment too soon for her.

Now that I had broken my relationship cherry, I finally got the sense to call Chris. It had been four years since I’d sent him the cruel letter that had ended our friendship. At home in Dolton over Christmas break, I got out my folks’ Harveys Bristol Cream, poured myself a mugful, and dialed Chris’s number.

“I’m sorry about that letter,” I told him. “I miss you. And I’m gay now, too.”

“I know,” Chris replied. And just like that, he forgave me. A fan of late sixties easy listening music, I felt such a joy to hear his familiar sign-off before hanging up: “Don’t sleep in the subway, darling.” I had my friend back.

MY MOM ALWAYS SAID THAT IF SHE COULD BUY ME A town, it would be Ithaca. It was perfect for me—woodsy, contained, and quaint. I arrived there via train and bus in the late summer of 1982. Ithaca is a lovely little place, full of old hippies and smarty-pants students. Every street is a steep hill, and all the students had wonderfully toned legs. I would have a pair of my own in short order. I had grown up feeling fat next to my bony brother and sister. They effectively taunted me, calling me “ub”—short for “tub-o-lard.” I had tried all sorts of tricks and fads to become slim and therefore happy. But now that I was finally losing weight, I still felt miserable. Once again, I could hardly get out of bed in the morning. Not only did I have that damn gay secret, but the fact that I had just come from the buckle of the corn belt had never been more obvious. Way out of my element, I made social gaffes at every turn. I actually tried to take out a priceless first-edition book like it was a regular library book. I had never eaten a taco or had Greek food. I had never had a bagel, much less a Jewish friend. Cornell was teeming with Jews, Greek food–eaters, vegetarians, and New York City types who kept hurting my feelings. Unlike these kids, I didn’t give two hoots about grade point averages, and how much I knew about anything was not a point of pride for me (yet). I was very alone and felt stupider than everyone else.