LGBT: Someday I Will Be Fully Out

It's not easy, thinking about my extended family, whom I see relatively often, and wondering when I have to be around my homophobic uncle, when he's next going to shit on LGBT people (often in subtle and new ways I'm not prepared for), and what to say if he does. I am very fortunate to have supportive parents and friends, but I think about coming out (as bisexual) to the rest of my mother's family literally every day--because now that I have my driver's license, this is the next big, difficult, "impossible" thing I really want to do in my life.
It's also really tiring to wonder what he's going to say, how I should react, how he will react to my reacting, how my grandparents will react to my reacting (if they find out), whether they will find out...
It helps to practice certain phrases over and over, but those only get me so far. What really has given me strength lately, when I remember to do it, is thinking about my future life, and my possible future wife.
Someday I will be out, completely, to everyone. Someday I will talk openly and comfortably about the women I find attractive, or the latest woman I went on a date with (if I'm not too lazy to date). Not just to my mother, either. I will slowly get better at being fully myself--someday, even around him, and the rest of my family. And if he doesn't like it, or he criticizes me for it, I will tell him, "You don't have to be in my life." (This may be the most important phrase, other than the initial coming out phrases, that I practice.)

I don't know for sure if I'll ever get there, but I didn't think I would ever get my driver's license either--at least not for ten more years. So I hold onto this. I want to be more fully myself, in all areas, and with all people; not just with them, and not just with this. Sometimes I don't even know how to practice "being myself", but I keep practicing my phrases, and visualizing my future life.
I am fascinated by LGBT characters in media, and things written by LGBT people, especially couples, about their everyday lives. They seem so free and easy, even about dating, and talking about dating. I try to see myself in that way.

A few days ago, my grandfather went to the hospital with "chest pains," which turned out to be a shoulder injury--nowhere near the heart (last time it was his spleen hurting, right below his heart, so I wasn't that worried about him; I just wish he ate better and knew more about human anatomy).
Once I found out for sure that he was okay, I remember thinking that if we had lost him, a small part of me would have felt relieved, because I wouldn't have had to worry about coming out and possibly grieving him because of his background. Even though I truly love him, and love seeing my grandparents any chance I get.
And part of that was that I'm actually relatively okay right after losing a person or beloved animal. (Everyone thinks that grieving people need lots of comfort and kind words right after the loss, but I don't, and I find it very irritating--especially because they don't understand that my needs and grief don't just go away with time, they actually get worse. I also wonder if they actually care months after the loss or the shock.)
So I would be relatively okay right after he was gone (though I would just be very well off for the circumstances), and maybe that's why I imagined the relief.
So it would seem that I shouldn't come out to him, or that I shouldn't come out to my uncle and risk him finding out. But that thought is unbearable, too. Especially because if my awful uncle gets to be his awful self around me, shouldn't I get to be my rainbow self around him?
And a part of me also wants my Papa to know the real me, as much as possible. I thought of the possibility of saying or thinking, "I never got to tell him I'm gay," and I had mixed feelings about that. I know if I lose him before I come out, I will always wonder how he would have reacted. And yet I don't feel ready to just bring the subject up. I don't want to lie if it comes up, but I don't feel ready to bring it up yet. Our conversations in the last few years, for the most part, have been no deeper than the funny antics of our animals, or what I want to do for a career.

But whatever happens, someday I will be out. It seems impossible right now, but getting my driver's license was impossible too (for those who don't understand, it really WAS that emotionally difficult for me, for whatever reason; please try to understand, even if you don't have the same exact difficulty). I was right all along about my license--once I got it, impossible things were just a little bit less impossible. I had suspected that all along, and I was right.
It may be years until I come out, or accidentally out myself. Or it may be tomorrow. But I cling to the visions of me dancing with another girl; holding her hand and laughing and kissing; or talking about whom I like, to my family and others, in a perfectly comfortable and completely honest voice.

Sometimes I still can't believe I have my license; it makes me so happy and relieved to think about it, and I see myself differently now, in a very good way.
 But if I had it all to do over again, I would spend less time agonizing over when I would finally get my license, and more time visualizing driving down the highway by myself, enjoying the alone time, in complete control of my own destiny. The thought of that still makes me so happy. 
You have to hold on to your happy thoughts. Someday, I will be out--completely out! I practice saying, "I like her," "She's cute," "Someday, my husband or wife..." Positive statements. I envision myself saying them, to people, to my family, even to my mother (who always loves me and tries to let me be myself around her, though I still have difficulty talking about my sexuality to anyone but a keyboard).
Someday I'll be out, fully and completely out! And if I live in that reality enough, I hope it becomes my everyday reality. 
Someday I will be fully out. And it will be absolute wonderful. It's so wonderful, in fact, that the thought of it actually makes my life better now. And the more I think of it, the more natural and comfortable it feels. It feels amazing. I know coming out is a lifelong process, but someday I will be much more comfortable with that process, and--as much as people don't just assume I'm straight--fully out.
Someday, I will be fully, all the way out. And that is a beautiful thing, and it is my happy thought. Someday I will be fully, all the way out.