grow up, get out is a series of personal reflections by queer American designers, published daily this month.

When I was 14, I was rehearsing for a theater performance, sitting against the window, and this girl of 17 or 18 came in: high ponytail, red t-shirt, puffer jacket, flare jeans, moon boots . I was so drawn to her. His energy was different: masculine, bossy and cheeky. Family friends noticed me following her into the theater, completely in love, and grabbed me and pulled me aside and said, “We see you watching her. Do—do you like her? Do you have a to crush on her?” I was mortified, but spent the next four years in her shadow. I just knew she was different, even though I couldn’t identify why.

Four or five years later, her mother hired me to do the costumes for a fringe festival show in New York that her daughter was performing in, and when meeting the actors, she came up to me and said, “You’ve wanted to kiss me for five years, haven’t you? We had this little love ship that summer.

Fast forward 20 years, and that person is now my best friend — I’m her daughter’s godmother. It’s really beautiful how the queer community has these intimacies. If that isn’t chemistry and nature, then I don’t know what is.