Being Bi &True to myself

I'm sure that everyone can identify with the cliche, you need to stay true to yourself. However, for some of us this is like to a person handing dynamite to the man who breathes fire. Will he die? Will he survive with seemingly effortless grace?
This is what admitting to being Bi is like for me. As if I were saying that I commit crimes against humanity, or that I do drugs, or I am a raging Kleptomaniac. I am not ever sure if the person I am speaking to will say, "Oh? Thats cool." OR "(*gasp*) You know I've heard people can recover from that!"
I am happy with who I am, but I have this problem with caring what other people think. Maybe I can grow past this, but until its all the same to me, whether you think I'm just me, or a sick, twisted person; I choose who I tell with care.
I am not sure if this self preservation is natural, or just the next step, and I'm still hiding. I would like to hold my girlfriend's hand in public without getting hateful insults being thrown from cars, because I love her; and I would like to hold my boyfriend's hand at the same time. (dear lord did she really say THAT?) Yes, its true. Its all true. Deep down, this is the most natural thing for me. I am loved, I love in return, and all is right and good, until I have to face the fact that the world outside my house is not as loving as me.
Even the people I believe care about me enough, (or just wouldn't care one way or the other) I am unsure of, the hesitation borne of the history that I have with the judgy people that have hidden in my family, and were there, waiting in my friend.
I have my moments of bravery, when I told my close friends.......and my family knows. I was just as surprised as my mother was, when my sister-in-law came out FOR me!(Who knows how the fire breather survived that explosion) and then there was the bad one.
I guess that loving more than one person at a time is a crime even more heinous. My mother didn't talk to me for a month, and I thought that I had lost everything. I felt though, I had better tell her about my open relationship before it came out on its own. I was devastated by her abandonment and I thought that she couldn't truly love the real me, but I felt it then; that release from the bonds that tied me to the image I was hiding behind, and I knew freedom. I am no longer a lie.
Let me be true to the fire breather, no matter what the person next to me may be holding.