Somewhere To Write

Posted by Anonymous on 2013/03/26 under Uncategorized

Once upon a time, there was this kid. This kid hated dressing up. Growing up, this kid thought nothing of it. Why dress up when you have the daily possibility of getting dirty? This kid felt this way all the way through high school. However, in high school, this teen noticed that they didn’t like their body. It wasn’t because they were mildly obese. It wasn’t because of the occasional acne outbreak. It wasn’t even because they had tiny hands. This kid felt like they were trapped in their body, that they were born someone they’re not. This kid was me.
Of course, my mom always dressed me up in dresses and skirts as a toddler. I mean, I couldn’t even reach my clothes hanging in the closet at the age of three; how could I possibly dress myself? When I’d play softball a few years later, I had the most fun when I wore the kind of pants the boys would wear when they played baseball. They made me feel like such a professional player. When my team switched to shorts with knee pads, I was upset. “Why can’t I play baseball,” I would ask my mom. Every time, the answer was the same: “Because you’re a girl.”
Because you’re a girl.
That statement alone confused me. Why couldn’t a girl play baseball? Was there some sort of unwritten rule that said girls HAD to play softball? Even so, how would anyone recognize a girl out on the field? As a 5-8 year old, I was flat-chested, so that wasn’t an issue. My hair? I could always cut that, or just hide it in my cap. Boys are better than girls at sports? Please. My softball team kicked boys’ butts. We could throw harder, we could run faster, and we could hit harder than the boys ever could. Our coach made sure of that. So why not? Because I’m a girl. That was the excuse for everything. “Why can’t I spend the night at Johnny’s house with the other guys?” “Why do I have to go to a bridal shower?” “Why do I have to go to the baby shower?” “Why do I have to wear skirts and dresses?” Because you’re a girl.
Even though I was a girl, I enjoyed wearing boys’ clothes. The pockets on pants were deeper, and my body didn’t feel so constricted. The shirts were comfortable, too. Mom didn’t mind buying the clothes because my brother and I could interchange clothes if we needed/wanted to. Then, in seventh grade, my mom mentioned that I’d have to start wearing girl’s clothes. I never understood why. I had grown up wearing unisex, and even boys’, clothing. Why did I suddenly have to switch? Why did I have to switch to these clothes, which hugged my body like a possessive boyfriend or girlfriend? My mom and I fought about this so much, until she finally agreed to let me continue to wear boys’ t-shirts if I wore girls’ pants. She mentioned that I should wear my hair down more, but ever since I started combing and putting up my own hair, I hated wearing my hair down. It’d get so knotted and my neck would sweat so badly. I refused to wear my hair down, except for pictures. I had no say in that matter.
Freshman year. I’ll never forget that. I had my first “boyfriend” then. Obviously we weren’t super serious; we were just two fourteen-year-olds with no license, no money, and no car. We would go over to the other’s house and do whatever: watch movies, play Monopoly, sit around, whatever we could do to entertain ourselves. I had fun, until said boyfriend would try to kiss me. I would always reject him; it never felt right. It felt taboo, like all hell would break loose if our lips met. I felt bad because it would always upset my boyfriend. It wasn’t like he was unromantic or anything; I just felt…weird. When we would meet up, we would hang out, watch movies, and play games. That was fantastic. However, I always felt like I was hanging out with a bro. We “went out” for a few months, and then we broke up because I still wouldn’t kiss him. He was all angry about it, but I was unusually calm for a girl who had been dumped. But it never bothered me.
Fast forward a year or two. The same guy and I would get back together and break up again, for the same reason. By sophomore or junior year, a person usually has themselves somewhat figured out. They know that they like, what they dislike, what they look for in a boyfriend, etc. Not me. I knew some of these things, but I still didn’t feel… right. I felt messed up somehow. I never could place it though. Said boyfriend would get mad that I couldn’t bring myself to kiss him. One day, he had come over, and we had kissed. It felt so wrong. I didn’t feel sparks. I lied and said I did, which I know is totally wrong, but he looked so excited. Since I’m a person who wants to please everyone, I tend to say what people want to hear, rather than what they should hear. As time went on, we would argue and fight over petty stuff, and I didn’t feel like our relationship was actually a relationship, so we broke up and stayed broken up. A few months later, he came out as gay on Facebook. I wasn’t exactly shocked, but it still bothered me when people came up to me and would ask how it felt knowing that my ex “turned gay”. I couldn’t care less that he was gay. I actually liked it better that way; he wouldn’t keep pushing me to kiss him, and I wouldn’t feel so weird hanging out with him.
Like any normal high school kid, I tried to find my identity. I wanted to know who I was, and be proud of that. But something always felt off, even when I was doing fun activities, like tennis and art. I went to my sophomore homecoming, and everyone freaked out when I showed up in a dress. So many “Oh my God, you look so pretty”s and “Oh my God, you’re wearing a dress”s made me want to run and hide. It made me feel exposed, and anything but pretty. All that attention, which I guess should have been perceived as positive attention, came across to me as negative, unwanted attention. A similar situation occurred when I went to my junior prom. I went with a few people who promised not to freak out about it, and so it was a little easier to deal with, until those people ditched me. Then the same comments ensued about my being in a dress. I hated it. Junior year could not end soon enough.
Thank God summer came. Summer, the time when you leave all of your classmates behind for 3 months and enjoy every freaking second of it, was finally here. I had planned on doing absolutely nothing. I did help out with our church’s week of camp, and it was probably one of the highlights of my summer, even though it was hot and I almost died riding the Giant Swing. Shortly afterward, one of my friends texted me and asked if I wanted to help redecorate our youth wing at church. Since I didn’t want to go to COSI with my mom and brother, I agreed. I wasn’t really expecting to have that much fun, but over those 3 months that we worked on those rooms, I had a blast. Unfortunately, I felt like the friendship with the friend who texted was falling apart; she was always being jokingly mean to me, and I was getting tired of it. But at the same time, I got to know an amazing person. (Spoiler alert: This person would go on to be my very best friend.) It was fantastic; for once, I actually felt like I meant something. I didn’t have to worry about people criticizing for not wearing makeup, or wearing dresses/skirts. It was just people getting together, doing awesome stuff, and having a few laughs along the way. It was perfect. Until I realized what was happening: it made me feel sick. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I wasn’t supposed to feel this way. This person hasn’t done anything to make me want to feel this way. This isn’t right. Says so. Right there in the Bible.
Even after I came to this conclusion, I allowed myself to re-enter that portal of temptation by continuing to hang out with this person. Of course, I knew what I was biologically, and I knew that there was no way on Earth I was going to do anything to jeopardize this new and fantastic friendship. But I would go home every time and I would feel so guilty. It was a secret that I planned to take to my grave.
The summer quickly came to an end. And then I was there: Senior Year. Supposedly that’s the best year because you’re almost done with the hell known as high school. You get to leave the teachers to either go in the work force or go to college. As one of the top 3 students of my class, I’m obviously expected to go into college. Most of my classmates know what they want to do, where they want to go; they know what they want to do with their life. Me? I just want to stay 17 and freely watch Disney© movies. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life! I just wanted to be happy. I just wanted to know who I was and be confident with whatever it was. Here I was, about to leave high school, and I still didn’t have an identity, or a plan. At least, I didn’t have an identity that I was proud of.
I went to my church’s annual purity retreat, just for girls. Since it’d be my fourth year, I felt obligated to go, but at the same time I wanted to go. It was a time to get away from school and family, a time to gather round the campfire and sing “Kumbaya”. At least, I thought it was. I found out my mother was going and immediately, I was bummed. Despite the promises that my mom was only there for transportation and crowd control, I felt like I was at school all over again. I already had to deal with her at school, home, and church. Now here? Here, at one of the only places where my mom didn’t interfere? I was immediately worried that my experience would consist of “Kaitlyn Marie, you know better,” followed immediately by, “Mom, everyone’s doing it.” Well, we get there, and it’s all dandy. Mom just sits there during serious discussions, earbuds in her ears and a book in her hands. All of these girls go into detail about their struggles with depression, anxiety, anorexia, relationship issues, and all the other battles that every girl struggles with at some point in their life. At this point, I hated myself for getting so worked up over having to wear girls’ clothing, and all of these girls have potentially life-threatening battles. Therefore, I didn’t contribute to the conversation. Later that weekend, we had campfire. It was so cold and everyone sat as close to the fire as they could without choking on smoke. Mom had decided it’d be best if she wasn’t out there, because she knew how I felt about her presence. We were supposed to go up to these mirrors, read a bible verse, examine our reflection, and then we were to walk over to a table and write down a burden we have. Then, when we were ready to give it to God, we threw the burden into the fire. I thought and thought about mine, when I got to the table. I had the notecard and the pen in my hand. I just wrote what I had felt all throughout high school:
I feel like God messed up when He created me.
I feel like I’m trapped in a woman’s body.
When I sat back down, other girls were throwing their notecards into the fire. I sat there, clenching mine in my hand, trying to make it disappear without throwing it into the fire. I wanted to create the illusion that I had released this burden to God, while secretly continuing to clench this burden with a closed fist. Before I knew what I was doing, tears were running down my eyes. One of the leaders, a mother of another retreat attendee, asked if I wanted to talk. I think I secretly did, but not to her. This woman had left our church; her kid was in my grade and went to the same school as I did. Naturally, after my mom told her teacher friends about things in my life that I didn’t want shared, I didn’t trust a lot of people, especially mothers. So I shook my head, mentally shouting for her to go away and leave me alone. As the girls were told they could go back into the cabin, I sat there, staring into the fire. I was trying to force myself to just throw that stupid piece of paper into the fire. It was just a piece of paper, I could mentally hold on to that burden. Yet no matter how hard I tried to make myself throw away the paper, I couldn’t. Suddenly, this woman that I had started to grow close with over the summer asked if I was okay. “I’m fine,” I automatically responded, “Just cold.” I wasn’t exactly lying; I was wearing a hoodie and sweatpants over jeans. I didn’t bring a coat because I didn’t know it would be cold. And I was getting chilled.
“So why haven’t you thrown your paper into the fire?”
That was a good question: Why hadn’t I? It’s just a piece of paper. The fire was well over 456 degrees Fahrenheit; the paper would burn into a tiny pile of ashes; no one but God and I would know what I had written. I didn’t have to worry about anyone finding out. So why couldn’t I do it?
“Because I don’t think I’m ready to let go of it yet.”
Was I really ready to give this burden, this burden that is nearly blasphemous, to God? This burden that says a perfect Creator made a mistake, could I really just let it go? I suppose, to put it simply, I had broken the favorite plate and my father knew it, but I wasn’t ready to face the music and give the pieces to him. I especially wasn’t too keen on explaining why I wasn’t ready to let go of it to this newfound friend, because she was involved in this burden, whether she knew it or not. My friend and I talked outside for almost 2 hours as I tried to reveal this damned burden, and after a chair was thrown over the fire in frustration at my failure to explain it, we decided to go in, but not until I had pinky-promised her that I would tell her before graduation. I had planned to just not tell her and let her forget about it. I mean, I didn’t completely trust this person that I had just met a few months ago. But that night, I knew that I couldn’t keep this secret from her; she had a right to know.
That night, I didn’t sleep very well. I had dreamed that I had told her about the burden, and she had freaked out. In this dream, she damned me to hell for being so sick and twisted. Our friendship had ended as quickly as it had begun. When I woke up in a cold sweat, I was well-aware that it had been a dream; she wasn’t like that. Or so I hoped. We got ready to go and I sat in the van, staring out the window. My head was pounding. Whether it was from the lack of sleep or the lack of caffeine, I don’t know. I don’t remember the exact text conversation, but it somehow led to referring to the burden as “the text”. The ride got a little better when the van began to listen to my music, rocking out to “Bohemian Rhapsody” and Journey and all sorts of other stuff. It was actually quite enjoyable, despite the headache. We got back, and I decided to rush home and take a shower before going to a dinner that the church was hosting. Sometime later, some Junior Highers told us to go to the youth wing to see what one of the kids had done. Thinking the room had gotten destroyed or something, we went over to look at it. At that point, I was reminded about the nightmare, and I knew I needed to tell her. So I sat down and began to play with my phone. When she was ready to leave, she called me up. I shook my head and sat there. Then one of the Junior High boys came in and was talking to her, so I texted her two words.
The text
She popped her head in after she got the message. “Really,” she asked. I sorta nodded my head, I think. I remember waiting until the boys left and she came in. I double checked to make sure I couldn’t just have her read the burden. After she refused to read and was getting ready to leave (because her parents were getting ready to leave), I took a deep breath and read something I had read a million times at home late at night.
“Gender identity disorder (GID) is the formal diagnosis used by psychologists and physicians to describe persons who experience significant gender dysphoria (discontent with the sex they were assigned at birth and/or the gender roles associated with that sex).”
The minute I finished reading, I stared at my screen, terrified to look at my friend that I had just shared my darkest secret with. Immediately, I felt arms wrap around me and I mentally cringed. No, I thought, You’re supposed to be angry. You’re supposed to be freaked out. You’re supposed to flee from the freak. Her touch scared me, comforted me, and angered me all at the same time. I suppose that was what made our friendship turn into such a great one.
As time went on, we would discuss my issues in the privacy of a car, whether it was in hers or mine. I didn’t really enjoy talking about it, because I was always worried I would say something that would scare her off. I felt like any second she would say that I had nothing wrong with me because I couldn’t answer her questions. How could I answer the same questions I had asked myself a million times, when I didn’t even know the answer to them? I just knew that I was different, I didn’t like it, and I didn’t know how to explain any of it.

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