some day?

By a.lesser.thing

Wed, 17 Apr 2013
  • 409 reads
3 comments
 

Side note: This form felt a little bit uncomfortable for me, so I don't know if it'll feel the same for everyone else. Apologies if it does, and apologies if there's any typos. I haven't had the time to read this over, and I'm running late for school (seriously, how does that happen when I've been up since four in the morning?) so I just decided to post this up. Also: hopefully things will eventually be changing. My psychologist is really set on the idea of telling my dad, and letting me be myself, because of how depressing and stressful being not-yourself is. So... maybe it will get better. Or maybe it'll get rougher. But the goal is to be myself, openly, in time.

"You don't open up to anyone,"
my mother says while I drive. "You don't
even let them get close to you..."

It's true. The fact is that people
have been hurting me, repeatedly, for many
years. Charles Bukowski was an awful person,
but an amazing poet. He once said: "I’ve had so many
knives stuck into me, when they hand me a flower I
can’t quite make out what it is.
It takes time."

I'm a talkative, social person, in
all reality. I joke almost constantly, and
when my friends say they need me, I'm there for them.
I just started a no self-harming pact with two of
my closest friends, where our genuine rule is that
if we're upset, or even thinking badly about
ourselves, we text the others.
We're interlinked.
Connected. No longer alone.

I'm blessed to be able to have friends that
I can actually talk to now. It wasn't always
that way, and it's still hard for me to actually
speak. I've told of my fear or inability through
previous pieces, repeatedly, describing it as not
having a voice, or having a voice, or feeling
the vocals before anyone else can hear them.
It's a fight, a wrestle, and I still have
the inability to tell what I'm feeling, fully.

In two days, I have a psychologist appointment
and, after a recent phone call with my mum, I've
decided to tell him that I'm transgender. It's been
a fight with me as to if I should tell or not,
seeing as I've been trying to hide it seeing
as there's no possible way things are changing
soon.

-

I'm coming back to this poem a few days later,
after having my psychologist appointment. It's
better now, I suppose. My psychologist wants me
to shed my mask. He says that I'm catastrophizing
the situation, and if my dad fully loves me, then he'll
accept me and love me regardless. He admitted that,
yes, there's no way to avoid disappointing him. But
it has to be done. He says, "Someday, we hope for
the war to be won." (Can it be done?)

I think of being trans
as being myself, only
in the wrong packaging.
Everybody gets so worried
that, through gender, I will
no longer be me. As if it's
so easy.

I'm scared
and sometimes
I can feel my rib
poking out of my chest.
The weight of the world
sitting on feminine breasts.
A chest. And it sucks. I'd like
to just get it done. Be myself
and apologize to no one.

It's one thing saying it,
and one thing getting it done.
Someday, we hope for the war to be won.

Certificate PG
Poem
Autobiography

Comments

Submitted by littleditty on
mentioned before, how important it is, truly accepting that other people may need time with such 'News', and with their own homophobia, is only fair, esp remembering we have taken a long time with our own, to get to the point you are at now - this was very moving to read. Not uncomfortable at all. Do what you need to do, when you need to do it, when you are able to, when you have the support in place to feel that the support can meet your anxiety, in ways enough for you to act. So happy to hear about your pact with your friends -this is 'one of the best things of all' LD aka littleditty x:)

 

Submitted by Esther on
Truly moving writing, packed with feeling and honesty. We all need to be loved, loving ourselves of course is the first step. Live your life your way; you can never please all the people all the time..... sounds trite...I don't mean it to be!

Submitted by a.lesser.thing on
Yeah, exactly. I was very heartbroken when my mum was everything but accepting the day I told her. Since then, the topic had gone a bit untouched until as of recent. And, though she's still a bit tense with the idea, she's warming up to it. She says she just wants me to be in her life, and she'll always love me, regardless. (We joked about "the train" on my tux, among many things--it was nice just to feel loved, even in the darkness; like warmth in winter, or the relief of removing a splinter.) My psychologist, as I said, is really set on the idea of me telling my dad, and letting me become my actual self. He used to live in western Hollywood, where you could walk up to film scenes and watch them being recorded. He told me that it was stressful for these professionals to put themselves aside, and that they only did it for seconds at a time, and repeated it various times--and even then, it's still a stress for them! He said, "It's no wonder you're depressed and anxious. You have to carry around this mask all the time, and playing this mask, you have to think of what to display it as! And when you're pretending to be this other person all the time, then you start to lose sight of your actual self. It's a mess! You shouldn't have to wait until you're eighteen; that's, like, a month and three years from now!" It was nice because I felt really scared actually telling him... and getting that kind of warmth in return was so wonderful. It's hard just to be /me/. I mean, it's supposed to be easy, but it's just not. And I completely agree. It took me about the first decade of my life to come to terms with it, and then about a year to do the research and realize that, yes, this was along the same lines as me. It's a bit frustrating, because of how other people see things. (Oh, you're just being masculine. You're probably a lesbian. / What? You're turning into a guy? But why would you want to do that--that'd make you gay! / That's gross. Besides, you'll still have a vagina. You'll always be a girl.) I try to be patient, though, and educate as much as people will let me. Glad to hear it wasn't uncomfortable! It felt a bit scary for me at the time, to be so honest, and so I wrote it out partially, saved it, and came back to it later when I was digging through files and decided to give it a go. I wish I had made the tying between the two parts a bit neater, but ah well. Thank you so, so much littleditty, and I completely agree! Since then, both of my friends have not self-harmed, and neither have I. :) We get through the school day just looking forward to seeing each other. It's rough, but we try to trudge on. It doesn't sound trite at all, Esther! I'm hoping to get there eventually; it's just scary, esp. when the people who are close to you aren't in the best shape anyways. With my dad being sick, I don't want to make his life any more hard. I don't want to disappoint him, or tear aside the image of his "little girl," even if it means causing me unhappiness anyways. It sucks, though, because when I think this way I cause myself pain, and make it more problematic when attempting to love myself. (How could you love a liar? Or someone who isn't their self? And how could you love someone that never puts them first?) Hopefully going to love myself, love others, and learn to accept love in return. It must come with time, but sometimes, time loses track of itself. Or, rather, it does when your wrists are shaking, and the arms become blurs and morning slurs. Must turn sometime, though. Thank you so much for your kind words! You've no idea what it means to me.