Hi, everybody,
I don't really know how to say this, so please be gentle with me. It's very difficult to say these things after being so afraid to say them for all of these years so if I hit and run and don't answer you, please don't be mad.
**WARNING: This is really hard and I'm trying to get out thirty years of pent up frustration, so this is going to be really rambling and a little disjointed. Proceed at your own risk.**
I would give anything if I just had one person to tell that I've always wished I was a girl. Sometimes, I want it so badly that it breaks my heart.
I just wish I could move without wondering, "Uh oh, I hope that wasn't too swishy".
When I talk to my guy friends, it seems like we always have a script that we have to follow:
"Hey."
"Hey. How's it going?"
"Alright. You?"
"Alright. Phillies win last night?"
"No."
And that's pretty much the end of it. This is universal. Every guy on the planet talks this way to other guys. I hate that.
I listen to my sister and her friends and my girlfriend and her friends and the conversations they all have and I would sell my soul if I could be one of them. I don't know when the last time any of my friends and I laughed together and I don't believe I've ever, God forbid, touched one of them.
I would give anything to say, "those shoes are so precious!" or to ohh and ahh over a baby.
I think the closest I ever got was a couple of years ago when I got had a little too much to drink at a concert and one of my girlfriends told me, "You know you dance like a girl?" ("Why, thank you.")
Not very long ago at work, one of the guys got sick and I was fussing over him, asking if there was anything I could do, anything I could get him, and that kind of thing.
One of the girls there was standing next to me and said, "You're going to make some lucky guy a wonderful wife one day". I know she was just teasing and I know that she didn't have any idea what she was saying, but I was so happy that somebody would say that, I almost cried. To my twisted way of thinking, it was almost like some kind of validation.
Kind of like the time in jr high school that I took the French class. On the first day, the teacher told us that we'd be using the French equivalent of our English names.
The teacher called me up and whispered, "Your French name would be Michelle, but how about we call you Marcell, instead.?" "NO! Er, I mean, that's ok. I'm sure I'll manage."
The other kids snickered, but I thought I'd died and gone to Heaven. For half a year, I got to use a girl's name and nobody thought it was strange.
I had three little girlfriends when I was young, maybe about fifth or sixth grade. I loved to play with them because we played so differently than I did with my boy friends.
Don't get me wrong, I liked playing boy games, too, but when I was with Marcia and Angela and Jennifer, we would talk and tease each other and dance and lie on our backs and look at the clouds. It was so nice to be with them and just be close to one another. I think if I ever had any opportunity to tell anyone that I was really a girl, it would have been them. I think they kind of adopted me as one of them, without my ever having to say so.
I know what they would have said: "Guys, I know this is going to sound weird, but listen: I know I look like a boy and I know you think I'm a boy, but I'm really a girl inside." "Well, duh! Why do you think we asked you to be our friend? " LOL...they were my angels.
When I was little enough for it still to be cute, I got caught dressing in one of my sister's dresses. My sister freaked out and my mother calmed her down. "Now, sugar, all children play. That's how they learn. It didn't mean anything." My sister surprised her by saying, "I don't care about the dress. He put a run in my hose!"
So, later on, I went back looking for the dress and it was gone. My mother sat me down and asked me point blank, "Do you want to wear it?" She was very sweet about it, but I was so embarrassed because I thought I'd done something wrong that I said, "No ma'am" and that was the last anyone ever talked about my impeccable fashion sense. And, by the way, I do have a wonderful eye for fashion, if I do say so myself.
Unfortunately, I think that's as close as I'll ever come. I can't even dress because they just don't make clothes for 6'4 240lb barrel chested girls like me. And those cute, pink and white strappy sandals just don't come in a size 13.
I have to walk past a formal gown store on my way to physical therapy. It's torture. I went to New York City last year and thought, "what the heck, nobody here knows me", and went window-shopping, looking at all of the pretty spring dresses. After all, in our society, looking too long at pretty clothes is as deviant as wearing them. It made me feel better for a few minutes, but then made me feel worse than ever when I came back down to Earth and realized I'd never wear them. Oh well, a girl can dream, can't she?
What I wouldn't give to be able to wear a pretty yellow sundress and those cute little pink and white sandals out to the park and to be little and pretty and soft.
I want to walk like a girl once in a while, darn it! I want to turn my stereo up really loud and pretend to be Helen Forrest and Jo Stafford, like I did when I was little. (Helen Forrest and Jo Stafford...kids, ask your grandparents). I want to cook for a man and take care of our children. If only...
What's really funny is that I've found a couple of sites (and I guess you've already seen them) that have little tests to tell you if your brain's gender is a male or female.
I've taken five or six of them and they all tell me I'm a girl. One even told me I was a "girly girl". I was so happy I almost cried. I almost felt like I was normal. Or, at least what would be normal if everything was like it should be.
It frustrates me so that all of the qualities that make me "funny" as a male, and that I have to hide as a male would be desirable for a female. Why won't they let me just feel the way that I feel? I'm a good person and I try to be kind to others. Isn't that enough?
Well, I don't really know what else to say. Thank you for listening and letting me be myself for five minutes out of thirty years.
