When I lived as two people the really girlie side of me lived fearfully in a cave, and the butch female lived in confusion never feeling the male ego boost when you did something well, never knowing how to relate as a male to a female, like I imagined I should, never being able to strut like a male, choking when I played ping pong or pool, when the male I played against went into competition mode, waiting patiently like a well mannered girl to be sent onto the field in a football game, and being treated as fragile by the coach because I was skinny and being male was not spontaneous for me. I am not sure how I would have fit in in the female role. But, I can imagine my pretty little self jumping up and down yelling at may man in my cute little outfit and putting on my make up. Something was missing.
Now was I one person or two. The world saw me and treated me as a male and I tried to act like a male and do male things in a totally clueless way. The males in my life were no help because even though my father and step father were handy with their hands, they didn't do anything around the house except sit in a chair and drink beer while they read a paper, listen to the radio, watched television or sleep on the couch.
I was supposed to automatically know how to do man things. I tried and eventually had more tools than either one of them and could use them fairly well, but I fretted and worried about everything I fixed or built, and only felt relieved when I fixed it, never getting any male ego boost.
It took too much energy trying to live like a male and my female was too scared to see the light of day. I was consumed with surviving and taking care of my self.
In trying to be what I was not and not learning to live who I was I hid myself in religion, family, and work. Others expected me to do for them because I was seen as the father, while they had no obligations to me as children or did my wife who loved her job more than her family.
I was too weak to stand up for myself and kept thinking that if I did the right thing, everything would be OK. It was and it wasn't. This kept me from being a drug addict or an alcoholic. I was just a hyper workaholic who did for others at the deprivation of myself whose was spiritually dead in the water because religion was not about developing a relationship with God and growing spiritually but about being a safety net that set a path for me to follow and kept me from abusing myself except for overworking and stressing myself out. One person or two.
One day in 1999 that who world that I had prompt up as a pseudo male just up and disappeared. Most of the kids had grown up and left. My ex asked me to borrow the pickup and when I came home she and my teenager daughter were gone, moved to a town 80 miles away where she had a job. I was left with an angry note.
One person or two butch female or girly female. Mike had no reason left to exist except as a shell to go to work for 6 hours a day. Michelle was free to crawl out of her cave. So here I am.
Being male had its price because male hormones shaped my body for over 50 years, and had shaped my public identification. But its funny most of my male past has gone poof. Schools where I worked have closed down or changed totally, houses have burned down, people have moved on and my parents have died. I moved away from everything familiar to me. Michelle is all that's left. One person or two.
I don't know you decide. Now I am me, Michelle, and I don't care if people see me as male or female. No body stares when I shop for bras or make up or dresses. Within one breath people call me sir and madam. What is passing. I am not treated as a total being to be avoided at all costs. Many people on the bus who ignore me, I am happy to have them ignore me. I am a home bound grandma who never sees her grand children and whose older children live on the opposite coast, and whose siblings live in the middle, they don't have to deal with me and I don't deal with them. We meet and deal with each other on Facebook. As far as interpersonal relationships go, I still am crappy.
Am I one person or two. All I can be is one in my head. As far as your head goes, am I one person or two. Not my problem. Your problem.
