It’s been a while since I sat down with the idea of writing a truly personal post. I could tell you it is because I have been caught up in the stress and emotion of opening an old wound with trying to work on Kira Unbound again. I could tell you it was because I have been busy here in the real world. I guess I could make up a thousand excuses but none of them would be true.
The truth is I have been having a lot of trouble working through some very personal demons. You see, nothing in life is as neat and clear as they are in books. Really, they are even clearer here online, which is saying something.
Here I am accepted for who I am. Those who read this blog know my story. Out there people know only what they see with their eyes. They have no idea of the truth and most times I cannot explain it to them. Even when I can, I can see and understand their doubt and confusion, what I am telling them about myself and what is in front of them appear as two different things. Of course I can show them a picture or two and they are surprised, shocked maybe, I have been told more then once they can’t believe they are seeing the same person, that they wouldn’t recognize me if they met me on the street. (They are also quick to tell me how good I look, but I wonder if they aren’t just being kind.)
Not being able to stand in front of them as myself, not being able to show them the truth, makes believing difficult. It also makes me self conscience of how I must sound. In those times I have felt like a fraud. I feel there is no way they can really believe me because how could they believe someone they see as male telling them they are really female? This is even more true when the person is someone who has been close to me for years, often decades and it seems impossible when the person is a spouse.
Because I am not full time, I am surrounded every day by people who do not know. People to whom I still appear as male, with my male name. That is the way they know me, the way in which they interact with me, and though it sets my teeth on edge, I try and act like this is correct. There are however, a handful of people I have come out to. Five people who know the truth of who and what I am. Of these, only two have made any effort to see me, talk with me as who I am. They try to use the correct name, the correct pronouns, no matter what I happen to look like at the moment. I know this isn’t easy for them and a love them all the more for it. The other three? When I came out to them they said the correct things, expressed encouraging feelings, made me feel accepted if not understood. Since then I have heard more things which would seen to be encouraging, more words of support and understanding, but they aren’t backed up by anything more than air. They use my male name, male pronouns, they interact with me as a male. If that statement seems strange, take a little time and watch how people interact with one another, watch the differences between male/male. female/female, and male/female interactions and you will begin to understand.
I have felt more and more every day as if the truth I know in my heart is meaningless. As if no matter what I say or do, I will only ever be seen as who I appeared to be in the past. I know, this would change to some degree if I were to present as female full time, having their noses rubbed in it would make it hard to deny… but it makes me so sad and angry that I would have to take such overt actions. It shouldn’t matter what I look like to be taken as who I am. That my thoughts and feelings are as valid as their own. The sad thing is I know there is at least one person who has made it clear even that wouldn’t make any difference. They have told me more than once they have known me only as male and they will never see me any other way. They will never use my female name or refer to me with female pronouns. Ever.
My entire life I have tried to be what I was told I was, what I was suppose to be. To act the correct ways, to say the correct things. To have the correct interests and mannerisms. I have tried to be a good son, friend, lover, husband, father. I have turned myself inside out and upside down to be this thing I was told over and over again that I was no matter how I felt. I ignored the truth I knew in my heart to be what others demanded. I have dealt with depression and rage, self loathing and disgust. I have battle with confusion and shame. I have lost myself and struggled to reclaim my life. I have cried. I have spent my entire life in the middle of a crowded room feeling as lonely as I would in the middle of a desert. I have done everything asked of me and more until it ripped me apart and left me to die.
Yet none of that matters. To this world I am only one thing and I will only ever be seen or accepted as that.
In the end I find myself wondering if there is even a point of fighting anymore…
I have been and continue to fight the urge to simply say the hell with it, let the world win, and just let it go, to put everything away, to let this blog go idle, to just let life stagnate, so that a year from now no one will even remember anything had happened. To let myself sink back into that half life where all I worried about was waking up the next day.
Would this make me happy? Of course not, but as I wrote in some little novel I’m working on…
“It doesn’t matter what I want.” It never had, never would.
Kira, you have to be who you are – killing off who you really are to suit the world’s preconceived notions is like cutting off your arm because the neighbor happens to be an amputee. You are who you are.
More like if everyone in the world were amputees… but your point is made.
I hear you. I don’t know what the future will bring for any of us, but I know you’ll feel worse if you try to go back. ((Hugs)) Keep slogging through this swampy, muddy section of the road. Eventually, it’ll get easier.
Thank you
((Hugs))