Open Letter to an Ex (Part 2)
Yo,
I'll admit, I never quite expected a response from you, and was pleasantly surprised when I opened my mail this evening and found this sitting in my inbox, patiently waiting for me. First of all, I guess the word you were looking for is somewhere on the scale between "mellowed down" or "sobered up" and "matter-of-fact". You aren't wrong, I really have changed, I guess.
And, secondly, lmfao boobs. I hated them, they progressively made my dysphoria worse, until I couldn't look at the mirror anymore or go take a bath. I was forever confused if I wanted to chop them off altogether or if I should (emphasis on "should") embrace them and fret over their size like every good girl. I suppose it'd have been nicer if I had a flatter chest, it'd help me pass as a boy in baggy, over-sized clothes, but I guess while I wasn't very big, I wasn't flat either. Don't get me wrong, I do like boobs - I mean, who doesn't? - except on girls.
The thing about dysphoria is that you never recognize it as such. It's like living under a perpetually cloudy sky, you take it as the default, never quite questioning, never realizing that there is such a thing called the sun, with bright, yellow rays that can pierce your eyes and blind you, for a brief moment, before you can see it all clearly. Dysphoria is living under clouds, except that you don't have a name for it. When I was five, I thought being a girl was a choice, and that people who choose to be girls are weird. I mean, why be a girl when you can be a boy, right? When I was fifteen, I thought I was mad, or crazy, or abnormal, or both. Thus started the constant struggle to be normal. But "normal" is a mirage, it doesn't exist. It's the ideal gas of society. It's like battling your own shadow. No matter how long you chase it, you will always be a step behind.
It's why it's so tempting to fall into the hole we call 'overcompensation'. I guess the hardest part in growing up in a developing country is to have no name for your identity. The worst part is in knowing yourself as a boy for as long as you can remember, seeing yourself as a boy, but never being able to explain just what you see in the mirror. Society breeds transphobia within us like a parasite, and the only words that come toour minds growing up when we hear the term "transsexual" are the images of flamboyant drag-queens and stereotypical gay dudes in pink from rom-coms. I guess I knew what I was since I was young, only unable to reconcile it with the image I had of myself - someone who is secure in "her" position in society, happily married with kids and grandkids, proud, glowing parents, and a fat job in some well-paying corporate. It was an image projected by what I assumed success was, a vision of a child who hasn't been exposed to the world, someone with naive, sheltered definitions. You opened my mind, but it was like the wind blowing in the face of someone who has rarely felt air. I didn't know what to do with that sense of all-engulfing freedom, and outright rejected it as some sort of utopia-esque daydream.
What I hated the most about you was how sure you were of your own sense of success, and had the freedom to distinguish it from the rest of the world. To put it simply, you knew what you wanted, you rarely wavered from it, while I fluttered around in bony wings like a zombified bird. (Okay, that was a pretty shitty metaphor, but stay with me here.) How I despised it, you so sure of yourself in your own little world, while I was driven by a need to be the damsel in distress and superman at the same time. Unrealistic goals, expectations, and no sense of personal limitations.
It was the same with my identity. I wasn't a girl, and no one had taught me how to be one, so I took my hints from the media and the glares of society, looking at women with the same confused eyes as teenage boys would. But everything portrays women as fragile, senseless little beings, and I could never, never be as graceful, confident, mysterious beings like them. I tried my hardest, god knows I did, I left no stone unturned (I never do), but I never noticed what it was turning me into. The more you assured me that you liked me the way I am, the more I was reminded of just how fake I was, how mediocre, and how I owed it to both of us to be perfect. But perfection is a dream, as my therapist says, it's built with our ideals, and the stronger you are, the higher your ideals.
I snapped often, I was weary of trying, I crafted an artificial self that was the closest I could go to being a woman, and was only driven back into claustrophobia. It's a vice grip, gender dysphoria. I wasn't happy, and I guess I would remain unhappy as long as I'd be with you, and there's nothing you could do about it. God knows you tried hard and it was hard for me to watch. (Remember the time when I was super offended at you for pointing out my facial hair? Well, it was because I didn't like being reminded of my short-comings despite trying so hard. Funnily, when I started taking testosterone, I badly, badly, wanted a Viking beard, knotted at the end. And no, I'm clean-shaven, thank you. I do like your beard though. That's a pretty cool style I should try someday.)
I'm somewhat stable now, and I know for sure (my therapist tells me too) that I'm not mentally ready for a relationship. I'm too tired, too exhausted to take that much of a responsibility. You know well how I rise too high and fall too low. So imagine how horrible it must have been when we got together, when my problems were just peeping down the corner.
This whole long-winded explanation of dysphoria is just me trying to tell you how it feels when I hear the name "Dawn". It's like looking back at your old writing and realizing how pretentious you used to be, or thinking of memories you're too ashamed to remember. Most of the time it's like meeting another person you never really knew, and at other times it's struggling to forget her, that other girl who made so many mistakes and burned like a dying star. It's like losing a person you couldn't save, and dealing with survivor's guilt.
All that being said, you can think of me however you like. Take your time, as my own parents still haven't gotten used to my brand new incarnation. I still catch them referring to me as a daughter, or calling me by my dead nickname (the feminine one that either meant a color or the smallest finger on your hand). It's odd because it reminds me of an entirely different person, or an entirely different time, or in any case, a past I don't want any part of. The dysphoria flares up for a moment or two, as I'm still acutely aware of the fact that what I have within my pants is just a clitoris, elongated several times with testosterone. But that's what penises are, after all, elongated clits from the initial proto-feminine embryo we all developed from. Nevertheless, what I have within my pants is really nobody's business. Go on, make small dick jokes -- I'll laugh.
(Seriously, though, let's not compare sizes.)
Either way, Addy is and always will be the name I prefer, it's the person I've been all this time, just unable to recognize it. It's somebody who had hidden within the layers of insecurity and confusion and suppressed desires in my labyrinthine mind, till everything exploded and I had a "let it go" moment. No, I didn't freeze over an entire kingdom and build my own special snowflake castle of crystal ice (it'd be cool if I could), but what really happened was that I had a nervous breakdown and shaved my entire head off. My hair was something my father insisted on, people told me it was pretty, and I always felt it was an imposed shackle that bound me to the idea of femininity. We talked the incident over and over with my psychotherapist, and finally, when I had calmed down, I joined an LGBTQIA+ organization and decided to take the leap. (Needless to say, I'm not very proud of my -- let's call it "girlhood")
But I laughed while reading, sweat pouring on the screen from working all weekend over Valentine's orders - at least five red velvet cakes, and a batch of cupcakes for a fund-raiser we're doing to collect money for trans-visibility day next month. Did you know that the Pride Parade in my city was the oldest in Asia? Neither did I, not until I attended it early this winter, among flurries of rainbow colored flags and scarfs, even sarees, and multi-colored slogans -- my favorite one being the iconic image of The Beatles crossing the street, with "All you need is Love" written on top with crayons. I went as David Bowie, red hair slicked back and half my face painted in crimson lightning like his Ziggy Stardust jig. Strange how he died within exactly a month.
Either way, I thought I'll reply today, because by the time you're gonna read this, I'll be off camping with my rock-climbing buddies. We're gonna take a hike across the Himalayas, live in tents among snowfall and close to the Tibet borders, spend nights beside freezing lakes, and try to climb the Shey peak in Ladakh, where India ends and China begins. It involves riding a bike over the highest motorable highway in the world (Khardung La), and of course I'm excited. Check it out on Google if you haven't yet, it's a piece of history, a slice of the ancient Silk Route, the one Alexander and Genghis Khan had crossed to reach India. They never could, but rumors are that the remains of Genghis lay buried under some unknown rock, in some forgotten pass, covered in snow or grass in June, that the wild horses of Tibet feed on.
We're part of a group called the Himalayan Scouts, and our goal is to climb the Everest... someday. Meanwhile we go on trips every weekend or so, take a quick train ride to obscure, forgotten hills and abandoned forests, looking for new trails and discovering routes people haven't seen yet. One time we discovered a way through a cave and down a narrow pass that saved an hour and a half drive around the hills to reach the next village. And then there's an expedition every summer, a long ten-day tour, where we go up the Himalayas and climb higher, snow-capped peaks, returning with bloodied fingers, chapped lips, and frost-bitten faces. ( I have a ten-inch scar going down my side to my stomach that happened from slipping down a sharp crag, it's edges cutting like a knife down my skin. It looks like a cool battle scar, or some reminder of a brutal knife-fight. My mother cried when I got back.)
Climbing a rock is like making love to a woman. You run your sandpaper hands over her curves, seek out the cracks, the flaws in her skin, and grip her tight when your hands fit her. You trace her weather-beaten trails, brush off the moss gathering over her breasts, and feel the scars where the wind and trickles of water have eroded her. Adrenaline beats within you like a drum, and you know she would never let you go unless you leave her first. You mold yourself to her, dance to her rhythm, mount her step by step, till you're at the top and you can hear adrenaline gushing within you like the waves of an eager sea, your knees begin to shake, leaving you gasping in ecstasy as you watch the sky open up and fold before you, and you feel small, so small, and yet never so high before in this universe. After that, she claims you, and you can never let go, never stop loving her, admiring her from down below, hoping to conquer her again and again like the pathetic lover who can never quite have enough and never give up.
(Oh man, I sound like someone who gets off to objects. Lmao.)
But yeah, it's quite like BDSM. It's all about trust, pain, pleasure, and a lot of working with ropes and practicing knots. Never forget the knots, your life depends on them. Literally.
Oh yeah, I do have very concrete plans to go to Germany. I'll get there one way or the other; right now I can't because I've been told not to get into any kind of long-term engagements or my stress will come back like zap. I wanna do my masters and Ph.D from there. I'm learning more German, by the way. I wanna be able to read Goethe in its original text someday. And about my cakes, well, I make all ingredients myself, which includes the vanilla extracts, the coffee, the chocolates, the icing, the food color, the whipping cream and the fondant. It's all organic and home-made.