Rehab XCIV: dive right in | Part Two (read Part One first)
(continues from "Oh my god, my first '80's-esque queen!")
Watching all the queens (there were absolutely NO masculine men there at ALL) I got that horrible chest-ripping-open pain I used to get when I saw gay couples at the skating rink. It hurt so bad I nearly burst into tears. I recognize the feeling, even years later; it was the horrible longing not to be with any of them, but to be them....and suddenly it crashed into me that there is no amount of science or technology that could ever fix what was wrong with me. (Ironically enough around that time a song was playing where all I could understand was "Let me be the one to fix your body". I'm sure my meaning is vastly different from the one in the song, but anyway.)
Apart from that, the only other painful thing was at one point I caught a glimpse first of PJ and then of Landon. He walked toward me and actually walked over me (he's always been about ah ead taller), so close our chests brushed (and made me conscious just as it used to in eleventh grade when I'd watch him dance what made us different), but he didn't look at me. And my mouth kept opening, closing, gaping, mouthing, as I watched him walk, and I wanted to cry, I wanted to yell his name, to catch him somehow- but I couldn't. Something held me back - and for the next half hour or so I just stood in the crowd, watching, waiting to see if he'd reappear, and he never did. He disappeared completely.
A while later Shelique asked me why I didn't say hello when I recognized people from school, and I couldn't tell her. How could I explain that I felt like I was intruding on their world? These were people who either (Landon) struggled with the fact that they were gay when I knew them, or (PJ) never admitted to being gay while I knew them, so seeing them there in their very gay element was like...It felt like some kind of voyeurism, like a spell I'd break if I let either of them know I'd seen them there. It was better, I felt, to keep Landon and PJ as I used to know them and the two guys out there dancing with their boyfriends (unless they're dating again?) separate.
I felt so naive then, and couldn't understand why.
I thought of that line from the poem I wrote for Landon back in eleventh grade- "How many boys' hands have guided that ballerino spine in its antics?"
Jesus. I will never understand why knowing Landon hurt so damned badly. It's not like we dated or even liked each other.
Maybe it was the way I always felt like he belonged to some secret world that I wanted desperately to be a part of and never would no matter how hard I struggled.
I kept getting a sense of being on the wrong side. My aunt and her friends all think I'm a lesbian, and so many times they made jokes about me not wanting a man or pushed me to dance with the lesbians, or whatever, all in good fun I know but....I kept wanting to scream or cry. The words were raging in my heart- "I'm not a lesbian! I'm a guy!" but I couldn't say it. I couldn't. I was afraid and too uptight as it was and Shelique..I don't think she would ever accept that from me.
So it appears that instead of lessening as I get older, the secretive nature of my being transgender is getting stronger all the time, becoming a real secret- one that everyone knows but the people I need to most.
It's like a DVD cover I saw once of a face with a white moth over its lips. That moth is my white wings. My secret.
The truth I will never tell and so must ache for all my life.
Every time I looked at the men dancing on one another and thought aobut how my family thinks I'm a lesbian, or got introduced to one of Shelique's friends as a lesbian.. I nearly cried. It hurt so much.
Watching all the queens (there were absolutely NO masculine men there at ALL) I got that horrible chest-ripping-open pain I used to get when I saw gay couples at the skating rink. It hurt so bad I nearly burst into tears. I recognize the feeling, even years later; it was the horrible longing not to be with any of them, but to be them....and suddenly it crashed into me that there is no amount of science or technology that could ever fix what was wrong with me. (Ironically enough around that time a song was playing where all I could understand was "Let me be the one to fix your body". I'm sure my meaning is vastly different from the one in the song, but anyway.)
Apart from that, the only other painful thing was at one point I caught a glimpse first of PJ and then of Landon. He walked toward me and actually walked over me (he's always been about ah ead taller), so close our chests brushed (and made me conscious just as it used to in eleventh grade when I'd watch him dance what made us different), but he didn't look at me. And my mouth kept opening, closing, gaping, mouthing, as I watched him walk, and I wanted to cry, I wanted to yell his name, to catch him somehow- but I couldn't. Something held me back - and for the next half hour or so I just stood in the crowd, watching, waiting to see if he'd reappear, and he never did. He disappeared completely.
A while later Shelique asked me why I didn't say hello when I recognized people from school, and I couldn't tell her. How could I explain that I felt like I was intruding on their world? These were people who either (Landon) struggled with the fact that they were gay when I knew them, or (PJ) never admitted to being gay while I knew them, so seeing them there in their very gay element was like...It felt like some kind of voyeurism, like a spell I'd break if I let either of them know I'd seen them there. It was better, I felt, to keep Landon and PJ as I used to know them and the two guys out there dancing with their boyfriends (unless they're dating again?) separate.
I felt so naive then, and couldn't understand why.
I thought of that line from the poem I wrote for Landon back in eleventh grade- "How many boys' hands have guided that ballerino spine in its antics?"
Jesus. I will never understand why knowing Landon hurt so damned badly. It's not like we dated or even liked each other.
Maybe it was the way I always felt like he belonged to some secret world that I wanted desperately to be a part of and never would no matter how hard I struggled.
I kept getting a sense of being on the wrong side. My aunt and her friends all think I'm a lesbian, and so many times they made jokes about me not wanting a man or pushed me to dance with the lesbians, or whatever, all in good fun I know but....I kept wanting to scream or cry. The words were raging in my heart- "I'm not a lesbian! I'm a guy!" but I couldn't say it. I couldn't. I was afraid and too uptight as it was and Shelique..I don't think she would ever accept that from me.
So it appears that instead of lessening as I get older, the secretive nature of my being transgender is getting stronger all the time, becoming a real secret- one that everyone knows but the people I need to most.
It's like a DVD cover I saw once of a face with a white moth over its lips. That moth is my white wings. My secret.
The truth I will never tell and so must ache for all my life.
Every time I looked at the men dancing on one another and thought aobut how my family thinks I'm a lesbian, or got introduced to one of Shelique's friends as a lesbian.. I nearly cried. It hurt so much.