Little Girl

Something I have slowly started to realize about my past is how the woman in me was always there. I guess that may come across as a little obvious that it was or shocking that I didn't see it before. My feminine side came to me at a very early age, I could say as young as five or six, through a variety of ways. The things I wanted to play with, a dream I had that recurred throughout my life, and the people and their habits that I was curious about. Not just curious, I wanted to be them, I wanted to have their habits.. What also came just as early was the necessity to hide them. I honestly cannot say what or who it was that made me start moving that part of me into the shadows, but it was an unconscious decision and I hid them well, so well that I'm only finding them myself, now.  The only people I can think of were my friends and children in school.

I have always been a people pleaser, putting my own feelings aside to make sure others felt safe, or happy, either with me, the situation, or themselves. I remember remarks like people saying I walked funny as a child which I slowly corrected. I was walking somewhat feminine, as feminine as a six year old can. Even at that age I fantasized about women, but I didn't fantasize about them, I would fantasize about their panties. How soft they must feel and how smooth they are, I never liked boy's underwear. I remember craving to get into my grandmothers bedroom to look at all of her jewelry and make-up, I am almost certain it is where my love for the smell of make-up powder came from. And I remember being told to get out of there more then once. I felt more of a connection with my childhood friends mothers then I did them or their fathers. Adult males and I simply did not gel together, what-so-ever, but their wives or other women in my life, I could talk to and be around all day. I thought that was because I was attracted to women, me telling myself that that is what males do. The truth is I felt comfortable with them, I would talk to them and imagine how it would be to be them, I would engage them to get involved in what they were doing, cooking or cleaning, or whatever women did that seemed typically female from a child in the mid eighty's point of view.

What I started to do to cope was tell myself that it was ok for men to desire these feminine things I wanted and enjoyed and it was everyone else who was wrong. I had no idea then, or in my teen years, how those sort of thoughts would be the future, not just mine, but everyone's. It was one of the things that made me feel like I was in a constant battle. Everything I did, or wanted, had to come with some reason for it to be acceptable for a male to do or want. Eventually, I started to believe my own lie, and this is what I am slowly coming to terms with. I look back often to my past and see a boy, or teen male, and think about how I was so male then with male actions and thoughts, so much so that, as I've said before, I feel like I have no past. The truth that has started to surface is how female I was, how much I hid things from myself. I have had female desires and thoughts all of my life. I have been female all of my life

I was obviously a transgender woman waiting to happen.

It actually makes me feel better about myself. Not because of some sort of validation, but because now I look back and my past feels like mine again. I struggled to be something people wanted me to be, expected me to be, and that caused me to not see the truth of the things I wanted to be. Not just that I wanted them, but what the deeper meaning behind those desires were. I didn't see myself arguing with myself about wanting them as the truth it demanded to be seen as, I just felt the struggle. 

It culminated in grade nine. During the year before, I lost weight and grew my hair long and I started to look quite feminine. I started to be something closer to what I wanted to be. What made little sense to me was that was when girls started to be attracted to me, and boys started to want to be my friends. It wasn't conscious, again, but as that year past and grade nine approached it made so little sense to me that this feminine side was getting the sort of attention boys received that I slipped into depression. I would come home from school, go straight to my room and cry into my pillow until supper was ready, very close to every day for about eight months. I'd be crying about how I couldn't fit in, how people didn't really like me. But I was fitting in and I was becoming quite popular. I had no idea I was crying because people weren't treating me as a girl. That girl being the real me that no one liked, the me I was crying over.

The girl I wanted to express came to me in my sexuality, when I was alone. I masturbated often while imagining myself as a girl. I was a teen with, unfortunately, raging testosterone and the only way I found peace of mind enough to be able to masturbate was when thinking of being a woman. I wouldn't just imagine myself sexually as a woman being with a man, I could masturbate to the idea of walking down the road in a dress, looking beautiful. This was when I started to wear women's clothes, and trying things decidedly female, like shaving my legs and underarms, styling my long hair, or taking care of my nails. Things I could do to myself that, I hoped, people could not notice, and it would seem I did a fantastic job at hiding them. It was also when I started to not want my penis, and I wanted breasts and hips, female curves. The body I was in just did not work with the picture I had of myself. Many times I would be in the middle of either masturbating, or putting on female clothes and the reality of my body would make me just flat out stop, sitting straight up in my bed, or throwing the clothes to the floor. I had no actual breasts to wear a bra over, I had no vagina to experience penetration, I hated the sight of my penis in feminine underwear.

Even those thoughts I convinced myself were male oriented. To me, I thought anyone male or female, but especially male would want to explore their body and feelings as much as I did, and why not stumble on the direction I had? I thought any male, given the chance, could enjoy the things I enjoyed. It wasn't my fault I was more open minded then they were. 

It makes me a little sad that I did not have the courage to embrace myself, and shut everyone else out from effecting my feelings toward me. I see, or read about young trans-women who started expressing themselves at a very young age, going in public presenting themselves as girls and I envy them. I wish I could get my time back just so I could do the same. That is a feeling I had immediately after coming out, and seeing how truly comfortable I could feel. What finding all of these little secrets in me is doing though is making me see myself as who I was, it's showing me the past I thought I didn't have at all. All of this time I was a girl convincing myself I wasn't, mainly to please everyone around me, while making myself miserable. I see the overwhelming struggle I was faced with and feel sorry for that little girl. More then wanting to go back to live life differently, I wish I could go back and make her feel better about herself.

So this is for you, little girl. Feel better now.