I had an emotional day yesterday. Honestly, I have been emotional since my last post. The last line in it, "So this is for you, little girl. Feel better now." Made me cry while writing it, makes me cry when I think about it at any time of the day, and made me cry just now writing it again. The pure truth of it is what makes me emotional, and I've been carrying that with me since. The perspective of that post has stuck me since feeling it.
Yesterday I decided I would be sincerely honest with a few people at work. One girl who I had a conversation with that I felt bad about my comments after the fact. I didn't say anything hurtful, but my response was defensive. So I apologized yesterday and made my response more realistically honest. Also there is a woman I work with now that I used to work with several years ago with the same company but a different location. My talk with her made my already emotional day unbearable.
Not only did we work together before, but she knows who I was, she knows I am transgender. She has treated me wonderful since I have started to work with her again. She hasn't told anyone who I was, and is very sweet to me now. She has wanted to sit down with me and talk over some drinks, being the usual curious people are once they find out, especially people who knew my past. We haven't been able to because of work, our schedules just not being similar at all. I thought to myself that it was fairly likely we'll never get a chance to talk, but I wanted to thank her at least. Yesterday we were both working early, before we opened for service. I made it a point to go to her while no one was around and tell her how I felt. I thanked her for treating me well, not telling anyone and simply being kind enough to want to talk. I surprised her a bit like unsolicited honesty tends to do and since we had a little time, we talked very briefly.
What I found out came from her completely innocently, but it devastated my day. She told me people have been asking about me. I made the mistake of asking her what sort of things they were asking. I was hoping for people to be asking how it was that I could be there a few weeks and be able to do everything in the kitchen or something of that nature. Instead they are asking if their suspicions are true, if indeed I am transgender. I took her answer, to her face, fairly well. I didn't start crying or getting defensive, I just nodded and said "yeah" several times. When I walked away from her was when my emotional downfall started.
Clearly, there is something about me that isn't just different for a girl, but makes it apparent enough that I used to be a boy and that thought is killing me. I've mentioned what has happened to a few friends and they both said the same two things, generic "feel better" comments. One is "screw what people think" the other being "but you're beautiful."
"What people think" is not what bothers me. What is hurting me is that, whatever it is, I come across as someone who used to be a boy. My response to both friends was, "No one would look at you and ask a friend if you used to be a boy." Cis-gender thinking on something they can't understand because they have never felt it. Imagine if people were to look at you and assume you were once the opposite gender you are presenting now. This is what I went through for the last thirty-five years and what I'm doing everything I possibly can to avoid feeling like again because it crushes me into nothingness.
Telling me I should feel beautiful doesn't help either. I feel no where near beautiful when I know someone is able to tell somehow that I was once a boy. Would any of you cis-readers feel attractive if someone, or worse many, people were looking at you and thinking you were once a man or woman, whichever works in this example? Again, this is something I am doing everything I can to avoid from happening. I'm putting so much mental and physical effort, and time into showing people I am a woman and it is mostly in vain. People can still tell.
Up until that conversation I walked around work full of confidence and happiness. For the rest of the day after that conversation I walked around feeling like the local freak show. I feel every single stare now, I wonder how many smiles are forced, how much am I being gossiped about when I'm not around. It is making me want to run away from it all. I started to think about looking for another job, until I guess it would just be a matter of time until the same happened there. I am incessantly, urgently going through a checklist of everything I do and say, how I move, how I walk, how I talk, what words I use when I talk, what I look like, my make-up, my hair every little thing. I'm trying to think of things to fix and how to fix them. I have started to think of surgeries that I passed off before, like a trachea shave. It's exhausting, but it is the job I have to do.
I'm usually so happy when I'm at work, and all I can think about doing now is going in and shutting up. Not talking to anyone and just keeping my head down until my shift is over so I can run out of there. There is no way people will not notice.
The only way I handled my night last night was I drank ceasers until I wanted to go to bed, which was around 9:30. I have a stuffed toy that has been with me all of my life, everywhere I went. That stuffed toy knows all of my pain from grade nine, knows all the hurt I have carried with me and has been my best comfort. I went to bed with him again last night for the first time in a very long time and I felt like I was back there again, back to the days of my depression. Waking up this morning still clinging to him.
I am terrified, anxious, and stressed over if I will ever pass well enough for no one to be able to tell at all. Right now I feel like the answer is "no" and right now, that makes me feel deathly sorrowful and impotent. The puzzle of my gender and life will never have all the pieces put together. The only good thing out of this is that it is showing me, with stark reality, how much I want to completely pass.
Well, I have to go to work. this is going to be a hard day.
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