hugging a tractor

I painted these backgrounds and realized the kid-me would have been thrilled by the colors.  Lavender was my favorite color, when I was a kid, and pink with white.

I was thinking how sometimes when a trans woman starts living as a woman, who had lived as a man, her way of dress and makeup can be unusual.  Any new thing anyone can do, might need to figure it out.  Some people might have an idea of how to do womanness that’s creative, or just their read of it is different.  Sometimes quirky, an old fashioned way of being a woman, or superfemme.

I was thinking of all that in terms of myself as a child.  The way I did little girlness was like that.  Maybe a good way to summarize it is this: I was trying really hard.

I’m not talk about makeup, which was an issue later–I never learned how to wear or apply it.  Or doing my hair–my mom was the boss of my hair for a long time.  Then she stopped doing it, but I was totally unskilled, and had no idea how to handle this huge mass of long, tangling, confusing, thick, dark brown chaos.

More I’m talking about girlness like how to behave, how to talk, how to submit like I was expected to, what I liked, what I existed for.  What I actually liked was mostly irrelevant.  I would pick things to like, such as colors, and perform liking them.

lavender

So I remember wanting lavender and pink things, and loving them in that sense.  But I don’t think I truly liked those colors–I liked liking those colors.  When I was little, I got good feedback for those choices.  In the never-ending ordeal of how to be me, I was working really hard at a believable little girl performance.

That might be an autism thing.  But I wish I’d been able to access what I truly wanted.  I wish someone had pulled me aside, helped me feel safe, and asked me, “What do you most desire?”  Then sat for a long time waiting for my real answer.  I wonder what I would have said.

What I was supposed to want had eclipsed what I actually wanted.  Uncovering my true desires took a while.  Understatement.  But I can access all of that now!  Yay!

hugging a tractor

Yesterday we went for a walk, and I hugged a tractor.  I asked Ming to take pics of me with this tractor.

Then I finally hugged it.  Cautiously at first, then more earnestly.  Hugging a tractor felt a lot like hugging a tree.  Tractors are made of minerals, so I guess I was hugging the earth.

Thank you for loving me right so I feel safe enough to hug tractors now.