On the rare occasion I share the circumstance of my life, I
find myself only letting bits and pieces slip and speaking on a very surface
level. I don’t want others to think I
dwell on these things, I seek pity or attention, and most of all I believe life
owes me anything. But I am not
embarrassed by my past…
I had a pretty stable childhood up until the age of ten. I mean we didn’t have much money, my parents
divorced when I was five, and I never stayed at the same school for more than a
year but I had an extended family I loved (and who loved spending time with me)
and holidays were something I actually looked forward to celebrating. But as I said, at age ten my life was turned
upside down when my mother decided to move myself and my brother 8 hours away
to the tiny town in Missouri where my stepfather grew up. Obviously my feelings on the move were not
considered.
When we arrived in Osceola my stepfather immediately
returned to spending time with his old friends and picking up old habits. He and his friend’s favorite pastime was
drinking, excessively. For the next
eight years I endured physical and emotional abuse on a regular basis as a
result of his alcoholic rants. I was
told I was lazy, worthless, and would never make anything of myself. Being picked up hours late (if he bothered to
show at all) from school activities and riding home with a drunk driver on
multiple occasions. Finding sleep was
difficult on the nights he didn’t come home, fighting the anxiety of not
knowing what will happen if/when he did stumble in, would it be a rage to wake
the house or simply passing out without incident.
Of course there were plenty of fights, some with extreme
incident such as the day he kicked us all out of the house without allowing my
mother the time to put on shoes. A few
minutes later as we were walking down the road, he pulls up next to us in the
car and points a shotgun and instructs us to get in the car. Later he also “tried to shoot himself” with
the same shotgun putting bullet holes in our ceiling that stayed until the day
we moved out of that house. He also at
one point allowed a friend in our basement with the intent to cook meth to make
a quick buck…. I mean no big deal the fumes could kill us all. Then there was the small stuff… my mom missed
most basketball games, awards ceremonies, school plays and any other school
sponsored events I was involved with.
When you live in poverty you generally only have one car and when your
stepfather leaves to “run to the store” and doesn’t come home from the bar
until the middle of the night, it makes it difficult to make it to your kid’s
school events.
All of this was of course coupled with extreme poverty. As a result of his alcoholism and his lack of intelligence (this is actually fact not insult) my stepfather never maintained regular employment. He would often complete manual labor such as lawn care or cutting wood to make some money but this often just supported his drinking habit. My mother made minimal money working as a CNA at the local hospital and then nursing home. When I completed the FAFSA my mother provided me her tax return and to this day I remember how much she made in a year. I remember because from my perspective now I realize how little we really lived on...total income $13,000 a year.
But I did make sure I participated in as many school events
as possible. Though I was painfully shy
and insecure, I made sure I knew everyone and always had something to do. I also made sure I made the grades I needed
to get a college scholarship. I can’t
say that it was difficult. High school
was actually fairly easy and it was a small school so graduating first in my
class to ensured my escape.
Now that was the details of my childhood… here are the
highlights as an adult:
At 21 I met my first girlfriend and confirmed my sneaking
suspicion I was gay. (I was fairly sure at 16 but living in a town of 800
people doesn’t make that self-discovery very easy)
At 22 I was involved in a car accident that proved fatal for
my grandmother.
As a result of that accident I began caring less about what
others thought and doing what made me happy.
One of these things was I stopped wearing women’s clothes and cut all of
my hair off. I was now identifiably a
masculine lesbian. Oh and I started my
tattoo collection. I spent the next ten
years figuring out how to navigate a world as an easily identifiable member of
the LGB community. Ten years of learning
how to ignore daily judgment based on appearance alone.
In 2005 my father died.
He spent much of my life in prison or living states away so we were not
close but he was my father.
February of 2009 my grandfather died after years of battling
cancer. Seven months later, without
advance warning, my mother suffered a heart attack and was without oxygen for
too long. After a week we made the
decision to take her off of life support and move her to hospice where she died
a few days later. She wasn’t perfect but
she was my best friend and there are still days I miss her dearly.
And finally, after 10 years of being an active member of the
LGB community, I made the decision to transition from female to male. I refused to be unhappy in my own skin for
any longer but feared the loss of visibility in the community. I could write pages and pages about my
experiences with transition but the point is….life handed me a new challenge
and now I am struggling to find where I fit anymore… but I’m sure I will figure
it out... I will just do what I have always done....
...survive.
