Dear Mom:
As much I love and never wish to hurt you; there are times where people have to make their own life choices. After spending the last few nights fighting the urge to kill myself, I have wonder if you remember what I was like growing up at all. Even realize how much you kept me from being the person I really am inside. Although your buying me a Raggy Ann doll when I was little gave me hope that someday you’d understand me.
Even during potty training you might recall that I preferred to use to the public stalls and sit down to pee, even if I had to wait for a free stall. That is something I kept up right up to first grade. Then I only went standing when I had to.
While I did play with match box cars and such; I preferred games of dress up with your high heels, make up when alone over games like backyard football. Feeling like a couldn’t talk to you about my feelings at the time because I love you and knew it would of embarrassed you, I could never bring myself to ask for the canopied bed I wanted the first time you asked me to pick out a bed . Leaving me to settle for the bunk beds. I couldn’t bring myself to ask for the vanity play sets of lipsticks and nail polish I saw when we went to the supermarket or tell you how much I wish I could of been able to join the girls scouts over the cub scouts.
I did find comfort in the games I enjoyed such as supermarket and school. I’d play with my friend, Missy’s Barbie Dolls and would sometimes pretend my Luke and Leia action figures were Ken and Barbie with my Death Star as their Barbie dream house. Not to mention inviting Missy to my club house for tea parties. I was never really sure if you were aware of such behavior or mine any more than I was sure if you were aware of the feminine modesty I felt when it came to keep my shirts on and not exposing my chest. You never help me there with your constant joke about how lucky men are to be able to take their shirt off in amusement park rides that got us all wet. You have no idea how it hurt me, feeling it not right to remove mine.
As time went by, dad joined the government you and me were left alone and grew as close as buddies can be. I always felt that I was just as feminine as you were. Especially in the holidays when you’d let me help with baking Christmas cookies. Always going shopping together, enjoying the same music, movies, books and such we did together. It made me feel good that you considered we had enough of the same taste that you’d ask my opinion on things. That is why I felt that in time you’d understand when I would ask you for my own purse or skirt whenever I had to dress up in a suit and tie. I figured once I got you to understand my feelings I could tell you how since the age of ten I’ve tried to learn how to go about a sex change and how since Jr. High I mostly sat with girls to talk about clothes, hair and make up. I would sometimes borrow their fashion magazines that I kept up through going to collage.
When we’d visit your mothers and I’d go over to Raymond’s I’d mostly play games of house with Jennifer and Katrina. It was a joy the time I got to pretend to be the pregnant sister instead of the part of the father as I normally had to be. Though I could play house with Katrina I could never go to her slumber parties like I’d like to.
When I turn 14 was the first time I attempted to use your razor on my arms and legs. Really cut up my legs that late June and nearly sliced my wrists by accident. The hair in my body still bothered me and I wish my body could be as hairless as those human characters in the Hanna-Barbara cartoons. I Still kept up shaving under my arms and using my electric razor to pluck my eyebrows. When you showed concern how
Dangerous that is, I’ve considered making an appointment at The Face Place Salon to have my eyebrows properly done like yours.
When I turned 18 it was the happiest time. My graduation gown was the closest thing to a dress I wore since I outgrew your clothes. That is why I had picked that first time to tell you abut my inner feelings.
Neither of us could of expected that the series of books you bought the subject on aids and such would drive me to the brink of suicide. That I would say anything to have the friendship we once had between us back.
At this point I tried to be the man you wanted me to be while I started collage. That didn’t last long before I started borrowed your pantyhose when alone in the house and enjoyed girls fashion magazines again at school as at later on at work in Winn Dixie before I took meals in my car.
When time came to graduate BCC I found myself feeling the same things I felt after high school. The graduation committee trying to force me to wear a suit and tie under the gown when I never wanted to dress like that again made me want to cut my throat open with a knife.
When I graduated from collage and started to work I would go into places like Wal-mart and use my own money to buy my own pantyhose so that I could enjoy the various colors such as black and navy. Even wore the black under my work clothes like female workers who I sometime talk about make up and stuff with. Even gotten mistaken for some of the female co-workers a couple of times. Some of the girls at Wilson’s Friday night club meeting would confide their boyfriend troubles in me that truly made me feel special. Like one of the girls.
Hope this help you understand me. After all, I’m the one risking everything from the lost of my family to perhaps the lost of my job. Even if you don’t understand fully, I hope you can at least love me the way you have my entire life.
Love Paula
© 2000
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