I have felt physically sick for days now with an affliction that cloaks my stomach in the coarse fibers of dread and a boldness rivaling that of bone. Winter break has invalidated the efforts that I so carefully enacted during my first semester at TCNJ. I wonder now if it is possible to overstay your own welcome...
Although my friends insist that going back into the closet is not the answer, it is something that I must seriously consider if I wish to lead a productive life within the parameters of the society that is relevant to my pursuits. My mother especially has been a significant source of hostility. Apparently I am now a freak, and an ugly freak at that, one who is setting myself up for failure both professionally and personally. No one likes people who look as I do...
The thing is, my own doubts had dismantled me long before my mother said a word. I don't know if transgenderism can be my tomorrow. The daily struggle is a daunting prospect, while the customary affronts to my exterior will be unbearable.
That being said, this part of me is not something I can repudiate. It is basic and permanant, a steady fixture, a focal point, a fundamental facet of my being, a future, a FACT.
Imagine a universe that you will irrevocably, involuntarily, be incorporated into, an afterlife that is inside of you. Like a morbid curiosity, you cannot turn your back, and once you do, you will never be able to envision the same way again.
All throughout high school, I have been keenly attuned to this instinct that I am identical to my male friends in every way, despite what anatomy imposes upon us. The prospect of being forced to forget is a source of deep despondancy.
I cannot ignore the remote disgust I have always experienced when others automatically ascertain that I am a woman, and that I have consistently found their assumptions to be intrusive and erroneous in some way, even when I could not decipher precisely why.
I want to cry because I have grown accustomed to the delicious freedom of not having an unwanted identity constantly encroaching upon me, because gender really is the end all be all of existence, the all encompassing approach to one's expression, interests, emotions, and appearance. It is the only inner sense that everyone else will be aware of, at all times. To feel that you are representing the wrong array of attributes is agonizing and insulting.
I want to cry because I have grown accustomed to the delicious freedom of not having an unwanted identity constantly encroaching upon me, because gender really is the end all be all of existence, the all encompassing approach to one's expression, interests, emotions, and appearance. It is the only inner sense that everyone else will be aware of, at all times. To feel that you are representing the wrong array of attributes is agonizing and insulting.
Being at TCNJ means being free of the nightmare, the negligence of who I am in my core despite what others engage in when their eyes accomodate an overtly female physique and facial structure.
To be home is to be sad. Even the thought of a long stretch of summer is incredibly disheartening.
I've heard that all moments are dispensible. The problem is that there will be others to accompany them. When an individual decides to look each one in the eye, and to allow that look to linger, this is known as a life worth living, the life that is pursued with passion and sincerity. It is the only form of existence that I would extol. If I had to give away every inch of myself, this is the part that I would fight for. It implies adversity and integrity at the same time, and it is why I tell the people I love not in spite of knowing that I might lose them, but specifically because I know I might lose them.
But this ardent code of conduct is for the strong, brave, and tenacious. And ever since I initiated this transformation, it has eroded away at me...
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