Dreaming the boy to life

When I was a child, every night I fell asleep with the same prayer on my lips.

Dear God, 
Please make me a boy.

My prayers to be a boy were a constant when I was little, as regular to me as praying that the devil would not take me in my sleep. As I got older I would vary this a bit, with a few, "if it is your will" and suches, but I never woke up in the morning as a boy. As I got older I would try to modify my body, pushing and pulling at it to find the boy inside. That didn't work either. The best I could do was pretend, and when I was very good at it, I could "pass" as a boy at the playground or any new setting if I used my fake name "Sean." Rolled up sock in my underwear, wearing my brother's hand-me-downs.

In a few days I will be coming out to my closest family, and then that will be followed by me coming out to facebook and then work. If my prayers had been answered sooner, this coming out would not really be necessary. I would just be who I am, and everyone would already know me for it. 

So that isn't how it is, and this summer will mark me coming out to everyone I have in my life...daunting. I cant help but feel though, because it is happening i am answering the prayers of that little kid so long ago who wanted to wake up as a boy. We will do it now kid. Together. I hope we are brave enough together to weather the storm of what that means, but we have a lot of love and support.

I think we are ready.

He

I was at a support group meeting a few weeks ago and decided that I would say my pronouns were masculine. I was just trying to experiment. I was surprised by how empowering it was to hear people call me "he" and "him."  Have you thought about your pronouns lately? What if someone called you by something that didn't fit? Sometimes this happens by accident, or because they don't know how you identify. Sometimes it's an act of aggression, bullying.

Most of the time, outside of my support group I'm a "she," but that has stopped feeling right to me. Like when I decided to change my name, hearing "she" feels jarring...wrong, as wrong as my old name used to feel, and still feels when I hear it.  It's a knee jerk..."not me" feeling. Even though "she" stopped feeling right, I didn't know until I heard someone say "he" and "him" what did feel right. It feels just, congruous.

a :  being in agreement, harmony, or correspondence

b :  conforming to the circumstances or requirements of a situation : appropriate <a congruous room to work in — G. B. Shaw>

2

:  marked or enhanced by harmonious agreement among constituent elements <a congruous theme>

— con·gru·ous·ly adverb

— con·gru·ous·ness noun

trans i am

i am trans

trans i am



that trans i am that trans I am

i do no like that trans i am

would you like to be a man?

i would not like to be a man.
i would not like it trans i am.

would you like it here
or
there?

I would not like it here or there.


the struggle of the not sam i am character in the classic, green eggs an ham is speaking to me and inspired the blog name. for one, it's a killer blog name. but also, in the original, this character refuses something based solely on how they perceive it. Staunchly opposing it until they no longer can. They are backed into a corner with nowhere else to go to get away from sam I am.

this is where I am, with my own green eggs and ham (geah). Only for me, it's not geah, it's gender identity. am I butch or am I trans. what is the depth of my trans-ness?

Trans. I have long opposed it. I've put it in a box, with a fox, on a train, in the rain...and all along I have tried to oppose it. I can't be that. I can't be Trans. That's freakish. That's not what I have driven myself to be all these years, running like a fox camouflaged by my surroundings, both hunter and hunted. Like the classic character from Dr. Suess, though, I eventually stopped running and really gave it my teeth to see if it was as bad as I thought it was.

the results were similar, without the celebration.
Yes. I am trans.
Yes, part of me would like to be a man...or at least not a woman.
Here and there and everywhere.
But it's not that easy.

it's not a cold, old plate of green food that tastes remarkably delicious. it's a life. And it's not just my life, either. I am a parent. I am a spouse. I work. I support a family. I am 41, and I am just coming out as trans. (wait, or am I coming out as trans? Who is allowed to know and who isn't? Maybe I am not totally out as trans.)

What would my trans-ness mean?

stay tuned.  i don't even know.