Tag: personal

Important note: All names aside from my own are changed

I can remember when I first really felt like boys were different than girls – not just because we look different – but something else. 

When I was a little girl I grew up playing with boys, neighbor boys, my cousins. It’s easy to tell that you aren’t like someone else by simply looking, but before the pressures of socialization begin to pull us into our separate lines, our spirits don’t feel so different. My cousins and I would go into their barn and jump off the hay bails swinging from a rope swing. Personally, I was always slightly more afraid, not wanting the pain of falling off more than anything else, but my cousins didn’t seem to have that fear. They would climb up on the highest bail, knotted rope in hand, and look over the expanse of the second floor of the barn in wonder. They’d jump off of the bails, little legs tucked in, butts confidently stuck to that knot, trying to see who could go the highest. Every time it was my turn, I wouldn’t dare climb up to the highest row. I knew that they were braver than me, but I had other things. My bravery or lack thereof was not the essence of my girlhood but rather a sense of my sensitivities and they were okay with it. At that age, it felt like the only thing that really separated us was Barbie. My cousins still played Lego, with little Lego spacemen and story lines. We would build junk houses and try to infiltrate the other’s home. They would try to take over my land. Even then, I didn’t feel different than them. My lack of interest in their take-over didn’t make me feel more like a girl. 

It wasn’t until a little boy named Eddy, the son of my mom’s work friend, asked me if I was going to take my clothes off during a game of house that I began to realize that the essence of the game was fundamentally different for boys than girls. 

Eddy was a small scrawny kid. He had straight hair that was cut into a bowl cut, probably done by his mother, like most kids with hair the resembled kitchenware. I can’t say that I enjoyed playing with him much but I can’t say I hated it either. There was just always an awkwardness about him that I couldn’t put my finger on. Sometimes I wondered if it was because his dad felt that way too, the way he was around little girls. While my mind was innocent of specific thoughts with regards to sex, there was a subliminal reference to it that felt all encompassing at the time, despite not having the language to articulate the specific feeling. Typically when we played house, I was the mom. Growing up I was always in charge and responsible. That’s why almost everyone that knew me called me Miss Ellie. I don’t remember how the name stuck but someone thought I was mature enough to hold the title of Miss and it remained a nickname that I held onto proudly throughout my childhood. 

I remember the game beginning with me needing to get him ready for school while I got ready for work. I assume that I went to the closet to grab what I would have called “work clothes” at the time. We were sitting on the bed and I was letting him know what fictional journey we would be taking that day. Eddy glanced up at me before I went to fetch my mom work clothes from the closet. He smirked and I knew there was something wrong in that moment. All of my senses became keenly aware of why I felt so uncomfortable around him in the first place. I had intuition despite not knowing what it was. “Are you going to take your clothes off?” Eddy said with a strange smile. This was the moment my mom had warned me about, about strangers, or anyone asking, about my private parts. I didn’t know what to say. I felt in complete shock. Eddy began laughing, tilted over on my bed. He laughed so hard that a string of drool fell from his lips and touched my bedding. My stomach heaved. I don’t remember what I said but my mom says that she remembers me screaming for her. 

Sometimes life feels tectonic. There was a small shift, a tilt, in my perception of myself with respect to my playmates that once I noticed it, I couldn’t un-see it or un-feel it.  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop noticing differences between me and boys after that evening with Eddy. While every interaction that felt different didn’t feel sexual there was still a noticeable change. My cousins weren’t even as gentle with me anymore. I could sense that there were differences building up between us too. 

One sunny summer afternoon my cousins and I were playing at my grandparent’s house, entertaining ourselves with nature while the adults chatted over coffee. My grandparents lived on a small lake at the time, but from what I remember it felt more like a swamp. I don’t ever remember seeing a lake on the property. There were areas of wet that would be puddled up on the grasses and cattails formed on the outer edge of my grandma and grandpa’s property. Us kids would go exploring back there and it felt like we were discovering a new world. Our little bodies and child stomps made a trail of laid cattails that pressed into the watery soil. Surrounded by the foliage, I kept tickling the back of my cousin’s neck with a cattail. He swatted his hand in protest. “Stop!” he demanded. Used to this type of protest and teasing, I continued. I grabbed another cattail and touched the back of his t-shirt with it. He bristled. “Stop it! And if you don’t I am gonna cut you.” 

I hardly believed that he would actually do it. My cousin was a shy and kind child who drew pictures of kitties playing musical instruments in a tiny band and put his gum into ice water to refresh it. Hardly the type you would think could slash anything. I waited a moment contemplating whether or not I wanted to go through with it, if I wanted to take a chance at getting cut. After touching more of the furry luscious plants, I decided it might be worth the risk. I took another cattail and poked his back. A moment barely passed before my cousin grabbed his pocketknife out of his front pants pocket and pressed the button to release it. With the blade free, he swung the knife back, not looking at all where it would land, just hoping it would make contact with skin. Everything happened so fast that I didn’t have time to do anything. My swinging hand from my gait took the damage. Just below my thumb, a small split in my skin formed, a trickle of blood dripped out. “I told you I would do it.” He said. “You didn’t listen.” I felt a cold fear rise up within me, and my eyes welled up with tears.  I couldn’t get that phrase out of my head, “You didn’t listen.” For some unknown reason at the time, I felt a deep sense of shame, like I was too stupid to know how to listen. I swallowed my tears down, really understanding now that I was different than the boys. I didn’t want to show vulnerability. I didn’t want to cry in front of them. I felt like a girl and I was an outsider. 

That same day in the cattails we stumbled across a frog. I saw my three cousins form around it chattering. Excited, I approached the small group, hoping to touch the frog. I loved and still love frogs. Their skin is so soft and delicate and they always have a contented look on their face. I was disgusted to find that when I approached the group I saw that they had pulled the leg of the frog so hard that its skin ripped and its muscle was showing. My heart sank in my chest, my hands broke out in a cool sweat. What was the frog going to do now? It lay on its back, its legs stretched out like a slinky that somebody tugged on too hard. “Look at this!” One of my cousins said in awe. I couldn’t believe what they had done. I remember looking at the frog up close and feeling like I wanted to crumble like a paper bag under the weight of it all. Had I arrived a second sooner, not caught up in the cattails, I could have stopped them from hurting it. But the reality was I hadn’t arrived a second sooner, and I was emotionally kicking myself for it. A phrase popped into my head just then, “Boys will be boys.” The phrase was like a whisper from a ghost that travelled across my consciousness. I don’t even know where I had heard it before but I felt it was true. 

Boys will be boys and I cannot be them. 

Despite not being able to be one of the boys, I clung to seeking their approval. Changing from a child to a teenager shifted, again, how I perceived myself in relation to boys rather than wanting to be imperceptible from them. Despite these different challenges, my mind was filled, more than anything, with a desire to be loved. Even though I was only thirteen, I felt like I was sprinting to find someone to share affection with. I didn’t want to feel left out of the love loop. Out of that desperation for approval, I met a teenage boy that showed me attention. At that time, in my changing body, I finally felt like there was glimmer of hope for me to be desired by boys, embraced instead of shunned. Unfortunately for many teenagers, where there is desirability there is also surveillance. 

One afternoon I walked home with my boyfriend Matt after school. My mom knew where I was going –that wasn’t a lie– but I hadn’t told her that Matt’s parents wouldn’t be home. Parental supervision was a rule that my mom had enforced but being a teenager who felt like I was more adult than child, I tried to rebel against rules that were meant to protect me. We started kissing in his bedroom on his bed. At the time, teenage passion felt intoxicating. Being unable to tell the difference between lust and love can leave someone young, like myself at the time, in a bind. Matt looked at me with soft eyes, “Can we have sex?” I was only thirteen at the time and wasn’t ready to have sex. In a moment of bravery and sounding a bit mature for my age, I said, “I am a thirteen year old girl. I am still a child. I’m not ready for all of that.” Of course he retorted the classic adage, “But I love you and you love me. Why not show each other that?” Unconvinced I remained steadfast and declined the offer. 

Matt and I went back to kissing and touching. I even showed him my bra and let him touch on my body in an attempt to quell his desires for more. What stood out to me the most from this memory is not being asked for sex but rather a small blinking red light. I can still see it, a handheld tape camera sitting on top of a dresser; a slow blinking red light that I hadn’t noticed previously etches itself into my brain. There is no way he would film me, right? Someone who loves you would never do that without asking. I tried to tell myself that maybe the battery was dying and that was why it was blinking…any sort of reason other than what I had done may have just been filmed. I pushed the blinking red light out of my brain and continued on with my life. After a disastrous break up where Matt pinned me up against a wall and screamed in my face, I was glad to put that all behind me. 

It was not until years later, when a best friend came to me telling me that she had a secret that she had kept from me that I learned the truth. That day in Matt’s bedroom, that camera had been filming me, and Matt had boys on his hockey team pay money to watch it in a locker room. My best friend’s cousin had told her about the secret because he felt so much guilt for wanting to watch it but unable to bring himself to do so. He didn’t know if I had consented to being filmed. Sometimes hoping to see the best in someone else is the best-case scenario. Matt beat the next girl he dated after me.

Boys will be boys but I still love them.

Now, as an adult I wish that I could say that I never feel an ounce of insecurity, that the tectonic plates of my life fit together perfectly. I find myself hopeful despite knowing that life will never be perfect. After two failed five-year relationships, I may not be confident in my ability to be loved sometimes but I am confident in my ability to know what love doesn’t look like for me. I find myself dreaming of a life of creativity in all things, not exclusively love. After I found myself single a second time, despite hanging on to a relationship that didn’t serve me, for the first time in half of a decade I decided that I needed to change the way I saw myself with men, not just how men saw me. Taking a break from romantic love is a choice. It’s hard as I watch myself change, grow, and age, to let go of the expectations that society has placed on me for simply existing. In my most vulnerable moments, I find myself wondering if I will still be considered beautiful when I find love again, will I pick wrong again? During this chapter of my life, I find myself craving romantic love but finding that platonic love can fill up my cup too. 

The truth is that nobody knows what the future has in store for us, love or otherwise. For the first time in my life, instead of focusing on how I am different than the men around me I am deciding to be authentically me, the best I can. Something I find myself really longing for was the reassurance that life is a cycle of growth and changes in my younger years. We focus so much on trying to find ourselves so that we can continue to live in our truths, but, the reality is who we are changes all of the time. I will never truly know everything about myself, about who I am now, or who I could be. That’s okay with me. For now, I am happy to just be me, trying new things, failing, and succeeding. 

Boys will be boys and I will be me.