I’m back to talk more about gatekeeping, traditions, and whatever else happens to be on my mind. In yesterday’s post, I talked about how once your eyes are open to something, it’s really hard to close them again.
I sometimes wondered if there was a way I could have been normal. I think about my life, and, nah. It just wasn’t in the cards for me. As young as age seven, I knew there was somtething different about me. At the time, I thought it was that my brain was broken. I felt like I never got the manual for how to be a human being. Not even a normal human being, but a human being at all. I was talking about it with A, saying I felt like an alien. She was the one who encouraged me to take an online autism test because she heard a lot from me that resonated with her (she’s autistic).
I once mentioned to K when we were in our early thirties that sometimes, I wished I could have been normal. She sighed deeply and said, “You would not have wanted that life.” She was right, but it didn’t stop me from wishing for it now and again. Not often and not for long, but when I was deep in my depression and things looked bleak.
Yeah, life would have been easier if I could have been normal. I stand by that. If I had wanted to have the married life and kids. To care about fashion and, hell, I don’t know. Cooking? Now I’m just being catty. But I could not be any less feminine if I tried. And, believe me, I have. Well, ok, if you want to go by physical attributes, I could cut my hair off and do something with my boobs. The former is reasonable; the latter is not (because I like my boobs).
K is right, though, in that I would not have wanted that life. I would have hated that life. In our conversation last night, we were talking about having kids. She has one who is now working their first post-college job. Wow. How time really flies. I mentioned how I had said to one of my Taiji classmates that I would have been a bad mother. He immediately countered me and said he thought I would have been a great mom.
K said that in our society, it was so taboo to say you’d be a bad mother (specifically. Men get a free pass on this one. Maybe not as much these days, but certainly thirty years ago, there wasn’t nearly as much pressure on men to be fathers), it was pretty messed up to not listen when someone said they would be one (a bad mother). It brought tears to my eyes, though I did not tell her that.
She has the ability to make me feel seen in a way that no one else does. Sometimes, I wonder if I’m too much for her to handle, but she’s very good with strong personalities. And, it’s not like she’s the shy and retiring type herself.
You know how you meet someone you can talk to at any time and it seems like you had just talked minutes before? That’s our relationship. It doesn’t matter if it’s a day or a year. She is in my heart, and I know I ‘m in hers. We tell each other things we would not share with others, and she is the sister I’ve always wished I had.
I had no chance, really. There was nothing ‘right’ about me, and I gave up trying sometime in my late twenties. I mean, I had given up before then, but that’s when I became conscious that I really couldn’t be normal, no matter how much I try. It should have been freeing. Instead, it sunk me deeper in the depths of depression, self-loathing, and despair.
Fast-forward to me in my fifties. Not only do I know I’m not normal, I no longer have any desire to be. I know I can’t be, not even as I mask to the best of my abilities. See, I can say the platitudes necessary to pass as a normie for short periods of time. I can mask very well. I seem very empathetic, and I can get someone’s life story in five minutes, whether I want it or not.
In fact, K and I were commiserating about not liking to take Lyfts or Ubers because we get the life stories of the drivers. When she mentioned it, I couldn’t believe my ears because I thought I was the only one. We also bitched about how so many drivers burn incense as they drive. I’m allergic to every scent under the sun, and she said that she was allergic to many smells as well.
As I said, she just gets me. It’s something I really tappreciate about her, and I am so grateful to have her in my life. We met each other serendipitously (at work), and it was only because she was very persistent that we stayed friends when I left the nonprofit we worked at.
About a year into our friendship, she asked me if I wanted to be friends. I never called her, and she said she didn’t mind doing the calling–she just wanted to make sure she wasn’t bothering me. I hastily told her I was so grateful that she called me, and I was glad we were besties. I just didn’t want to intrude because at that time in my life, I felt that I was an imposition on everyone. That’s the power of being constantly put down as a child and told that I was worthless. Not told explicitly, but implied all over the place.
Once we got that settled, our friendship blossomed. We’ve been by each other’s side for over thirty years, which amazes and delights me. She really is my soulmate, and there’s a reason I call our relationship a queertonic one. She’s fine with it, and she loves the idea of the two of us heckling others in a old folks’ home when we’re in our eighties.