Not a woman, not a man. My first boyfriend honestly pegged me pretty well: "You're not a girl. You're a guy without a dick." Yeah. Kinda. I still have "woman-hormones." But apparently those woman-hormones act on a guy-brain that processes information in a guy-way.
Can I have my hormones transition to being male, without needing my body to do that?? I have no desire to have a double mastectomy and a surgically constructed penis. I just want my hormones to match my neurons.
I'm not "womanly enough" to be a good woman. Not "manly enough" to be a good man. And being "manly" would be a mistake anyway, because I'm attracted to guys and don't want to spend the rest of my life alone. And guys DO NOT like manly women.
I'm a good mom, if I don't try to be a traditional mom. I suck at being a traditional mom. I will happily take care of them and interact with them and play with them. I just don't do it like other mothers do. And if I try, then that takes all my energy and I don't have anything to actually be present with my kids. If I don't, of course, I get to listen to the endless litany of what a terrible mother I am (it plays in my head all the time, I've heard it that often-- even though my kids and I are close, they're physically and mentally healthy NOW, even my teenager seems to want to tell me what she thinks and hang around me which seriously makes me think, logically, that I'm doing something right).
No, I don't meet their every whim. Ain't my job (that's called a servant, not a mother, and it stops being good parenting when they stop being itty-bitty babies, about the time they start to walk and speak).
Same song with the wife. I'm a good wife. If I don't try to be a brainless cheerleader, needy ultrafeminine sycophant, and a submissive yes-woman. I'm a good wife, if I treat my husband like a very good friend that I have sex with. Unfortunately, that's not what a wife is supposed to do. And now, being a submissive yes-woman is all I feel comfortable doing. Except, well, I know I'm lying through my teeth and resent it. Except I can't do anything else any more.
I know what's right. I'm too burned out from forcing myself to do what's wrong to do anything else. I'm worn out and broken, and it's no one's fault but mine. No matter what anyone said, ever, under what pressures-- I am the idiot who chose to comply.
Doesn't matter. As it turns out, broken people do not heal and cannot be Super Glue'd.
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"Alas, our dried voices when we whisper together are quiet and meaningless, as wind in dry grass, or rats' feet over broken glass in our dry cellar." --TS Eliot, "The Hollow Men"