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sovinly · 7 years

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I’m honestly not really sure how helpful talking about my own experiences with gender is? I mean, I don’t really talk about it much, except in that offhand way that means I don’t really have to dig into it, unless someone asks.

Sometimes I feel like I should, though. You know, in case it offers perspective or some shit. I’m really bad at lying my cards out on the table. It’s easier for me to be upfront and blunt about being disabled or abused or bisexual.

But I guess I have a lot of feelings about it, so here’s a bunch of rambling gender-musing under a cut.

Fuck, but it’s not something that’s easy to separate out. I didn’t always know, I didn’t understand in a flash – it was something that was always there and I came to understand slowly.

Y’know, there’s the baby Sovin who was wounded at being told they looked like a boy in a dress, and also the baby Sovin who was as liable to pick being a boy in imagination-games as not. There’s the tomboy Sovin who got super frustrated when told they shouldn’t wear “boy clothes” and also the Sovin who sewed their own damn dresses. There’s teenage not-like-other-girls internalized misogyny and sick-with-confusion Sovin.

And all of that’s bound up with survivor’s-guilt Sovin who couldn’t ever be the right child, and mentally-ill Sovin whose body seemed a distant simulacrum at best, and the Sovin whose body was belittled and criticized and sexualized constantly and just wanted to hide all of it forever.

It’s… my struggle with gender has always been a quiet, internal thing, in many ways more than other facets of my identity. Like, of course there was the gatekeeping bullshit, a handful of years where I wrestled with whether or not I could claim anything other than indecision.

But gender has never sat comfortably on me, even if that sometimes manifested in shitty ways. Do not miss being a teenager, man. Being open about my questions was never an option, especially when my presentation was policed and nitpicked by my family: for years, I wouldn’t wear anything that fell above the knees and still generally don’t, and my relationship with makeup and clothing was a battleground. My grandmother called me frumpy, which, now, what the fuck ever, I embrace the knitwear aesthetic, I am perpetually prepared to give a PBS special. (Also flannel-and-jeans queer lady aesthetic and the sharp-cut wool coat + scarf look; I contain multitudes.)

Gender, for me, is incongruity. There was this comic, this t-shirt: “I like boys in a gay way.” I talked to the other half of my heart one day, the woman who stood so strongly by me that friend-group drama decided to throw us both over rather than attempt to split us up: “It feels like sometimes I like boys in a gay way and sometimes in a straight way, but sometimes I like girls in a straight way and sometimes in a gay way.” Queer terminology? Not in my red state, motherfuckers. She loved me kindly anyway.

Gender was heart-pounding in my throat as I told a nice-Christian-girl that the guy she saw in the coffee shop could wear a sundress if he wanted, even if he didn’t want to shave his legs. Gender was waking up in the morning thinking why can’t guys wear skirts, I should do it to make a statement and the resounding oh heart-falling-wry-smile-quirking-disappointment realization that followed on its heels. Gender was wondering how androgynous I could make myself, and wanting everything and nothing from it all at once. Gender was writing about my experiences projected on fictional people and some quiet voice in the comments: “I didn’t know that anyone else felt like this!” Yeah, me neither.

It was growing suspicion and dating a girl who firmly believed that genderfluidity was just indecisiveness. “Mmn,” I said, and swallowed another part of me down. She still doesn’t know.

Talking about bisexuality seemed easy, in comparison.

I mean, obviously, I figured my shit out eventually. I like where I sit with myself, even if sometimes I wish I could toss the weekly-daily-hourly roulette-wheel’o’gender out the window. It’s like a shitty and surprising internal compass, and while I’m generally okay as long as I know where it points, it’s exhausting, the constant reminders of what people see and what they don’t. It’s exhausting to navigate the “how much do I say, how out can I be?” Sorry, incoming genderqueer MA student, I chose to stay mostly in the closet because I was getting enough shit about being vocally disabled, vocally feminist – I wish I could tell you it was better than that.

But, like, I’m okay with my body (mostly, bouts of insecurity and dysmorphia happen and I occasionally have breakdown crises over dress codes and bras and ugh, fuck all this). I play with angles and the fall of my hair in the mirror: sharp-faced, soft-faced, I don’t think I delude myself with thinking my face, at least, can be ambiguous, even if my figure isn’t (conflicted feelings, always, how can I like something and also dread the way it’s inevitably read). A barista corrects himself after saying “ladies,” and I don’t think he saw my face light up – doesn’t matter, it eased my heart that day.

“I think that [male relative] would have looked like you,” someone said to me recently. Months ago.

My heart still pounds when I look at myself in the mirror. My father and brother have sharp-edged faces.

A lifetime of pushing against comparison, I never thought someone could be compared to me, could look like me.

Oh, I think, still, soft and wondering, elated by a tangential possibility. He could have looked like me.

#sovin the socially awkward #gender? what's gender?#the worst #in fact #seriously though it's just a bunch of rambling

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mybpod · 7 years

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Welcome to BPOD!

Let's be honest with each other here. Your time is valuable and you need to know if this blog is right for you. Or, you need some material to lambaste me in order to feel better about yourself. So, let me start this blog off by cutting to the chase and letting you know how BPOD came to be, what it is, and why I think it is so helpful for my personal well-being.

Several years ago, I had completed my undergraduate degree as an English Major and Dramatic Arts Minor and was preparing to attend teacher's college because, honestly, what else was I going to do with that kind of education?? In this transition, I had to change cities and (EGAD!) move in with one of my parents -- father and stepmother to be specific.

At that time, they were dealing with the struggles of fixing up a new home that needed a lot of work and they believed that my presence would make things much easier for them to complete their demands. Unfortunately, I was still young(ish), employed at a video store (R.I.P. Blockbuster. I still think of you often.), and not very inspired to spend all of my free time doing manual labour when I was also paying rent. Needless to say, our differences in living perspectives led to some trying times.

The annoyances and agitations began to appear weekly, then daily, then hourly. I eventually felt like every breath I took was being scrutinized. That each bite of cereal was one wasted moment in which I was just being lazy and not "pulling my weight". A dark cloud started to follow me around, even when I wasn't in the house. Everything around me seemed irritating and every experience felt negative. Eventually that cloud stopped following me around. It became me.

But it was during one of these difficult days, when I managed to be home alone on a rare occasion, that I happened upon a little old movie simply titled Batman. (If you haven't seen it, this Adam West and Burt Ward classic from 1966 is most definitely "cheesy" in all the right ways. I won't digress into a movie review here, so just go and watch it immediately after you are done reading this. You can thank me later.) And as strange as it still sounds to me today, this movie is so important to my story because of one...simple...line....

To set the stage, Batman is in possession of a bomb (which despite having a very short fuse, it still manages to burn for quite a long time...remember the "cheese") and he needs to find a place to get rid of it so that innocent people are not harmed. Each direction he tries to go, he encounters a conflict. Whether it be a couple of nuns, or a mother pushing a stroller, or a ridiculous small but loud two person band, he always has to change direction and try to find a new place to dump the problem. Even when he tries to throw it in the water, he cannot because of a family of ducks! Finally, he turns, still holding the destructive device, and exclaims "Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb!"

And that was it. A bomb of positivity exploded in my brain and suddenly I felt a rush of optimism. Perhaps it was too many years of analyzing literature and trying to find meaning in the seemingly meaningless, but I sat in front of this ridiculously entertaining movie and became philosophical. What if THAT was how simple life could be? What if this dark cloud that I had become was not permanent, but it was actually only a temporary problem? If only SOME days a bomb can't be disposed of, that means that there MUST be other days that it can. Why should I let all my days be dismal when it is only some days that cause me grief? And hell, what if there is actually some good in every day that I'm just not noticing because of my problems? What if I'm seeing a band, or nuns, or ducks as problems when they aren't? What if it is actually just a perception because I AM the one that is holding the problem in my own hands, running around like a lunatic and getting frustrated in every direction??

Yes, that really is how my brain works a lot of time. Overthinking requires very little effort but boy can it be exhausting!

Later that night, I was talking with a friend and I explained to her the epiphany that I had. I acknowledged that it clearly wasn't ground-breaking, but she assured me it was still very much significant. That's the thing about being in a rut. We usually already have the answers -- it's just a matter of finding the right door to open at the right time in order to find it. She and I talked for a while about how easy it is to get bogged down by negativity and dwell on the things that bother us instead of holding onto the things that make us happy.

That's when it happened. I said, "Well, why don't we just think about the best part of our day right before going to bed? That way, no matter how shitty our day may have been, at least we can fall asleep in a better mood than when we were awake."

Done. Simple. Concise. Just the way I like it. And then we started to do it.

Each day, we would text each other the best part of our day before going to bed. It started off by saying something like "Here's the best part of my day...." but we agreed that we needed something shorter. We thought out "Final Thought" or "Bed Goodness" but those sounded too much like death or masturbation respectively. Then "BPOD" was suggested. Acronyms are always fun and it sounded much better than "BPD" or "BPOMD". It was something easy to text or say, depending on the format in which we were keeping each other informed. A message of "BPOD: Putting the perfect amount of honey on my toast" seemed efficient.

That is how BPOD was born.

Sometimes my BPODs were very basic things, like having a good lunch, or having someone hold the door open for me at a store. Other times they were bigger, like setting a new low round in golf, or my store winning a sales competition and getting a $250 prize. And as the days went on, I started to notice that not only was I appreciating one good thing every day, but I was actually having to CHOOSE between great things. Picking the best was sometimes difficult because I was becoming more aware of all the good things in my day. I started to realize how often good things were actually happening, all while I had been too busy being consumed with my negative perceptions.

Don't get me wrong tho. This wasn't a light switch that just turned my life completely bright. There were still days that my cloud was thick. Some days, picking my BPOD was like choosing between a kick in the groin or a slap in the face. Neither option was very appealing but at least I could choose the lesser of two evils. And some days, that was just enough to keep me going.

So here we are now. Years (and numerous highs and lows) later, I still use this strategy. In fact, I am so grateful for the "bomb scene" in Batman that I even have the portrait tattooed on my leg to keep me inspired. I got it done two years ago when I visited my best friend in Newfoundland. He's a great artist and you should check him out (https://www.instagram.com/tattoos_by_es/?hl=en) if you live in the area and are thinking about getting inked. And no, he isn't paying me to say this.

I have decided to start up this blog to keep myself on track as I embark on another phase of transitioning. I have been teaching for 4 years but still working towards obtaining permanent work (it's just the grind of teaching these days). My girlfriend and I will soon be moving in with her parents for a year because our landlord is selling the rental property and our pre-construction condo is not yet built. I'm also struggling to stay consistent with a workout regime to get some of the cardio back that I lost over the last few years.

So, needless to say, there are going to be several days in the coming weeks and months that will be bombarded with annoyances. Keeping up with this blog will allow me to keep my mind focused. It will also give me a chance to look back and what might be the most significant year of growth in my life thus far. Heck, ultimately I hope that someone might even happen upon my musings and some words I say could help to overcome their own negativity. Or, better yet, maybe even by the key to open the door that reveals their own answers to their problems.

For now, I'll finally end this (which turned out to be longer than anticipated but I'm cool with it) opening blog in the same fashion that I plan on starting the rest of them.....

BPOD -- Feb. 2, 2017 -- Winning my Roll-Up-The-Rim for the second time in three cups! I won myself a free donut, which I exchanged for a chocolate chip muffin instead because that's just how I roll (no pun intended! Ha!) at 9 in the morning. And it was deeeeeelicious too!

P.S. Here's a clip of the amazing scene that changed my life! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIPZROBiNik

#wellness #mental health #BPOD

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