I think about it all the time, what would my childhood have been like if I knew it was okay to wear ‘boy’ clothes, or if I knew it was okay to walk standing up straight, or if I knew it was okay to say no to my boss. You know? TV has painted a picture for us, a picture that we all subscribe to because we don’t have the opportunity to see anything else. That’s why it’s so amazing when it happens.
Instead of leaving, I worried about the following things: forgetting some of the paperwork even though we’d both gone over it a dozen times; not waking up for the alarm; Shannon not being allowed into the building or up to the interview or into the interview with me; not being able to hear someone talking to me through a window in a crowded room; not being able to speak loud enough that someone could hear me through a window in a crowded room, because I get quiet when I am a certain type of nervous; the interviewer being homophobic; the interview being an asshole; not getting the visa for some other reason that I hadn’t thought of yet but would definitely somehow be my fault; not getting the visa and then not being allowed in the States for a certain time period; that time period being years.
Broadway (is dark tonight) came on, by the Goo Goo dolls, and it just clicked. I totally got the song. So I got on AIM and changed my colors and made a profile with some of the lyrics.
One of the most painful – and important – parts of writing this work was realizing that for it to be a complete narrative (and a true reflection of this experience), I was going to have to revisit not only some of the most violent and difficult memories I have, but also the beautiful and intimate moments that were still happening in my life while I was in an abusive relationship.
The fashion world has a lot of rules for people over 30, and Autostraddle dot com has a lot of staff members over 30 who blissfully ignore them, so.
Did you ever make paper in elementary school? Tearing a fully-formed scribbled-on page into tiny pieces, softening the scraps, and molding them together into a new shape? Something solid made brand new? I think that’s what giving birth to our daughter did to me.
