The Fault In My Stars

I wonder how many people remember their childhood. More so, how much do they remember? How far back? I think about this because even at 43 years of age I have deep, distinct memories from before my first birthday, which run like crisp celluloid through a projector when I take them out to examine them. I've been told it's impossible to retain memories from such a pre-developmental age, and yet there they are...

My parents fighting. A small animal, possibly a squirrel or chipmunk, running straight at me. Birthday balloons tied up around the house. Not many moments, but enough to prove to myself how I gleaned more from my surroundings than the adults believed I would, or could.

Funny, how most of the photographs we have of my first few years come with zero recall. I know it's me, where I was, who was on the other side of the viewfinder, but there's no live feed. In a picture of me on a swing, I go back and forth, smiling widely. Only there's no wind, no forceful hand pushing from behind or in front, no sound of joy, or the crunch of autumn leaves. It's just a picture of me, gripping my bottle, laughing my head off. I can guess what that sounds & feels like, but it's not a memory. It's only an image, a testimony that I was there.

I remember the first time I whispered that I wanted to be a girl. I was perhaps 5 years old (no more than 6 or less than 4). The night was crisp, clear skies dotted with scattered stars. On my back, in the rear seat of my mother's blue Volkswagen Beetle - no seatbelt fastened; this was the 70s, you see - I stared upside down out the window as we drove homeward. I watched the stars as the car meandered over twisty roads. Dark branches swept across the view, but the stars didn't move. They seemed to follow us, watching me back for all I knew. I picked out a bright one, the brightest one, and became fixated. My mother had told me about wishing stars, how you only wished on the brightest ones. I might have wished for anything, being so young and full of wonder. But...

"I wish I was a girl." This was the only request I even considered. At so young an age, did I feel every other need had been granted? Did I sense that having two parents who loved each other was a fool's hope at this point, or that my toy box had reached capacity? Or did I know even then, deeply, simply, that something was intrinsically... amiss? [Insert pun appreciation here.]

"Thank you for your call. Please hold. All stars are busy fulfilling the destinies
of thousands of customers ahead of you. Your wish is important to us. Thank
you for choosing the Milky Way. Please stand by... Thank you for your call..."

I'm not incredibly quick on the uptake, as the saying goes. Sometimes the most obvious concepts take me ages to grasp. I'm often the last to realize changes or receive epiphanies, in whichever society I roll with. Sometimes it's charming (and occasionally a burden, depending on who you ask). So when I say that as a child I knew without question that what would make me happier than anything would be to change my gender, it's not to impress upon you that I was confused. It's to insist that I've always known there was more to my identity than boyhood.

I couldn't call it a mistake. I didn't know how to petition for an appeal to my assignment. I just knew I was... different than other boys. I wanted an alternative to everything I'd been led to believe I was, and what I was allowed to become.

And so, forty years later, I'm still wondering what I'm supposed to do with these feelings. The only difference is, I know it's okay to ask the question out loud... under the right circumstances, inasmuch as my instincts tell me.

Still no real answers, though. Just a calling to keep asking questions, and to keep the mission grounded in love. On both counts, I think I'm holding up. (No thanks to the STARS, I might add!)

--HCP