Voice Break

It was early in the morning, and I was at my sister’s studio installing a computer I had rebuilt overnight for her; new power supply, network card, hard drive, operating system, driver suite, graphic software, all that.

As I worked to get it together, the door opened, and I heard a voice I never heard before.  It was my sister’s voice, yes, but it was cooing a cheery good morning, sweet and upbeat.

She came in the door and saw that the woman who would be instructing the class wasn’t there; it was only me.

And then the voice I know so well came back quickly.  I wasn’t worth the performance, even if I was going out of my way to do something exceptional for her.

My sister is now in mid-life woman mode, an exciting new adventure of following what she loves, her art.  It involves get-togethers with smart women and books on how to reclaim your own life.   She is enjoying it, as she should.

But the idea that, somehow, any of what she is doing might apply to me, well, that’s just not on.

I’m just locked into her expectations of me, which is as a caretaker.

I have an hour to make dinner.  I lost ten minutes of that last night, talking to my parents.  At twenty minutes I got called upstairs to be told my sister would be joining us.  At thirty five minutes my sister came in and started eating the ingredients I had prepared and telling stories about her adventures.

It ate my time and my focus.

I did what I usually do when I need more discipline.  I slammed myself in the head, multiple times.  Get focused, don’t get sad, don’t feel, just work harder.

My father saw it, and felt compelled to whisper to my sister.

I tried to tell him why I did it, to explain my experience.  He said that slowing down was the thing that worked for him.

When I was a kid, the poem I would ask him to read over and over again was

Christopher Robin goes hoppity, hoppity
hoppity, hoppity, hop.

Whenever I ask him politely to stop
he says he can’t possibly stop.

If Christopher Robin ever stopped hopping
he wouldn’t go anywhere, couldn’t go anywhere.

So Christopher Robin goes hoppity, hoppity
hoppity, hoppity, hop.

I knew even then that momentum, inertia was vital to me.

My father said that there was a reason he didn’t cook.

I watch my sister blossom.

I listen to my sister babble about blossoming, repeating her stories.

I make sure she is fed, listened to, and supported.

She seems to be sure that she knows who I am, one of them.

She can’t imagine me in her circle of cool women.

Who can imagine me, unless I embody myself?

And my body is slaved, my body is failing, my body is male.

Which has always been at the root of the problem.

After all, most other people I know who PAT, pass as transsexual, always have to fight or isolate to keep their center.  It’s a tough life, out as trans.

I kind of wish that sometimes, it would be about me.

But I have been labeled and dismissed.

And I don’t get the sweet, encouraging and empowering voice.

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