Yesterday, I was in the same store that I was in a week ago yesterday.
Only difference was that last week, a gal said “Excuse me, ma’am,” to me as she had to cross my path, and this time I had to pop into the men’s room while my mother used the ladies.
I saw lots of women who were dressed nicely to move through their day.
Only difference is that I wasn’t one of them.
I was driving my mother back from the hairstylists to puck up my father, immersed in “Aviation Week & Space Technology” at the library.
She rubbed my face, now with a weeks worth of stubble, and said “Ah, the beard is back. You know, you can even shave while we are at home. I mean, I don’t know how I will handle it, but you can.”
“It’s not you, so much,” I said. “It’s Nicholas. After he figures out it takes me a couple of days to get him back.”
“I don’t know how he feels,” she replied. “He just goes cold, closes down.”
“Exactly my point,” I replied.
I don’t want to make them uncomfortable. And as a woman, I am not exactly low-maintinance. No woman born male is, as Andy Warhol noted so long ago.
But packed away, it’s just shit and shower, change my socks and skivies and move on. I’m as low-maintenance as I can be. Heck, I’m even negative maintinence, letting lots of important things decay.
And I’m maybe as defended as I can be, too.
Vulnerability is hard, expecially after a life of people telling me why I am wrong and need to change to be more normie.
Hard.
Callan 