dandelion wine

When I was 5 I would not play with dolls, I would not practice nurturing play with them, I did not know how to and it was expected of me to exhibit some mothering inclinations in the imaginary games of the dolls I was bought. At the time my mother was nursing my baby sister, and I performed imitation play for the approval of the adults but I was uncomfortable with it. There's a photo of me holding the sort of realistic baby doll my mother went out of her way to get me at a special store in the hopes I'd like it, and I remember how uncomfortable I felt during the photo taking.

I've always related to the male characters of shows more, I've felt drawn to their emotional struggles as if somehow I was like them, I've felt drawn to experience the kind of camaraderie and positive male interactions they have in their narratives.

At family gatherings I would look at my female relatives on my father's side, their bodies and how their clothes fit on them, and try to resign myself to the future of growing up to be like them. My mother is curvy and they are curvy and on the shorter side, and I thought that genetics would give me no choice but I didn't want that.

The idea of giving love and commitment in a stereotypically feminine way to a husband one day felt like an impending doom. I could not handle the idea of being a wife, but I've always wanted a long term relationship.

The way I've always related to girls comes from a feeling that I am other from them. I never saw myself as one of collective girlhood/womanhood and no matter what was said to me, I didn't really want that.

Without knowing why at the time, I always wanted to be as strong as the boys, and carry the stacked chairs as much or more than them, and go off outdoors with them to belong among those activities.

When my body started to develop and mature beyond the starting and middle stages of puberty, I felt so strongly that I had become something I wasn't suppossed to be, that the way my body was, wasn't how it was suppossed to be.

I used to mirror check multiple times daily, staring at my face trying to see some masculinity in it or androgeny, some quality that would make someone say I had a masculin face.

When I started interacting online for the first time, I realised that if I used my initials people wouldn't be able to tell if I was a boy or a girl. Then, I could perhaps be a boy. Schroeder's Gender. I intentionally tried to speak with male mannerisms and adopt the intellectual tones of a nerdyish boy, and a few people said they thought I was when I told them that I was a girl later. Euphoria when I knew they perceived me as a boy and acted towards me as such. They were different with me and I wanted that.

My brother gave me.an old button up shirt of his that was really big on me to use when painting, and I wore it often around the house when not painting because it reminded me of male characters in adventure stories. I took a selfie in it with my face to the side, trying to show my angular jaw. I didn't know why I was drawn to do that but it felt good.

During some particularly bad years when my family was in a religious cult, I used modest clothes to hide my figure, and when my strict mother gave me options that would "look good on" me, I had to always check if they showed my bum or curves. I didn't want anyone to see that and I pretended it was for modesty.