i've always joked that my father raised me to be a boy. there is a picture of me when i was little standing on the sink shaving in the mirror with my father. now obviously i'm not actually shaving, but my little face is covered with shaving cream and have some sort of either play razor, or what could very well be a real razor with the cover still on. now i know this type of picture is very common for little boys to have with their fathers... it is less common, and usually unheard of for little girls to also have this type of picture.
i also have a plethora of power tools, several different sets actually, and i'm pretty well versed in how to handle them. when i was a child i would love to help my father in all the little projects he had going on we spent a lot of time together build things, why we needed them or even what these things were i can't recall, when we lived in New York i remember that the two of us would take trips to the dump together, and i would always have to carry groceries in for my mother - who was somehow more fragile than i was. my father didn't get to spend as much time with my brother as he would have liked and he still feels guilty about the divorce.
when i hit my mid teens i resented him for treating me as the son he never got to watch grow up. like i've stated before in my early teens i was definitely in the obese category, and while kids are already entering their awkward stage i was in a worse awkward stage. just a recap - fat, black kid, white parents, little girl sort of raised as a little boy- there was no way i was going to be a normal teenager. my best friend from the age of almost 5 to 10 was a little boy that lived down the street. we played games outside and with trucks, i was just one of the boys. a title i seem to not be able to shake.
i've attempted to feminize myself over the years. since about the 7th grade most people i encounter just assume i'm a lesbian - i had very short hair and was fat, picture a black Chaz Bono- even recently a friend of mine said "you know, i didn't know you were into dudes..." (although i've moved from lesbian to Asexual) but i've slimmed down, my wardrobe now includes dresses and form fitting/flattering clothing, there was even a dark period where i was wearing makeup, but i've since throw that out the window. My best friend D had a pretty significant part in this, but it wasn't solely his doing. one of our other friends that i became close with throughout high school was the other moving force. G was like a straight male coach... just being the blunt male figure in my life, most of his advice to me to basically "nut up or shut up"... whatever it helped.
blah blah blah the point of all this is that the older i get the more i realize that perhaps my father wasn't raising me to be a boy, but instead to be more self sufficient. i don't know everything about power tools and "boy" things but i'm educated enough to find the solution- and stubborns enough to figure out how to do things myself. somehow the men in my life have improved my femininity and masculinity all at the same time...
i also have a plethora of power tools, several different sets actually, and i'm pretty well versed in how to handle them. when i was a child i would love to help my father in all the little projects he had going on we spent a lot of time together build things, why we needed them or even what these things were i can't recall, when we lived in New York i remember that the two of us would take trips to the dump together, and i would always have to carry groceries in for my mother - who was somehow more fragile than i was. my father didn't get to spend as much time with my brother as he would have liked and he still feels guilty about the divorce.
when i hit my mid teens i resented him for treating me as the son he never got to watch grow up. like i've stated before in my early teens i was definitely in the obese category, and while kids are already entering their awkward stage i was in a worse awkward stage. just a recap - fat, black kid, white parents, little girl sort of raised as a little boy- there was no way i was going to be a normal teenager. my best friend from the age of almost 5 to 10 was a little boy that lived down the street. we played games outside and with trucks, i was just one of the boys. a title i seem to not be able to shake.
i've attempted to feminize myself over the years. since about the 7th grade most people i encounter just assume i'm a lesbian - i had very short hair and was fat, picture a black Chaz Bono- even recently a friend of mine said "you know, i didn't know you were into dudes..." (although i've moved from lesbian to Asexual) but i've slimmed down, my wardrobe now includes dresses and form fitting/flattering clothing, there was even a dark period where i was wearing makeup, but i've since throw that out the window. My best friend D had a pretty significant part in this, but it wasn't solely his doing. one of our other friends that i became close with throughout high school was the other moving force. G was like a straight male coach... just being the blunt male figure in my life, most of his advice to me to basically "nut up or shut up"... whatever it helped.
blah blah blah the point of all this is that the older i get the more i realize that perhaps my father wasn't raising me to be a boy, but instead to be more self sufficient. i don't know everything about power tools and "boy" things but i'm educated enough to find the solution- and stubborns enough to figure out how to do things myself. somehow the men in my life have improved my femininity and masculinity all at the same time...
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