Girl of Truth
It’s 2 a.m. and I can’t sleep. The blog I have been meaning to write continues to not write itself and awakens me in the dark of the night to remind me of this fact. So many wonderful seeds to write about and elaborate on and stories and lessons I’ve learned… where to start? Crap. I have to be at work in 6.5 hours.
//Spends next 4 hours actively trying to fall back to sleep. Successful only 1 hour before alarm goes off. Wakes up exhausted and oblivious to the creative gifts offered in the wee hours of the morning. Repeat about once a week for a couple years. Then once a month for a few more…//
Today is January 5, 2016. Just about 4 years since my last blog entry on Open Salon, where I used to park my blog called “Girlyboymama.” When OS shut down the site several years ago, I took that as my excuse to retire from blogging. After all, I felt I had come to the end of the therapy that blogging offered. Words swirling in my head no longer kept me up. I no longer felt word-constipated. In a way, it was a relief from an obligation. No more itch to scratch, I could just get on with my bad self.
On “Girlyboymama,” I would muse about the unique journey life offered me in the form of parenting a child who was… spirited. And transgender. The journey started when she — he back then — was little. 2? 3? Our evolution went from wonderment, to concern, to confusion, to release. But to acceptance? It was never a milestone, because it was never an issue.
Chapter 1 of my journey closed with my reflections and thoughts on the “re-birthing” of my child. Making my child whole in the eyes of the state of California and Social Security Administration. That is to say, I felt it my obligation to undo the mistaken gender assignment imposed on her at birth. She deserved a fresh and true start to the long road ahead called Life. For the first time, I felt pangs of loss mixed with joyous celebration. It’s a state that is utterly indescribable, the sense of loss without actually ever losing anything I had in the first place.I still have the old birth certificate with the name we gave her at birth and the looming “M” under “Gender.” It’s a reminder of a time when I was so sure about what I thought I knew, and yet I was utterly clueless.
When Alex was still a voice unheard, she wore her passion for acknowledgement as a Girl of Truth in every fiber of her being. Feisty, anxious, argumentative, and moody, she was quite a force to be reckoned with. But in 2012, when she finally had a birth record that matched who she was telling us she was all along, she was whole. Fully integrated. Validated. Redeemed. She was recognized as the all-important “F,” and things calmed down. So my therapy blogging hit the pause button.
I knew, however, that there might come a day that blogging would once again be my therapy. Middle school and the onset of puberty meant there would be some big decisions she — and we — would have to make. Decisions that would chart the course for Chapter 2 of her story.
Today is January 5, 2016. I know. I already said that a few paragraphs ago. It’s my “reminder to self” of our journey together, the obstacles she has overcome, victories — both large and small — she has achieved, and goals and milestones she has within her grasp. I am proud of my girl and who she has become. My pre-teen. My moody, empowered, difficult, lovable, back-talking pre-teen girl who knows exactly what to say to press my buttons and turn me inside out, and who has an affinity for Snapchat, MAC lipstick, fashion, iJustine, and Arianna Grande, and who has learned to accept her authentic self more and more with each passing day realizing that her own true beauty blossoms from within. I am not just proud to be the parent of a child who embodies such authenticity and is living her life as a Girl of Truth — I am honored to be at her side, guiding her through all of life’s trials.
