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It was a Sunday evening that Daina and I parted ways. Given how
much of our time together had been to share watching television
shows, it seemed to make sense to end with the last new show until a
span of repeats began.
Originally, I was shocked. When I told Daina of my
'situation' years earlier she had actually seemed enthusiastic about
helping me research it and even lent me her car for my trips to see
the specialist in Denver. But as time went on, she had become
irritated and despondent and wouldn't say why. I just ended up
assuming it was from the news of her mother's cancer and subsequent
death. But now that I had contacted my family to let them know of my
'situation' and decision to normalize as female, the source of
Daina's resentment toward me became clear: It was this decision.
She wouldn't talk to me about it but finally agreed to join me to
some visits with Samuel in the hopes that he could tease out the
issues behind the resentments.
Daina and I sat side by side on his couch as he sat in the single
chair across from us and gently prodded for what the issue might be.
Finally Daina burst out that she didn't think I should be a woman as
I made ''Animal Noises''. I burst out with an incredulous smile,
fighting back the urge to break out laughing and fought to guess what
she meant by that. Finally I did put two & two together and
noted that, indeed, I sometimes would say ''meow'' to a cat, or
''woof'' to a dog, or ''moo'' to a cow, but I didn't see how that was
a problem. Samuel turned to Daina and she wasn't going to explain it
any further and the first of these three appointments soon came to an
end with little more than Samuel getting some general information on
Daina's background. Leaving his office I couldn't help myself and
asked Daina, ''Animal Noises?'' She didn't want to talk about it or
the session any further.
For the second visit, Daina had little to offer other than my height
as to why I shouldn't choose to be a woman. That was easily
addressed as I noted, because of my intersexed background, I had
actually ended up a bit shorter than my mother and the same height as
my sister. While in the transsexual field there had developed a race
based conclusion of who should and who shouldn't change ''from a man
to a woman'' based on how their height and weight fit into the
idealized Caucasian norm, as I was from a mixed race background and,
for that matter I was addressing an intersexed condition not a
transsexual issue, that sort of gauge didn't seem relevant to me.
Daina didn't have a response and the meeting was soon over without
any new insights as to what was causing her irritation about my
decision.
During this time I had gotten my RMT job offer and accepted it and
Vocational Rehabilitation actually paid for cab fare to take me to
and from the complex each day I worked for the first two weeks until
I received my first paycheck and could use it as a down payment for
my own a car. As a result, between dinners and Daina helping me
decide on my business wear wardrobe, we would visit various used car
lots in search of a car I might like. During these times it had
become the rule that we were not to talk of the cause of her
irritation until our next appointment with Samuel. So the irritation
just persisted creating a wall between us as the weeks wore on. We
finally found a car for me, but as I had only just started a new job
after years of being unemployed, I couldn't get financing for it on
my own and Daina finally agreed to cosign my car loan so, if for any
reason I stopped making payments for it, Daina would be on the hook
for the balance and the financing company would feel safe. I thanked
her, but she saw my getting a car as a means of us spending less
tense time together in her car.
By the third meeting the dam broke at Samuel's office:
When Daina had first met me she had been with a coworker friend,
'Rochelle', and as Rochelle was the extroverted one of the pair, she
befriended me first. Given Rochelle's comely appearance and her
propensity to talk of her many past boyfriends as conquests, her
limited presence in my life had lead people to believe I had chosen
her as a girlfriend and thus this had given me 'a reputation'. While
the friendship with Rochelle didn't last long, she had then started
listing me at Daina's & her workplace as one of her past
boyfriends, thus giving me 'a reputation' at their school in the
rumor mill as well. Daina saw this as her chance to establish her
own 'reputation' as she had never had a boyfriend of her own, nor had
even been on a real date for fear of ending up in a relationship like
her parents had during her lifetime.
By befriending me, Daina had been leading her school friends to
believe we were an intimate couple over these past few years. Then
when I told her of my 'situation' Daina had come to realize that God
had sent me to her. In her mind I truly was that 'perfect
boyfriend for her'. We had so many interests in common and given my
physical 'limitations' she would never have to worry about me wanting
anything of her sexually that she was uncomfortable facing. So
for me, while we had been friends these past few years and
she had been helping me out as I regained my health and tried to
reclaim my life, to her friends she had portrayed me as her
boyfriend having fresh stories of our frequent times together doing
stuff and letting her coworkers and family assume more was happening
'after hours'.
That was why Daina was against my normalizing as female as: What
would she tell her friends? Her family? That nothing
had been going on all along and she had been intentionally misleading
them? Of course she couldn't. Daina originally thought
that when I looked into my intersexed 'situation' it would result in
my finding ways to become 'more of a man', but once it was clear that
wasn't going to happen, Daina wanted me to remain as I had been
living my life since the age of thirteen, bound and pretending to be
a man as best I could, that way I would continue to ''be the man'' in
her life.
I told her after so many years of already living my life that way, I
definitely didn't want to spend the rest of it like that as well.
Drawing from her wealth of classical readings, Daina tried to point
out that ''Your life story makes such a great classical tragedy. Why
would you want to give that up and have a life just like everyone
else?''
I was speechless as was Samuel and when the end of the appointment
came Daina made her way back to the car while Samuel held me back for
a moment. He recommended I end my friendship with Daina as soon as
possible...!
But I still felt we could work it out. Daina could just let
it come out to her friends and coworkers that we weren't 'a couple'
but 'just friends' during these years but that wasn't what Daina
wanted to do. She liked the reputation she had gained in their
eyes. As the subsequent weeks went on, she further explained to
me that another reason she didn't want me as a 'female' friend in her
life was because all of her female friends had subsequently found a
boyfriend and coupled up, leaving Daina behind, forgotten.
She couldn't bear the thought that I might, also, find myself a
boyfriend 'afterwards' and not only would she be left behind, again,
but having come from a mixed-sex background be ''more successful
being a woman'' than she had been during her lifetime.
While I told her I didn't have any dating goals in mind, I also
wasn't willing to swear I would never be open to them in the future.
With that, Daina concluded for herself that we needed to end our
friendship and while I tried to comfort and assure her it wouldn't be
an issue, her slowly welling hostility toward me made it clear that
the past fun of our friendship was going to disappear either way and
I finally relented and agreed to the end.
After finishing our final television show for the night, I followed
Daina out to her car and we chatted for a bit and then I thanked her
for all of her help and support over these past many years I had
known her. Given how she had fed me and helped me when my apartment
had been destroyed as well as assuring I was able to go back to
College and frequently provided me rides as part of it so I could
complete my degree, I thanked her for ''saving my life'' as my final
words to her. That seemed to coax a smile out of her for the first
time in months and she got into her car and started it while I made
my way back to my apartment.
I moved to my bedroom window and opened the curtains to watch her car
drive by... And she was gone. I stood there for a
while looking to the grassy vacant lot beyond the parking lot for a
time and it dawned on me I was back to my childhood place starting
out my sister's bedroom window to the hayfield beyond, waiting for
the time when she would come back and see me again.
But in this case I knew Daina never would.
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