Little Pink Pills

Part Twenty-Two, by Michelle Wilder

There are times when all the world's asleep,
the questions run too deep
for such a simple man.
Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned
I know it sounds absurd
but please tell me who I am.

(The Logical Song, by Roger Hodgson)

(Revised and reposted)

----

I had the strongest memory. Valerie and Diane were watching a movie and... Cathy... and Crystal and Bev were there and we were making noise or something, playing house....

Valerie got mad and called us... pests... and I remembered how I cried. That for some reason, it really hurt.

And Daddy came and told them to behave...

We were just little.

He smiled at me and said was I being his little girl today?

----

Breakfast was three pieces of toast, even if the last one took a long time. Mom... they thought I still had an eating disorder. I felt too skinny.

But it was hard to eat.

Even more when Mom was watching.

-

The internet had a thousand sites about anorexia. They said it was a ton of things.

Hating your body, being afraid of being fat, mental illness, hating growing up, hating being attractive, hating being a girl. Hating being alive.

None of them said it was hating being a boy.

It said it was an obsession, and something to control, and a fear, like paranoia. It said it was multiple personalities. It said it was the same as transsexualism, if they were both mental illness.

It said it was normal, too, just more of the same things all the models and ads and movie stars and stuff showed and everyone thought, about skinny is beautiful and fat is ugly.

It never explained why I just didn't have an appetite.

It said girls died of it... mostly girls. But they died of starvation, and heart attacks from starvation. And suicide. And the worse it got, the harder it was to get out of it, to get better, because starving made you crazy. Crazier.

-

And the internet didn't say anything about me. Anyone like me. About just being girly. Maybe about when I was little, but nothing about now.

It was all about people really, ~really~ wanting to be a girl. Or a boy.

-

The last thing I looked at was the picture of Cathy's house. It was a different kind of house from when we were little.

I finally had to turn it off.

----

We left for my appointment with Carol about eleven-thirty, after Mom got a grocery list together so she could shop while I was in.

I was pretty quiet, I guess, but two hours of reading about how you're mentally ill and a pervert will do that.

It was easier to be a little girl.

----

Carol made a huge fuss over Strawberry. She got the ~biggest~ smile and almost reached for her before she said hello, or hi and bye to Mom, and I felt like I almost shouldn't let her go.

But once we were sitting, Carol smiled and asked please if she could see her? I felt better and made sure she was careful.

She held her like she'd break, too.

"Oh! Oh, she's just like I remember! And... is this different? Oh, yes! These are beautiful! Did your mother make these? They're precious!" She ran her finger around her hat and looked at her apron and the little bow and smoothed out her skirt and... all of her.

Then she just smiled at her. I could see her remembering, just from her eyes.

And she didn't try to take any of her clothes off, which I was sort of worried about but didn't want to say.

And she gave her back.

"Thank you so much for bringing in your doll, she brings back a lot of good memories...."

I nodded. I didn't know what to do with her. I felt like an idiot holding her like I wanted, but I couldn't put her down like a book or something....

"I had a tassel purse I carried her in, so she could see."

When I looked up again, Carol was smiling.

"It's okay if you want to cuddle her."

----

"So... you're going back to school next week?"

"I was gonna go back today...."

I looked up when she didn't say anything, and realized that I'd been pretty rude. But she was just looking at me.

"Are you going to bring your doll?"

I looked down and held tighter. "Yeah. Mom said I could, if I kept her in my pack...."

"I think that's a very good idea."

"Hunh?" I really, ~really~ thought she was going to say it wasn't.

"Both taking her, and keeping her in your pack." She smiled. "Will she be okay in there, in the dark?"

Opposite day. I hadn't thought if she'd be okay... I looked down at her and tried to think.

"I... I'm not bringing all my books 'cause I can't carry them with my crutches, so she'll... there'll be room."

"And you can see she's okay when you get papers and things."

I hadn't thought of that either. It was a nice thought, seeing her in there, every class....

----

"I understand that the teachers at school will know about Carson by next week?"

"Yeah...." I didn't know how to feel about that. And the alliance and how she was so scared.

Carol made me tell.

Then I thought how she knew about all that, but she said Mom told her on the phone, and I remembered she must've.

-

"She wants to start living like the girl she is, doesn't she?"

I nodded. She did, and I knew she'd be happier, after, but I was so worried about all the bad things that could happen to her....

"And she wants to be able to be your girlfriend, in school, doesn't she?"

It was like there was a pain in my heart. I nodded.

"You're still very afraid for her, aren't you?"

My eyes started tearing up.

-

"If you can stand them calling you names, why do you think she won't be able to?"

"Because she never ~had~ to!"

-

"What?"

"I... if I'm like Carson, then how come she isn't like me?" I thought I'd said it right the first time, too....

"Wh... I don't think I understand your question.... What do you mean, like you?" Carol really did look confused.

It didn't make me feel very good at all that I had to explain. Safe. And I felt like I was tattling or something, too.... I fiddled with Strawberry's apron so I didn't have to look up.

"Well... if I'm... if...." I took a breath.

"If.... She's known she was a girl all along, like since she was little, but... how come she... she never had the guys at school calling her..." I had to close my eyes.

"Names."

Carol was quiet longer than I thought she would be. I hugged Strawberry.

"You weren't so afraid of names the last time we talked."

I moved her up to under my chin and felt her hair. I wanted to take her bonnet off and comb it. I didn't want to open my eyes....

"Has something happened?"

I shook my head, but I was remembering. A hundred names and crying... and worse names....

Trying not to.

-

"I haven't met Carson, you know."

I nodded. I still wanted her to say what she thought.

"Well... okay."

I looked up. She was serious.

"Not having met her, and going by what you and your parents have told me, you ~have~ had a lot more experience in just the last weeks with girl's clothes- "

She must've seen my face.

"You haven't?" She looked confused. I shook my head.

"Haven't you been wearing nighties for the last month? The last two months?"

Oh. I nodded. I hadn't thought of them, or that they were really girl-stuff.

"And your mother tells me you've been trying pony tails and braids?"

Oh.

"And nail polish?"

-

"It sounds like Carson decided a long time ago, when she was very young, that she should hide that she was a girl."

"Yeah. She said that...." I nodded. Carol nodded and smiled too.

"And you tell me that when you were young, you played mostly with girls and your best friends were other girls, and you played dolls and dress-up? Up to sixth grade?"

I nodded and hid with Strawberry. And felt cold. It still seemed like I shouldn't....

"Can I say what I think in geek-speak?"

I had to look up, and Carol was smiling.

"Okay?"

She smiled even more.

"Okay. ~I~ think you grew up in a girl-positive world and were unchallenged in your self-identification... but after your friend Cathy left, you found yourself with a fragile male social identity in a critical environment, and used negation of female identification and stereotypical masculine behavior to bolster yourself, but you haven't developed a strong male identity."

I blinked.

"And your friend Carson chose to grow up in a boy's social identity, and even though she was sure of herself as a female, she's confident and comfortable in her masculine presentation."

Carol grinned.

"And in ~normal~ words, I think Carson practiced acting like a boy and got very good at it... and you didn't practice, really, but you ~did~ learn all the girl lessons most young girls do, and got very good at them, too."

I think I blinked, again.

"And when Cathy moved away, you started to practice being a boy, but that was more than ten years later in life than most boys begin those lessons."

Carol blinked at me. I think because I did again, too.

"Does that answer your question?"

I guess I nodded, but she made me think of a bigger question that she'd kinda asked too....

-

"Do you think Carson is a stronger person because she hid being a girl?"

I had to think a long time. About name-calling, and bullies, and what she looked like....

A really long time. I shook my head.

"But I think she is... just 'cause she ~is~ strong."

What she was like.

"She'd be strong even if she started not being... a boy, pretending, when she was a baby."

-

"Do you think Carson is stronger because she can pretend to be a boy so well?"

It seemed like the same thing. But then I saw what she was asking, really.

"You mean like, are boys stronger than girls?"

"Well, not physically, but more as people...?"

I didn't have to think about that at all.

"Nope."

She looked like she wanted me to say more. Then I had to laugh at the thought I had.

"The more boys you put in a locker room, the dumber they get."

----

"Do you want the teachers at school to know about you, the same way they will about Carson?"

She looked at me like she didn't think either way was better.

Mom and Dad were at the meeting. And everyone said... from what Carson said, they knew we were... she said she loved me. To them.

Everyone at the meeting. Mr. Carruthers and Mr. Lopez. The secretary. Jason and all them. Everyone knew about me, too.

But Carol meant how I... what I felt like.

I started to shiver.

She meant being a girl.

-

I had to look at her to see.

"You said I was practicing, being a boy."

She got more serious and nodded. "You noticed that, did you?"

I nodded too. And she said I didn't practice being a girl. She said I just learned. Like any girl did.

-

"Do you understand that my opinion would just be a guess? Can you wait a few weeks, so I can be more confident?"

----

Carol told Mom I shouldn't make any decisions yet. And she wanted me to do some written tests that she gave Mom.

Homework.

----

It looked like rain when we left Carol's office and I hoped it wouldn't, because of the game, but it was really damp and cold.

-

"Mom?"

We were driving right home instead of eating at a restaurant because Mom said I needed to rest before the game.

"Did I use to pretend I was a girl?"

"You used to tell us you were a girl sometimes, and sometimes you said you were a boy."

She said it like it was the most normal thing in the world.

"Then, when you went to school, you said you were a boy there most of the time, but up to the end of grade three, you were still almost always a girl with your friends."

"Isn't that weird?" I felt my face get stiff. Way worse words went through my head.

Mom just drove for a few seconds.

"It was different."

I felt like I couldn't breathe.

"Honey...." Mom signaled and looked over at me, and pulled over. Then she leaned over the seat. I had a huge deja vu.

Like Carson did, one time. I really needed to see Carson. I wanted to see Paul.

"Honey, you were the happiest little boy in the neighborhood, and when you were a girl, you were the happiest then, too. You... your smile was so bright...." She touched my face.

"And you were never weird. You were different than a lot of little boys, but you were a happy, healthy child and we loved you, and we loved everything about you."

I tried to think. To remember being like that, more than the one memory of Dad... saying I was a girl....

Mom was so sad.

"I don't feel happy, now...." I started to cry, even though I tried so hard to keep it in.

----

Mom said therapy was hard. She said when she was depressed, talking with her doctor had been hard, too, and sometimes she'd cried like all the tears in the world weren't enough.

----

When we got home she sat with me, and after I felt better she got out the photo albums again.

There was one of Cathy and me out on our back porch in a hammock I remembered. We were about ten, I guess, and we had the exact same striped t-shirts and jeans shorts and were making goofy faces.

One showed Crystal and me on a circus ride, a ferris wheel, grinning and waving at the camera.

Bev and Cathy and Crystal and me, lined up and posing like movie stars in front of Val and Diane and... Kelly... and an older girl I didn't remember. Mom said she was Fiona. We all had on different-colored pink t-shirts and looked dirty... and I remembered it was after a softball game and it was about the summer of grade six.....

The last one, she flipped back to Val and me and Cathy, the one with Cathy and me in our purple Oshoshes. I looked at my face. I was smiling so hard that it looked silly.

"I remember taking this." Mom touched the picture. "Cathy was so excited to have pants just like yours and you were the proudest little girl in the world."

I had to look at her. She smiled and touched the picture again, a little caress. I looked.

I had long hair, maybe, for a boy.... I looked like a pale Cathy. A short Valerie.

"That was a girl day for you."

I looked like a little girl.

But I almost looked like a girl in the other ones too.

-

End of Part 22