Me: Before It Happened

I am born female. Yes. Grew up surrounded with lovely dresses, ribbons and beads, laces and silks, fancying gowns and makeups, dreaming to own lots of barbies and stuffs for little girls. I love to style my long straight hair with different colors of bands and clips imitating a movie star who loves fashion and style. But above all that I feel somehow that there is something inside me that is kinda different than the other girls I know.

Kindergarten
I was playing with my neighbor one afternoon-- hairdressing and haircutting. We were pretending that she is the hairdresser and I am the customer. I was watching Dragon Balls -Z before and enjoying the feeling of my hair being tossed and turned that I did not noticed my friend is really cutting my hair until my scalp! My mom came and saw what happened to my hair and she was freaking out. She brought me to our lesbian neighbor and had her do a solution for my uneven hairstyle-- to cut all my hair until it looks like a boy's cut. I had no idea what was going on everything was too fast for me to digest everything. Until my brother and his pal went to see my new haircut and told me "Ah, kalbo! Kalbo!" (Bald! Bald!) That was the time that I realized, there's something wrong with my looks now, and it's not for a girl like me.

So I had no choice but to turn my back to my lovely dresses and skirts and sandals because I looked ridiculous on it with my hair. My mom started to dress me with my brother's old clothes. I remember my mom let me wore a t-shirt and a jeans and dragged me out of the house while I was crying out loud because I did not want anybody to see me in that appearance and yet I need to go to school. I can't accept the fact that I looked like a boy and all the whole neighborhood was calling me "Pogi" (Handsome).
I also remember my Godfather gave me a toy car for Christmas because he thought that I was a boy. And everytime my mom's acquaintances see us walking by the Session Road they would always say "Ang popogi naman ng mga anak mo." (How handsome your sons are) or "Ay dalawang lalaki pala ang anak mo ano? Wala kang dalaga?" (Oh, you have two sons? You don't have a lady?) and my eyes would always roll and just turn my back because I don't want to hear what are they gonna tell next. And then my brother would smile and say "Babae po siya!!!" (She's a girl!) so the story of my haircut repeats again and again.

So as time goes by, I played with toy cars and robots and pellet guns. I also learned to accept the jeans as my new best friend. As my hair grows longer, the deeper my connection with the guy's stuffs are. But still I envied the little girls with their fancy dresses, how pretty they look and wished I was like them. I started to admire more of the girls and the boys don't appeal anything to me. I just wanted their toys and the jeans and the rubber shoes, and how cool they are when you are active and sporty. They are so comfortable that you can do anything, run as fast as you can, roll on the grasses, climb up a tree. It's like a costume for freedom.



***Next part to be continued...