The Ugly Duckling

I'd always felt like an outsider in my own home, despite my mother's best efforts to make me feel whole.

When I was born, I was very large and ugly. My face was bruised by the doctor's hands as he struggled to pull me from my mother's womb. My siblings, on the other hand, were slender and delicate on their days of birth. Born "naturally" as opposed to my surgical removal. However, my mother never loved me any less for the pain I put her through.

As my siblings and I grew older together, they often teased me for my shortcomings. My genetic counterparts were graceful, athletic, and talented. I was none of the above. They didn't shield me from the taunting at school, either. I was more or less on my own in this cruel world. I couldn't help this sinking pain inside of me, this feeling of difference that pervaded my everyday life.

It got worse as the development of adolescence came upon me. With the changes brought on in my body, uninvited. My boxy figure filled out, and the curvature of my hips mixed with the protrusion of my breasts had me beside myself. I dawned baggy clothing to hide my metamorphosis; something I never asked for, and something I hated so.

My mother never warned me about it, but she tried to talk me through it when it happened.

"I know it's uncomfortable. It happens to all of us, but it's a blessing to become a woman." She would say, as she helped me pick out deodorant, shaving cream, and brassieres at the general store.

For me, it was no blessing. I wanted none of it. I wished if anything, to turn back time. If only I could. Wouldn't it have been easier to have never been born than to have been born the ugly duckling of the family?

"What sort of girl are you?" The boys at school would tease me.

I didn't know.

As the other girls got dressed up and pretty for junior high dances, I decided to stay home and read. I felt safe on my own. In the little world I created inside my head, nothing could hurt me.

As puberty came to an end, and the other teens began ritual courtships, I continued to live inside of myself, wondering who I was and what to make of this life I was living. I couldn't relate to those around me, and it seemed they didn't care to relate to me, either.

What sort of girl was I?

Turned into:

What if I was not a girl at all?

As I began questioning my identity, my perspective started to shift.

Perhaps I was not the ugly duckling after all, perhaps I was a beautiful swan waiting to be seen for who I truly was.

I went to my mother with this realization, and she told me this.

"You were mine from the day you were born, and mine you will always be. No matter how you choose to present yourself, you will forever be my baby."

My reassuring, loving mother understood me even if she didn't understand what I was feeling. She took me shopping again; this time for clothes that fit my newborn identity. We replaced my brassieres with binders and my Dove for Old Spice. I began to feel more like myself with each change, no matter how incremental.

My siblings became nicer as I began to grow into myself, even apologizing for their past unpleasantries. They hoped their bullying did not lead me to this conclusion, and I assured them it wasn't their teasing that caused me to feel this way. It was something I was born with and could not change. They accepted our differences and found beauty in my way of life.

As I began to get help in my transition, I found community in group therapy. There, I was surrounded by other ugly ducklings who grew to be swans, just like me.

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Disclaimer: This isn't autobiographical, I'm just using first-person narration to tell the story. This is just what came to mind when I thought of retelling Hans Christian Andersen's "The Ugly Duckling" fairy tale. Thank you for reading, and thank you for your kind words!