PART IV Please Don't Call Me Sir

PART IV:

Magazines in the 70's and early 80's were very powerful media, much like YouTube, Pintrest, and the similar, are today. Our mothers used magazines for dinner recipes, beauty and romance secrets; the kids used them to join teen fan clubs, find posters for their rooms and to seek out what was popular in fashion. My room was full of magazine pages, both male and female teen idols. It was within these pages that kids would develop crushes. They would get some of their first ideas about what they wanted to look like, what they wanted to wear and who and what they wanted to be someday.

Living in a small Upstate NY town (other than the brief time in Florida), we were always years behind any fashion you would see coming from these magazines, and we just did not have stores like Macy's anywhere around us. Our fashion palette was dictated by a Jamesway or an Ames. My oldest sister lived near NYC and I would occasionally visit and would always come home with new clothes. My favorite was a nice collection of IZOD brand shirts. I am not sure how I even pulled that off because they were not "for girls". Within the ages of 11 and 12, I had established a style that I was comfortable presenting to those around me.

At around this same time, I starting to have thoughts about boyfriends and girlfriends, and what that all meant. I lived with my younger brother and single mother, so in the home I had no point of reference. All that I gleaned was from magazines or on TV. The Brady Bunch was a favorite show. I dreamed more of having an Alice than I did about any interpersonal relationships that I might have seen on the show. How nice it would have been to have Alice presenting me with a plate of warm chocolate chip cookies each day that I returned home from school! Anyway, I am not sure what this says about the show's characters, but nothing was evoked in me by watching the Brady boys or the Brady girls!

There were two people that did capture my interest at this age. Shaun Cassidy, teen idol, and Farrah Fawcett. I had both of their iconic posters. Shaun in his baby blue, unzipped, satin jacket and Farrah in her red, one piece swimsuit.

They both interested me and caused me confusion. I knew that I should like Shaun Cassidy and think he was cute and swoon over him, but that was just not the case. I admired him, maybe even envied him. I did not know what this meant of course. If this was all happening today, or even if I lived in more progressive area, I might have been more easily able to identify my feelings, but at the time, it felt like I wanted to be a boy.

Contrary to Shaun, Farrah stirred up other feelings in me, furthering the confusion I had about my gender identity.

Florida had one more pivotal event awaiting me that would occur on the last Halloween that we lived there. I was not much for Trick or Treating. I just didn't like it. Maybe it was because I felt as though I wore a mask every day of my life, I didn't need a special holiday for that. But, my little brother did like it and I went with him. I took him door to door and it was all typical Halloween banter, until we came to one particular apartment in the complex across the street from us. My brother knocked and two young women came to the door. I still remember their faces. They were happy and and playful with the trick or treaters. My brother approached them and said the obligatory words to receive our candy. They gave him his candy but they both quickly took note that I had not said trick or treat. They teased me about it and poked and prodded me in to submission. Everyone else had just thrown candy in our bags, but not these two. I was going to have to work for it. And, so I did, much to my irritation.

After that interaction, I became friendly with these two women. They treated me like a little sister. It was a sad day when I had to tell them that we were moving back to New York and said good-bye. I would miss them and I would think of them often in the years to come, as I eventually would learn that women live together for other reasons other than being an old single librarian or spinsterly sisters.

I had fairly strong personality traits before the age of 13, some I was born with no doubt and some I formed along my way. On the brink of becoming a teenager, I was grappling with many issues to sort out. When I think back to those times now, I wonder how I even survived the immense confusion that I had. The confusion and fear was always there. It never left me, it constantly churned away internally, like molten lava, as I patiently waited for the day that it would all make sense. Until the day everything I was feeling could be released somehow. I instinctively seemed to know that day would come. Until then, I had to try to fit in somehow and just do the best that I could.