The Raven & The Swan

I have been different my entire life. Of Cajun ancestry, I am the result of a few hundred years of French hedonism. I am not quite white but not quite black either, and people don’t like being unable to label your race. I was the kid that everyone else picked on; add to that equation that I was also a fast learner and a bit of the teacher's pet. I was, then, the school pariah.

When I was small, my mother would read me Hans Christian Andersen’s "The Ugly Duckling," the tale about the ugly little duck who was mistreated for being different and grew up to become a beautiful swan, the envy of everyone who had demeaned him. I always used to identify with that little duckling, and wished that I could stop being the duckling and grow up into a swan; instead I grew up into a raven. When I got old enough to know what females were, I was told that I was ugly; tell you what, 8-10 years of being told you are ugly has a bit of an effect on who you grow up to be. Since I hit puberty and grew up to my current 6’3”, I have never weighed less than 250lbs, and I have always had a bit of a belly. I am neither fat nor thin; I am, in nearly every physical identifier, difficult to label.

In middle and high school I tried to fit in because I so yearned to be liked, to be one of the "cool kids," to not be me. My freshman year of High School I tried to be a prep, dressed nicely, tried to join student government to get some clout; that was a painful mistake that taught me that humans are cruel creatures. My sophomore year I tried to get involved with the Goth scene; this ended in failure as well, this time because humans are so vain. My junior year I became a hermit, I was so sick of being the punching bag that something inside me snapped and I made it my goal to be as frightening as possible, I dressed in a winter coat in 90+ degree Albuquerque summers; I began wearing BDUs and sunglasses at all times, I turned my face into as mean a grimace as I could muster and held it till my face stuck that way. I twisted and contorted my spine till I was hunched like a gargoyle; I wanted everyone to fear me and I got my wish, few talked to me for my senior year of high school.

After I graduated and I was officially an adult, I found that years of torment had jaded me to humanity and I could not really trust others. I had a hard time forming healthy relationships and an even harder time taking care of myself and my needs. I had a string of poorly planned jobs, relationships, and bouts of homelessness. It was during my early twenties that I began getting tattoos; all of my ink was very intricately planned, I have the twelve signs of the zodiac, and each is bold and black with sharp lines and edges in tribal style. I called it "porcupine theory"; my intention with each new tattoo was to keep the world away from me, to allow me to do what I wanted in peace, to keep those sharp spines pointed at the world and not allow anyone to get too close to me. It worked too well really. With the combination of the tattoos, my aggressive style of dress, and the foul look I gave the world, I became invisible in a crowd, painfully so. Painful because I still yearned to be loved, painful because I still wanted to be one of the cool kids, painful because I wanted to be seen; but I was still too afraid of being hurt.

When I was 19 I entered the gay world, and when I was 22 I was first exposed to the world of kink. I suppose I always knew I was gay; so it was only slightly shocking when I accepted that fact. The gay community in general is very image driven; the beast which I had turned myself into did not go out on many dates and certainly did not lead to healthy behaviors. I had a handful of long term relationships in that period but I could never really form a meaningful connection to another person because when they said that they loved me all I heard was the voices telling me that I was not good enough, that I was ugly. I looked online at the plethora of porn that exists and when I looked in the mirror what I saw disgusted me. I did not look the way that gay men were supposed to look. I tried to go to the gym for a time but I was so intimidated by other humans, especially those that my hypothalamus decided were attractive, that it never lasted long.

When I entered the kink world, it was on a leash; if I had not been on that leash I would have bolted. It was in a country western and leather bar called Sidewinders in Albuquerque, where I'd lived my entire life to that point. I was 22 and completely callow to the world that lies just below the surface. The one holding my lead was the beautiful Princess Frida. It was twenty days after I had first met her and that first encounter with the leather world at large was beautiful. I was new and innocent. That first night was the first time I felt accepted--and it had been years, upon years, since I'd had a glimmer of feeling accepted. Soon after that I came down from that high when I found that by and large the gay leather world was just as vision based as the vanilla gay world. I was not a caricature of Tom of Finland and likely never will be, so I am no more of a pinnacle. I was in a long and meaningful relationship with Princess Frida and she was among the first people I had true feelings of love for, and still do. I still suffered such issues with Frida regarding my appearance, when she would tell me what a beautiful beast I was, I could still only hear the echoes in my ears of how ugly I was. So many people in the kink world told me that I was attractive and I was never able to see what they saw, I thought for the longest time that it was just the social convention to tell people they look good.

When I was 25, I met my future ex-husband and my hypothalamus told me then, and still does, that he was the most handsome man in the world, he was my swan and everything I wished I was, so far out of my league that it was a shock to me that when I asked him out, he said yes. I was just as taken aback when he said yes to my proposal for marriage, I am just as surprised to this day that I spent three years of my life with such a beauty every day, that he held me in his arms when I was down, and that he told me that I was beautiful. I suppose that I will never understand what he saw when he looked at me that day he first saw me or what he saw the last time we were together. He tried his very best to tell me that I was beautiful and I really tried to see it when I looked at myself in the mirror.

With the help the voices of those around me, I am still trying to get over the demons that tell me that I am not good enough, both for the world and for love. I still hear the words that so many people said to me, filled with such burning vitriol, it can still bring a tear to my eyes. As I am sure everyone does, at times I wonder what I could have been if I had made different choices in my life. I am sure that with a few minor tweaks I could have turned out as a completely different person, but then I would not be where, what, and who I am today; I may not love myself, but I do like the person that I have become. When I think back to my mother reading me "The Ugly Duckling" I still sometimes wish that I had grown up to be a stunning and beautiful swan, but I am happy that I ended up a wise and gregarious raven.