I am my father’s first born son.

Not kidding.

Before you exit this post and look for a photo of me, I’ll confirm for you that YES, I am female.  That does not change what I said, though.  I am my father’s first born son.

Now don’t get me wrong.  When I say “I’m the first born son” I don’t mean in a lesbian-y, gender-identity-crisis, or “I have dangly man bits” kind of way.  I mean it in every other possible way.  I exist in a female body, but I am a masculine energy, raised by male methods, taught to think in a gender-neutral-but-mostly-masculine way.

And wow.  That has really been an obstacle to overcome.

In my opinion (and the opinion of several boys I’ve emasculated dated in my life) the difference between me and almost every male I’ve met is only anatomical.  In fact, for almost all of my life I felt like God made a mistake by making me a girl.  When I say I’m a first born son in all the not-physical-or-sexual ways, I MEAN IT.  I am aggressive and abrasive and outspoken.  If I think it I say it, usually (but getting better) with little regard to consequence.  I’ve always been interested in boy things more than girl things.  I dislike frill and glitter and “flair.”  I hate pastels.  Black is my favorite color.  With the passion of one thousand burning suns, I. HATE. pink power tools, pink firearms, pink muscle cars, and pink camo.  WHY MUST THEY BE PINK.  Why must you take something singularly USEFUL and make it GIRLY.  CREATING GENDER BIAS IS RIDICULOUS.  I support cancer research but not BREAST cancer research.   I hate chick flicks and refuse to watch them.  I feel that romance ruins novels and movies and LIFE.  I have always felt more comfortable with males.  With men you can punch each other to resolve arguments, you can belch and fart and sweat and get dirty and just BE YOURSELF.  With men you can say whateverthefuck HOWEVERthefuck and they generally reply with “Uh, okay.”  My personality fits in much better with take-it-as-it-is men, as opposed to women that tend to take it personally, talk about you behind your back, and behave like an all around, gossipy, fickle, giggly, herd of scratching, pecking hens.

(I would like to add here that I do know some very delightful women, and not all women are as I just said.  Apologies where needed.)

As a child “gender” was not a topic of discussion.  I was raised to be a capable PERSON.  I think by nature I was created to be more masculine, and by nurture I was molded gender neutral.  It never occurred to me until way later in life that I was, in fact, different than fifty percent of the population.  Even now I still barely notice.  I don’t notice that I’m a girl.  I don’t compare myself to anyone, so the differences between me and anyone else are (from my perspective) unnoticed and irrelevant.  The presence of my vagina is a non-issue to me.  In fact, the reality that I’m female is actually SO far outside my awareness and anything that I consider important, butterflies in China are higher on my radar.  The only time I consider that I’m female is when someone brings it to my attention.

AND OH HOW OUR CULTURE BRINGS IT TO OUR ATTENTION.  Women are now at war with themselves and each other because of our culture and our unrecognized, underlying ideas of sexuality.  Recently an article was published about the newest group of NASA astronaut candidates.  Four of the eight hired (out of 6300 applicants) were women.  To many this tidbit is really impressive.  The four women get media coverage, and people are so excited that “look how smart, there is a such thing as smart women, women can do things too.”  I know the intention is (somewhat) in the right place, but what BLOWS MY MIND is that we’re event talking about such things AT ALL.  The conversation should be about the cool program at NASA, or how awesome astronauts are, or how rockets are amazing.  We SHOULD NOT EVEN CARE what color or creed or height or weight OR GENDER the astronaut candidates are.  When a person says “you’re right, it shouldn’t be a big deal, it should be that way, we’re equal we’re the same, see I told you,” but THEN WE ARE STILL TALKING ABOUT IT SIX HOURS LATER, THEN THEY DO THINK IT SHOULD BE A BIG DEAL.  In reality IT REALLY SHOULD NOT be a big deal.  It should not be ANY DEAL.  People are people.  There is no color or gender or belief that separates us until it DOES, and it ONLY DOES when you CREATE a separation by noticing and pointing it out.  Women will never be as equal as they wish they could be until they stop pointing out that they’re “NOT MEN.”  We discriminate ourselves when we suggest that we OVERCAME OUR WOMAN-NESS to achieve the same things as men.

JUST DO IT and stop patting yourself on the back for “doing it WHILE YOU’RE BUSY HAVING A VAGINA.”

HOOOOSAH.

(Caps lock is cruise control for “angry.”  FYI and sorrynotsorry.)

In some regard being raised as a “person” and not as a GIRL had it’s benefits.  I was never afraid to try anything because of what I am.  I played basketball with the boys because they were more fun to play with.  I learned to service my own car, and fix leaky faucets, and shoot guns and pull weeds and use a post-hole digger.  I got cool things for Christmas and birthdays like duct tape and power tools and handguns.  I learned to take apart a piece of equipment that wasn’t working, figure out what was wrong with it, and fix it myself instead of hiring someone else to do it.  I became adept at electrical and plumbing and irrigation and construction.  I had no awareness of any sort of limitation, physical or otherwise, because I could do whatever ANYONE could do regardless of gender.  Regardless of AGE.  Due to my upbringing my life is very much about what I CAN do, not about what I can’t.

The benefit of this mentality, though, is the same as its downfall.  My life is very much about what I can do and has never been about what I couldn’t, but there are things I want to do that I just literally CAN’T. Or SHOULDN’T.  When you have in your mind zero limitations, dealing with LEGITIMATE PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS is difficult.  Painful.  Devastating and frustrating and ANGRY BURNING FURIOUS ANGER.  It didn’t occur to me until way too late in life that there are some things I just couldn’t do, or shouldn’t do, or would end up hurting myself by trying to do.  Rapping, for example.  Can’t rap.  I’d hurt myself.  (Yes, you can hurt yourself trying to rap.  I’ve done it.  Don’t ask.)  Also I have almost no natural talent for music, I don’t dance well AT ALL (picture Elaine from Seinfeld only way worse), and usually can’t walk a straight line without tripping.  I shouldn’t try to lift more than my body weight right now, and if I tried to play basketball with a bunch of high school kids at the park at this point in my life I’d end up in the hospital.

As an overachieving perfectionist, limitations are not okay with me.  Reality or not, limitations are not okay with me.

Part of getting healthy means finding balance in my life.  It means being totally honest with myself and REALLY LOOKING at the cards I’ve been dealt, understanding entirely what they are, and accepting them as reality.  Over the last year or two I’ve been going through the cards in my hand, thinking about them, turning them over, getting a feel for what’s really there and then getting okay with the cards one at a time.  Some are harder to be okay with than others, but I must be okay with ALL.  Finding myself means accepting the body I was born in, accepting my true limitations, and “getting okay” with my own reality.  “Owning my shit,” so to speak.

To be healthy I have to own the cards I’ve been dealt.  All of them.  Even the limiting ones.  Even the ones I don’t like.

Even the girl card.

I blame a lot of my limitations on the fact that I’m a girl.  In some cases this is a fair accusation.  People take you less seriously in a management role when your’e female.  People also get way more impressed about your not-so-difficult accomplishments because they’re UNDERESTIMATING you when you’re a female.  (Please refer to tirade above.)  I had to work extra hard to be respected and to have my capabilities recognized in a male dominated industry.  I never minded and barely noticed (because noticing means that it’s an issue, and it shouldn’t be an issue, again see tirade above), it was what it was, but the challenge existed nonetheless.  I am weakER than men of equal size, and I am smaller that most men because of my gender.  I have a hard time doing some of the things men can do because my hands are smaller (not by much, I have what we call in our family “man mitts”), or I’m not as tall, or I don’t weigh as much.  When remodeling the bathroom in my mom’s house I had to ask for help with seating the toilet on the wax gasket during install because I wasn’t heavy enough to push it down.  Even though I don’t WANT to be heavy, I was still irritated that I wasn’t able to do it on my own.  I blame my insufficient GRR and UMPH on the girl-ness.

See, in my head being a girl is analogous to being weak.  It’s the same as being LESS.  And stupid.  And GIRLY.  When you’re raised gender neutral, when you exist dead center on the gender sliding scale, being a girl is a move in the negative direction.  It means giggling at dumb things, flipping your hair and batting your eyes while you let a muscle bound male help you cross a puddle of water instead of just doing it yourself and maybe getting wet.  It means hiding behind a desk in the fetal position and screaming like a banshee when shit hits the fan instead of emptying six high cap mags into the perps.  Being a girl means waiting around in the woods for some lame, girly-man prince to show up and rescue your sorry ass because you can’t seem to find your way out of LIFE without help.

In my mind being a girl means you’re not enough.  It means being not capable.  It means being HELPLESS.  I get angry because I feel like with the title of GIRL comes an EXPECTATION to need the help.  That I’m not a girl UNLESS I need the help.

In my head, if I call myself a girl I’m just like all the other girls that do all the dumb, lame, glittery girl things.

NO WAY. Fuck that.

I have always and still up to this day deny my female-ness with my every breath and stitch of my being, no matter the circumstances that suggest otherwise.  I AM NOT “JUST A GIRL.”  I am not JUST an ANYTHING.  I AM A PERSON.  Telling me “you’re such a girl,” like that diminishes me or negates me in any way, is an open act of war.  When I get particularly frustrated with my gender as a whole I say “I’m so glad I’m not a girl.  I am SO GLAD I AM NOT THAT.”  The Mister (who I think waits with great anticipation for me say that because he pounces quick when he hears it) thinks it’s funny to reply with, “but you ARE a girl.”  He gets punched in the ribs every time he says it.

But the fact remains.  I am NOT a male.  I am a female.

I think it’s time to set aside the rage and accept some genetic and anatomical truths.  I DO NOT WANT TO DO IT.  But I need to be honest with myself and I need to be REAL.  By default, accepting my girl-ness will include acceptance of my limitations on a massive scale.  A ton of limitations will be REAL with one fell swoop when I can admit that “yep, I’m a girl.”  (Another FYI, even typing that makes me CAPS LOCK ANGRY.)

And so we begin.

(……………and seriously, now I’m sitting here trying to think of JUST ONE GOOD THING about being a girl.  I can’t think of anything.  I don’t even know where to start.)

Okay, how about this.  My first order of accepting the girl card is to call it something else.

I’ll say “I am a woman.”

(And now I’m laughing out loud and shaking my head, because even that thought feels foreign.  Like a giant squishy booger in my brain.)

Next I’ll try to list a few things that are great about being a woman.

(…..seriously… thinking hard….  Not even GREAT.  Just good.  C’mon Erin, just one good thing.)

OH.  Okay.  I’ll start with an easy one.  The most obvious part of accepting womanhood is this.

my norah. my wulfgar. my mace. the three best things I’ve ever, ever done.

I GREW THOSE INSIDE MY BODY.  That is definitely a “woman thing.”

I loved, loved, loved being pregnant.  I did it three times, and if I had a willing partner, enough money, and a few less years under my belt I’d do it five more.  Being pregnant was for me the purest form of purpose.  It is literally the closest one person can ever be to another, and I was blessed to do it three times.  I took care of those three people from the day I knew they were there.  As an Ana-Mia that was no small feat.  I ate well, never skipped a meal, didn’t binge, no drinking, no smoking, plenty of sleep.  Out of love my bad habits were set completely aside without question or hesitation.

Being a woman that has had kids also means I’m a mother.  ALSO a “woman thing.”  I do think that being a mother is a JOB, but I hate calling it that.  Saying “it’s a job” implies a sense of obligation.  I guess there is one, but I don’t see it that way.  It’s WORK, for sure, but it’s not a job.  It’s not my OBLIGATION that compels me to take care of my kids.  It’s my LIFE.  THEY are a huge part of my life.  Being a mother is thankless and never ending, but it is also extraordinary.  The best, most wonderful, most amazing heart warming melty thing in the world is having tiny arms locked around my neck, feeling them squeeeeeeeeeeeeeze, and being called “Mommy.”

THAT is possible because I’m a woman.

Being a woman and a mother also means I have things like this.

stripes of love, earned with effort. i keep them.

Accepting all the cards means accepting this, too.  Some women assume when I say “I don’t want my picture taken” it’s because of the mommy tummy.  That’s not the case.  I actually find a lot of beauty in this.  When I see my stretch marks I see PURPOSE.  And experience.  And love.  The stretch marks that I have are permanent reminders of the sacrifice I was lucky enough to make.  The marks are a tribute to the three people I helped create and get to love.  The fat UNDER my skin I’ll deal with, but my skin itself will stay.  For a season I considered getting a tummy tuck to pull myself in tight, but now that I’m older and wiser (and looked at enough “after” photos to say “NO THANKS”), that inclination is gone.  I’m happy with my marks.  I EARNED those marks.  I have no desire to erase any of them.

…my experience with BREASTFEEDING, though…  That’s a different story.  I’d get a breast augmentation in a heartbeat.  Breastfeeding erased almost all of my breast tissue (blame the middle kid for that, he was a gooooood eater).  Someday I think I’ll buy my chesticles back.

Because of my woman-ness I was also taught some girly things.  I can bake.  I LOVE to bake.  I can cook almost anything, I know how to sew and knit and cross stitch.  I’ve made scrapbook pages, stamped custom cards, drawn pictures.  I know how to choose which color paint for the living room and how to add window treatments.  I can arrange furniture or landscape a flowerbed.  I love to clean and keep house, to rearrange cupboards and closets.  I CAN wear a dress even though I don’t, and I can wear the SHIT out of a pair of five inch heels.  I know how to be soft, and caring, and maternal…  I like to spoil people and be a shoulder to cry on.  I am happiest when I have someone to take care of.

Hm.  I suppose being female isn’t such a bad thing.

I still feel angry rage when I think about my limitations.  I still feel ANGRY RAGE when other people put limitations ON ME BECAUSE OF MY GENDER.  I still don’t really like being a girl, but I do think it’s time that I accept the fact that I’m a woman.  How I see myself, how I REALLY see myself and how I see the REALITY of myself, will determine how healthy I am and how well my healthy new choices stick.

First born son or not, I am a woman.

And I guess that means to some extent that I am a GIRL.

Still makes me feel ragey, but maybe a little less.