i'm bad at being a woman

oops

Photo by Sam McNamara on Unsplash

if i’m keeping it one hundred, i feel weird about my gender. it’s not something i have a definitive answer for — i don’t feel trans, but am i nonbinary? fuck if i know! i don’t feel entirely feminine; there are times when i want to be but even then i feel like a tryhard. it’s basically a gray area; i’ll use she/her pronouns and that feels fine but he/him doesn’t fit, and being addressed as they or them is cool too. it’s more complicated than just yes or no, either/or.

i’m like if a girl was the cool uncle and the rich childless aunt at the same time. it makes sense inside my head, don’t worry about it. i prefer seeing things without an assigned gender: i’m gonna dress how i want, look how i want, act how i want. i don’t give a fuck. i’ve wasted so much fucking time trying to be what other people want me to be, trying to please them and shut them up, and i’m exhausted. i want to ease the pressure off.

i feel disconnected from gender almost literally in my physical body — femininity doesn’t necessarily feel innate, i don’t just immediately recognize it when i see myself. i go back and forth between liking my chest and being annoyed by it. i hate what having a period does to me, which it has literally from the first time. i’m so used to being looked at and touched and prodded and exposed because i’ve needed to be, and i feel more like a Thing sometimes. assigning my body a label feels inaccurate especially because of what being disabled has done to it; just by existing as it is puts it outside what’s considered “normal.”

i’ve been influenced by gender norms of course, but i’m trying to unlearn them. i can remember being under 10 years old and wondering why i looked the way i did, if i was fat, hating the scars my peers saw and asked questions about. i started puberty in 4th or 5th grade, and it felt like my body changed overnight. i wished i was a little less… feral and weird in that way some kids are. i wanted to be seen as more of a girl’s girl, even though it felt awkward when i tried. i realized i’d probably never be, because i’d always be the one with the walker who couldn’t measure up.

i think some expectations of women are unnecessary and quite honestly bullshit. i’m not less worthy because i don’t think i want to have kids. more specifically, i don’t want to be pregnant. i don’t want to put my body through that kind of stress and strain when it’s already had to compensate for so much. and giving birth? with my muscle tone? no thank you!! i don’t hate kids, to be clear — they’re learning! they haven’t experienced as much as we have! everything is massive to them! — i just don’t think it would be fair to have me as a parent. i don’t think i’m capable of being the kind of parent i’d want to be, i don’t think i could keep up with them and keep them physically safe. i wouldn’t want to put most of the work on my partner or my family. it makes me a teeny bit sad, but i’m not like, devastated.

i’m not less worthy because i don’t feel a strong need to get married either. two people can be just as committed to each other and care about each other just as much as any married couple. i don’t think you need to go through all that trouble to prove it. besides, wedding culture as an entire concept is bullshit. so much of what’s trendy and the stuff that’s “things people do now” is so stupid and pointlessly expensive. so many people’s weddings look the same. it’s so corny and embarrassing to see everything made into such a big deal. i wouldn’t want to deal with everyone and their mother giving their input on what i should do; it’d just make me anxious. if i had that kind of money saved i’d rather use it to go somewhere, spending tens of thousands of dollars on one day would be so anticlimactic.

when i was little i never imagined what my wedding day would be like, or what it would be like to be someone’s wife: i imagined what my life would be like as an independent adult, who i’d be when i was grown up. obviously that’s changed in the meantime, but i still don’t want to be legally or financially tied down to another person. i want my fun childless aunt era to start already goddammit!!!