I want to go home

I wrote this 7 years ago, a week or two before I started hormone replacement therapy. I shared it with a few people at the time, but never really published it anywhere. I really should have.

Homesick

Did you ever go to summer camp, or even just a sleepover at your friend’s house? And then at the end of the day you go to bed, the lights are out, and there’s nothing to distract you from yourself. And you just want to go home. You’re in this strange place, with strange sounds, strange smells, and strange routines. There’s nothing wrong with any of it, but it’s not comfortable. Everything is work, and nothing is easy. You have to think about which door is the one to the bathroom. You have to fumble around for the light switch every time. You keep running into things. Dinner is at the wrong time. The tables and chairs are the wrong height. The plates are where the cups should be. All the little things are just off, and it makes you uncomfortable and all you want is to go home where everything is familiar and you don’t have to think about every little thing you try to do.

Now imagine that whatever “home” is, you’ve never even been there. You’re not allowed to go there. And if you try then people will make fun of you, scold you, threaten you, even hurt you. Your family, your friends, strangers; everyone will treat you badly. You’re not even sure what home is like. You don’t even know how to describe what the problem is. You just know that everywhere you’ve ever been feels uncomfortable and foreign. Once you were mistaken for someone from “home” and it felt warm and good and right. And you know that you’re constantly jealous of people from “home”. You worry that what if that’s just life? What if “home” isn’t actually better? What if you’re just awkward and you’ll never be comfortable? Maybe no one actually likes it here and everyone wishes they could go home and you’re the only one who can’t figure out how to deal with it. Or if you did manage to go there, what if you didn’t fit in? Everyone who lives there would know that you don’t belong and they’ll never accept you. And it’s probably too late anyway. If you’d been able to go home when you were younger, you could have learned how to fit in, but now you’re too old and have too many habits from living in other places.

Eventually, you decide that if you’re going to be unhappy all the time no matter what, then you’ll at least be unhappy at home. You decide to move. You take all new classes to learn the language and the customs of home. You try again with hair and clothes. You still think your home accent sounds terrible and fake. You still hate how all the home clothes fit on you. But it’s different this time, because it’s not a fantasy.  You’re actually going home. You tell all your friends and family. They’re shocked of course, because they always thought this was your home. Some of them say they don’t care where you live and they want to support you if they can. Some of them care a lot where you live and try to pressure you into staying. Some of the ones who said they would support you won’t return your calls when it’s time to start packing.

Because it’s not actually a place. It’s my gender. It’s never not a concern. I can’t even use the bathroom without considering it. Nor without considering what treatment I can expect from other people during transition. I can’t waste time online without being reminded that almost no one understands why or how I could ever feel this way. I can’t read news stories without being reminded that I’m expected to justify my existence to them. The habits I learned in the analogy was actually puberty. And now my height, my face, my voice, my shoulders and hips, my hands and feet are all wrong. And I still just want to go home.

Cover photo by Valentina Locatelli / Unsplash