For decades, I kept myself out of the water. Oceans, lakes, pools, ponds. Okay, I took a few baths here and there. But showers are just way more comfortable. My vertical view is much easier to bear with than the horizontal.
As a lifelong genderbender/blender, up until now, any invitation to jump into a body of water, was met with terror. No, not because of sharks,( though I did grow up during the JAWS craze.) But it meant I would have to face the old bathing suit dilemma. A major awful yuck factor. I couldn’t rectify how contorting myself into a bathing suit that felt so foreign to me could be outweighed by the joy of the waves rolling over me, the splashing of my feet as they kicked, or the unmitigated laughter after diving down and touching the sand.
As a kid, I was expected to put on the swimming uniform of a girl body. My parents, my grandparents, would all smile and envelop me in their love of how cute I was in a bathing suit. Even though inside, it felt like my soul was screaming. When I was really little, I used to love running through the sprinkler in our front yard of our tiny postage stamp lawn, bare chested and giggly. It felt so awesome, so free. I was one of two girls in the whole little league. The only one on my team. The end of the season party was at the pool of one of my teammates. I still feel the awkward heavy sadness of being in the pool with all boys. They were all laughing and splashing around and there I was in the middle of all that chaos. But the chaos going on in my body was just even more palpable.
As I got older, middle school, then high school, as my crushes on girls grew in intensity, as my body felt less and less like me, being asked to go to the beach or to swim in a pool, was met with glazed over eyes, a panic of excuses.
I remember one summer after 10th grade, my first year in high school; I had a HUGE crush on one of my good friends. She asked me if I wanted to go to the beach with her and her family. Just me. Not any of our other friends from our immediate circle. I said yes. I knew it would be painful. Not only because of how I felt around her, about her, but because of the vulnerability I’d have to swallow, walking the beach with her, trapped in a girl’s one piece bathing suit contraption. But to be near her, without all our friends around, was something I had been craving for. Mind you, this was the early 1980’s. There were no queer people. Not in my world. The word gay and fag were used daily as punch lines in my high school. I feared every day going to school and someone seeing a look in my eye, seeing me looking longingly at my crush, and calling me out. And it would be all over. I would be abandoned by everyone.
It’s hilarious now to see photos of my high school self, trying so hard to hide my truth, and it being clearly evident. But again, no one was queer in my vastly white suburb. Hello, look at that haircut - look at my swagger - look at - me!! I was oozing queerness. But, no one said anything. Even though, my high school friends who eventually came out, like me, we all were a big wink wink nudge nudge - duh!!! with one another years later.
But walking with my crush along the beach, in the bathing suit from hell, was I guess worth it. She had asked me to come. No one else. How could I say no? And I’m probably the only one who was totally freaking out anyway. I have no idea if this friend of mine ever thought of me like that, she had boyfriends in high school. Not that that means anything. But I sure imagined, fantasized that she did like me, like that. And that kept me going. That kept me alive on that beach that day. To this day, I have no idea how she felt. I’ll most likely never know. But that’s ok. I know who I am. I know my truth and am so grateful I get to live it.
I was in Ptown this past weekend. It has been almost four years since my top surgery. I knew without any fluid ounce of doubt, I was going to swim in the ocean. I no longer have boobs, I no longer have to wear anything that doesn’t feel good on my skin. I no longer have to twist my body, my spirit, into any patriarchal heteronormative binding horrific swimming costume. We’ve evolved enough in our trans, non-binary, gender-fluid, gender expansive culture for me to embrace whatever outfit makes me feel most myself, most joyful, most free.
And for the first time in decades, I swam in the magnificent ocean, with queer friends and my incredibly loving affirming spouse surrounding me with barefeet in the sand beaming smiles. My smile was the biggest though, from deep inside, from my little kid glorious grin to my almost 60 year old literally floating in my healing body. And I cannot wait to do it again and again and again.
Wow. Mal. My heart breaks for your younger self. And my heart is full from reading your writing and knowing you experienced the joy of swimming, being in your body/vessel. Just keep swimming (and writing). 🐟❤️
So happy you get to have this freedom and joy