Stuck in the Middle

I'm scared to be feminine and I'm scared to be masculine. I read so many things that ring true. This first is from a comment on a post I liked that MAY have been on Sublimefemme? Maybe on Genderfork. It was talking about being more comfortable wearing feminine clothes once she knew that it wasn't just for men's pleasure. Every time I "dress up" I feel like I'm putting on a show for someone and I'm uncomfortable with it. It's so ingrained in me that I don't know that I can ever put that aside. I wore a dress to Valentine's Day. I was going to wear something more like a suit but in my mind still, for a girl, that means I'm dressing down. And THAT I know is a childhood thing. So many thoughts are clouding my head.

And Leo wrote an entry that can be summed up in this line from it: "I felt a familiar back and forth tug in my gut reading it, a private longing mixed with an even more private warning: you want that too much. Don't get it, because once you have it, you won't be able to let it go. And that will make you vulnerable."

I feel that way about a lot of things. Take for example, my underwear. I began looking into sports bras when I wanted to look flatted under my mens shirts. And now I wear nothing else. I feel weird wearing my old bras. Although when I wanted to impress someone, I wore something lacy. I'm not sure if that means that that's not really " me" and it's just a show, or if that's really the true me. Not sure. But on a day to day basis...it's been several months since I've worn a traditional bra. The same goes for undershirts/wifebeaters. They're a staple now. I feel so badass in them. So now I know I can't let those go. I'm afraid to look at more serious things, more men's things, because then I might wear them a lot and I might like it.

Or I might like wearing girly things again and I'm terrified that I will lose the sense of power over myself I have now. Maybe tht's not the right word. Self-confidence. And I know there are TONS of confident femmes. I'm just saying this is what my brain is going to automatically. If I look like a girl, I lose my newfound pride in my identity. I look more straight and I lose my uniqueness. Part of why I like derssing the way I do is because I wear my identity on my sleeve quite literally.

Here's what's complicating the whole thing. I have a whole host of sensory issues when it comes to the tactile. I'm rather tactile-defensive for a non-autistic person. So a lot of these issues may have something to do with this. I'm so picky with my clothes. I only like soft cottony fabrics. I don't wear blouses or men's shirt equivalents without something underneath, only a few kinds of dress pants (no stretch, can't be too tight, cottony rather than silky), lots of things like that. So sometimes I can't decide what's what. I wish I could get rid of these sensory issues so I could see what I really felt comfortable wearing.

And I was reading in Genderfork someone who says that every day is dressup for her. Here's the quote. "It’s only been recently that I’ve realized my androgyny and decided to act upon on. But it’s so hard to figure out how to act. I’m not a girl who wants to look like a man. I’m someone who wants to wear collared shirts and loose pants and boxers and earrings and makeup and dresses and skirts with cute flowery prints. I want the streamlined male body one day and love my curves the next. How do you explain what you are to someone when every day you wake up something different, when you cannot explain who you are to yourself?"

It's not exactly me, but somewhat. I DO want to look male sometimes. But it feels like drag if I go all out, and it feels just as much drag to wear very feminine clothing. So that begs the question, who am I normally? Who am I day to day?

But none of that changes how I feel on the inside as far as my personality goes. I carry myself in a feminine way. Well, I'm not super domestic or graceful, but I want a strong butch to carry me away. I want the strong dominant partner to my strong but more submissive nature (and I use submissive not in a BSDM way, and I wish i had a different term). I'm not saying femmes are not strong. They are. I am. But that butch/femme dynamic REALLY appeals to me, and I feel so uncomfortable in the role of butch, as much as I may look the part. I don't feel the part. It's not me. I may wear what I wear, and even pack, though that falls under my "drag" category, but I am the femme to someone's butch. Or someone in between.

I can't sort anything out right now. Too many conflicting thoughts.

I'm really isolated. I have zero friends. I never see or talk to Emily (my best friend) anymore. We talk MAYBE once a week. And she was really my only lifeline. And I'm still not used to the fact that our time is always the same as baby time. Babies are loud and needy and scream when you take things from them and as heartless as I sound, I have no desire to be around that right now. Maybe ever. Even if she IS my goddaughter and I love her.

I go to work every day, am nearly brought to tears every day, and by the end of the day I am emotionally drained. I go home and talk to my cats and I have a computer, which I now hate, because it remind me of how alone I am. Rejoining People of Praise will never be an option. They wouldn't let me be openly bisexual. My coworkers are much older than me and don't live near me. The blog community I can relate to is spread across the country. I quit L.O.G. (where I was a youth group leader) so that I could be more out (and I don't regret it, and Terry supported me SO much and was wonderful about it). I would reach out to people and maybe do things with them if I knew people. I need to know more people. I know so many people who make me feel funny for being me around them. It's not just the bisexual issue either, it's a lot of things. I feel very out of place around so very many people. I can sit and try to concentrate about what we have in common but there are so many differences. There's almost zero queer community here. All the lesbians I've met have been catty and immature. All of them. Seriously. I'm sure there are nicer ones somewhere, but nowhere I've met.

It's sad. I'm 25, and already I'm an island. Maybe this is why people move to bigger cities. So many of the reasons I stayed in South Bend no longer apply. Maybe it's time to get out of here and find a new place.

I haven't been depressed in years. I've been angry and anxious and self-injurious because of it, but never really sad. but I'm sad now. My job is horrendously difficult and taxing, and I don't see anyone. It makes for a pretty sad life.

Text meme

A couple of these are twitter things sent to my phone (I hate the word tweet for some reason). So they're extra weird.

1. Take your cell phone.
2. Open your txt messege inbox.
3. Answer the questions with a first sentence of the txt messege that has arrived.
4. Question 1 - First sentence from the first messege.
5. Question 2 - First sentence from the second messege, etc...

1. What would you say if your significant other was unfaithful?
working today ...unfortunatly just found out people are playing ultimate at one and i wont be able to make it because of work. (I HATE Ultimate...but maybe I would rather play that than talk to the unfaithful one)

2. What do you always say to your best friend?
Still on a high from the AWESOME day yesterday!

3. What is first thing you say when your friend is hit by a bus?
Thankr (Well now that isn't very nice, is it?)

4. What is the worst thing you could say to your enemy?
What side does the napkin go on? (I guess I'll be killing them with etiquette)

5. What does your mother say before you go to sleep?
No problem. It actually works out because Burgundy scheduled her birthday party for tonight at the last minute and I don't want to miss it. (Wow. What a mouthful for a goodnight.)

6. What would you scream if you won over a million in lottery?
I need ideas for self portraits andportraits of other people for my photo class...any ideas?

7. What would you say to God if you met him/her?
Drink your prune juice. (I guess God is having some problems?)

8. What would you like to hear the most?
Uneedm I'i ne vr been so dunk. (This is an actual text from an anonymous friend. I saved it because I think it's the funniest text I've ever gotten.)

9. What will be your last words?
Happy smirfday!!!

A question of power.

I had this dream last night about someone I know in blog-land, actually. But no one reading this, I imagine, so no need to get creeped out. We've never really exchanged words. But in this dream, she was all rocking the transmasculine which meant I was falling all over myself and the one thing I really remember was that she was sitting on a couch, and just looked at me and said "Sit." So I dutifully sat on the floor leaning back on her legs. I've had that dream before, or at least train of thought before, if I'm daydreaming while awake. I think I would just love it if someone who looked like that were to just look at me and give me a command like that. It makes my knees all weak just thinking about it.

I wonder what that says about me. I don't mean that in a negative sense. Just makes me think more about who attracts me. I know I've said that I hate having more power in a relationsihp than the other person. Well, maybe that's not the right way to say it. I prefer someone else to kind of take control of things. I don't want to be totally dominated and have them never ask my opinion, but you know what I mean?

Guess I'll just have to see if I have any more strange dreams tonight. I'm exhausted. Goodnight!

Who is this Em the Femme, anyway?

I've been thinking more about gender lately. I had another blog about gender but it got ignored. See, I didn't want that blog showing up on my profile. I have family members and whatnot who don't need to see it. I didn't realize I could control what blogs showed up on the profile. So now here this one is. I'll be updating this much more often. This is primarily for my issues with my sexuality and gender expression. There is such a loving and large queer community online and I want to be a part of that.

I read this post on femmes and it got me thinking about my own identity again. She made this point about how when she is dressed in heels and a dress, she feels like she can take someone down and make them fall for her with a glance (I paraphrase). And when she's a little more butch looking, it's just her femme being expressed differently, and that it's a different kind of power. But that they're both powerful.

That's exactly it. It's just a different kind of power. I have a different attitude and I face the world in different ways. I interact in different ways depending on how I am dressed.

I am very much a bottom and a femme. But when I walk around in my gray camo pants and a wifebeater, I feel like I can take on the world. 90% of the time I wear pretty gender-neutral things like T-shirts and jeans. That's just my everyday outfit. I dress for comfort. I have lots of tactile defensiveness when it comes to clothes. When I dress in my butch stuff, I feel powerful in a very different way, and in a very liberating way. It frees me. I make sure to wear my sports bra (which I wear a lot anyway simply for comfort reasons)

And the post on multigendered femmes over at Sublime Femme started this thought train ages ago, and I just reread the comments and the response to mine and I felt a wave of relief wash over me. Even though people have told me time and time again that if I feel strongly inside that I'm a femme, I am, and no one can tell me otherwise. But I guess the way SF worded it in reply to my comment just made me feel so much better. And one other comment said that if she is dressing in high femme OR in butch it's like drag, and sometimes I feel the same way.

I'm also attracted to masculinity. Maybe androgyny too. Maybe even a fellow tomboy femme. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not attracted to people who dress in a very feminine way and who have those feminine personality traits. There's nothing wrong with those things of course, I'm just not attracted to it. My last girlfriend was very feminine and though I loved spenidng time with her, and liked to hold her hand, there was no real passion. I kept thinking it would come, and it never did. I want someone to be dominant, in sex and in other areas of life. I want to be taken and wooed and hold onto my lover's arm as we walk down the street.

Maybe I'll write more about my peronal life later. Right now this is what I want to blog. Now, off to find the other people in blog-land who might be interested in this. I think I want to go find Leo especially He(?)'s/She(?)'s pretty sweet. I'm sorry for the question marks. I just have no idea what pronouns you use!