Alex this is your life

My last post was about being out. I am not a hypocrite. My name is Alexandria Marie Mason, but this was not always the case. Back in 1977, my parents had the first child of their marriage together, both of my parents were married before. I have a big fun loving messed up family. I am the fifth of six children. They named the red headed nightmare Eric. From early on I have been giving my parents fits, as I had terrible colic and screamed all the time. I was a happy kid, I played, ran around, loved playing with animals, and got real dirty all the time. I don't have good recollections of time before I started school, it all just kind of runs together before years had designators like third grade, and sophomore year.

As a child I could pretty much do and act however I pleased, so long as I was nice, so gender never really came up. I knew I had sisters and brothers, but their differences seemed unimportant. I started preschool in Muskegon at a building that is now a police station, odd. Preschool was the first time gender made a difference in anything. Girls to the right, boys to the left. To this day segregation via gender still seems like a unnecessary practice to me. I was friends with more girls than boys, but would move easily between playing with both groups.

This time in my life was the most influential thus far, and it was not in a positive way. Let us say that it was explained to me rather harshly that the way I behaved was not acceptable, and I MUST change. For almost the next twenty years this haunted me. So back at school I questioned everything I did, and how it would look to others. I became defensive and angry, anytime another child would tease me I would fight them. Unfortunately for the other kids I was one of this strongest. Many a playground bloody nose I left in my wake. I felt shame with myself and looked for a way to get approval from others.

Fortunately for a young boy in Michigan there is football. In fact in almost all sports I excelled at. I was picked first for teams on the playground. Adults and other kids of all kinds would come up to me and tell me how good I was. When I was unsure and felt conflicted about what i wanted to do and what the word demanded, sports became a place that i could escape were everyone loved me. Let me tell you no matter how much the Lions suck, football will always be #1 in Michigan. I played youth football from age 6 until junior high. Sports were an escape, but I did really like playing too. SO my early childhood included learning I was different, discovering that was bad, and finding a way to channel my energy into something else to hide my feelings from myself. YAY!

(It was a lot better than that, I am strictly speaking of gender here.)

To be continued ...
Alex