When I haven't posted for awhile (has it really been six months?!), you know a) things are going really well, b) things are insanely busy or c) both. We're definitely in "c" territory around here lately. But something happened the other day that took my breath away. I've been ruminating on it. At the quiet moments, it pops back in my head and makes me re-examine the early years of our daughter's life.
I've said before that we interpreted C's early behaviors as just being a "non-traditional boy". We thought she was just a kiddo who enjoyed dress up. A boy who grew up with an actor for a dad and found gender roles boring. After she came out to us, we were able to look back at her life with different lenses. Time after a time, a memory came to us that made us have a Eureka moment: "OHHHHHHH! That's what that was about." C confessed that she was smart enough to know she was different. And, even when she couldn't figure out exactly why or how, she knew she needed to pretend. She figured she started realizing she was very different about the age of five - nine years before she came out to us.
A few days ago, I found an old "Driver's License" our daughter made herself just before she turned five. I remember laminating it for her. I remember how proud she was and how she carried it around with her everywhere for a week or so, before it was left behind for the next big thing. In the drawing, C gave herself pigtails. Finding this little card literally made me gasp. Pigtails.
C always drew herself like that. Always. From day one of self-portraits. It never occurred to me it was anything more than a young child's darling interpretations of hair. It never occurred to me she was actually giving herself pigtails. She knew before she even knew.
Our daughter is an amazing girl with a filthy room, a teenager attitude and braces. She's awful to her brothers, hogs the bathroom and leaves the kitchen a disaster. But, damn, y'all. This kid!