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Flash.Bang

“Maybe you’re not as femme as you think you are.”

The words explode into my head like a bullet. I bolt upright in bed, sweat running in rivulets down my chest, pooling into the waistband of my sweatpants. My chest is heaving, I can’t catch my breath.

“Maybe you’re…”

I’m alone in my bed but stuck gripping the edge with all my strength. My fingers have locked into claws to keep me from spilling over the edge. I flex them. They scream. What time is it?

3:13am.

“Maybe you’re not as fe — “

I groan as if in pain, grabbing my head and rocking my body back in forth like a metronome, hissing to myself out loud “Stop it Rachel, stop it, stop it, just stop it.” It becomes a chant as I sway forwards and back, the words blurring into a denial lullaby.

It’s the third week in February and I have never been more miserable in my entire life. I am about a month away from a life-changing diagnosis, but at this moment I have no idea what is wrong with me. I know my sickness is forcing me to stay present in my body.

I hate it.

It is forcing me to feel, really f.e.e.l my presence in my body.

This is important.

I’m getting ready for work. I’m stuck chewing on the words “Performative Feminity”, the rubbery feeling of it unsettling me. So far I’ve somehow avoided going on a tear this morning like the last few, caused by a new, hot, screaming anger that is living in my chest that catches my breath before it can land and destroys everything that comes near it. I think it’s because I have new cotton button-down shirts to wear with my new shoes from the men’s section. I think of these small treats and I feel relieved.

I’m carefully threading long elegant earrings into my lobes when I catch myself in the mirror.

I choke up, the tears startling me. They spill over so swiftly I can’t do much to save my makeup. Nyssa eyes me carefully dabbing my eyes and asks me if I’m ok.

I just stand there, an idiot, tears leaving deep tracks in my porcelain foundation.

I have no idea what is wrong.

I ask again and again “Do I look ok?” even though I know exactly how I look. I’m tugging at my clothes in the mirror, refusing to make eye contact with myself.

“What are you worried about?” Nyssa asks, full of concern and love.

“My clothes!” I say automatically. “Do I look too gay? Am I too boyish? Do I look right? Balanced? Maybe I shouldn’t wear these things to work, maybe I should just put my dress on…”

Nyssa looks at me sideways. “Why?” she asks the edge of her voice flat.

“Because!” I choke out desperately, anxious for her to understand and not quite understanding myself “Because they’re my…my comfy clothes! It’s not professional, I can’t go in there looking like a boy!”

Nyssa looks at me in my button-down cotton shirt with pressed pants and maroon cardigan and raises an eyebrow. “Babe, we’ve been together for five years, and you’ve ALWAYS dressed like this. Maybe it’s not the clothes that have changed?”.

I . .

Feel . . . .

u. n. .d o. .n e. . . .

I’m at my desk but I can’t remember how I got to work. I reach back to capture a stray line of music I must have listened to, or recall crossing the street; there is nothing but a glaring whiteness and a whining hum. I’m staring into the thick, black espresso leaving dark sullen rings on the side of my jade coffee mug, attempting to divine my future, or clear my thoughts, or go back to the moment before the flash bang of Nyssa’s truthful words blew away all thought, all sound.

Where there had been rushing in my ears, there now was silence.

Where my body trembled with pulsing, misunderstood rage, there was now stillness.

It was calm.

It was not calming.

“Hey!” my work friend calls out, “I like your shoes!”

I . . . .

u . n . r . a . v . e . l . e . d . .

Maybeyou’renotasfem…

Same day. I’m holding an umbrella at 5pm dusk, heading to happy hour, feeling the mist slide into ice under my feet. I’m looking at my shoes, willing them to guide me well and musing at how big they make me feel. How very correct. Solid. I feel something sneak in past the swirling, settling dust in my mind and I realize I’m smiling like I have a new crush. (maybeyou’renotasfemmeasyouthinkyouare) I am absolutely beaming at my faux leather brown shoes from the men’s clearance section at DSW. Pressure builds. Something shifts.

I remember happy hour. I’m frantically shuffling thought processes, I’m packing it all away in plastic and hiding the evidence, dragging the proverbial body to the end of the pier. I know if I can get to the bar first I can sit, settle, smile. I turn the corner. My friend is already there.

“I guess I’ve got a thing for dapper folks” she says to my forgotten comment 20 minutes later, laughing between sips of margarita. “Speaking of dapper…” I say with more confidence than I feel.

I drink two Basil Manhattans, perfect, up.

I cry. We both cry. Intimacy with friends is like that, sometimes.

Same day.

Still.

Home.

Finally.

Alone.

Dapperdapperdapperdapper

Drunk.

I crack an IPA and sit on the corner of my bed, half undressed with a belly full of whiskey. “You’re running,” a voice says cooly as I wash down half the IPA in two gulps. “Bite me” I say out loud, not caring that no one can hear me.

“Just look at it,” says the voice, calmly. “If you’re not afraid just look at it” “Lookatit looook at it look at it lookatitlookatit”

“Fine!” I say this out loud as well, and my voice has a desperate ring in it. “Fine,” I say softer, putting my head in my hands and taking a breath. “You’ve done this before” I murmur to myself “Just say it. If it fits, it fits.” I breathe. I say it in my head first. I listen. Maybe you’re not as femme as you think you are. The words land, truth lending them weight.

“You’re not as femme as you think you are” I say to myself. My body is electric. I begin to tremble. “You’re not as femme as you think you are” I say again, and the electricity increases.

Finally, dawning.

“You’re not…as femme…”

It was not this thought, this lilting refrain that has had me running. It was not this.

No

No this was a pillow to soften the blow

A disguise

A Trojan Horse for my mind:

“You’re not as femme as you think you are

Because you are not female.”

…

I spend the next week so deep in my own fog that nothing seems to be getting through. I have this feeling in my belly, a fizz that seems to flare with excitement every time I think it.

The Thought.

The Knowing.

I’m Non-binary.

I talk to Nyssa about it in a constant nervous babble. When I run out of words I start over again. She is incredibly patient and loving, sifting through affirming clothing online to send to me. I wake up every morning in terror, just knowing I am on the brink of losing everything, of looking like an idiot and an imposter, and she gently and sweetly brings me back home. With a kiss on the forehead and a pat on the butt, she is driving me to explore this and to not back down or run. I’ve never been more in love.

It’s the first week of March. I had dinner with a new friend last week who is non-binary. We talk about my yet-to-be diagnosed disease, and I feel relieved to have this space. Something is burning in my chest though, and I am trying to figure out how to talk about gender with someone I don’t know very well without sounding as clunky and thick as my thoughts are. I have no idea how to do this and the thoughts are turning into iron and falling into my belly. I lose my courage. I drink a strong IPA and stay shook.

I’m sitting on the couch, the taste of cracked pepper and an Old Fashioned still in my mouth. I’m smiling sadly to myself. This evening I’ve just had dinner with a different person, a long time friend and mentor, someone I’ve known for 14 years and who I’ve trusted with not only my Very Big Things but for a few years, practically every fleeting thought and impression I had. “She knows me”, I’d told myself, “perhaps a bit too well.” I’d been comforted by this thought and for once I don’t feel like I might faint every time I consider saying it out loud.

I’d practiced…

(Nonbinary. I’m…I’m nonbinary.)

…and everything.

I sigh.

I couldn’t do it. I could only hint. Being femme was such a huge part of my life and identity, and it was something I was so afraid to let go of. I know it is my fear holding me back. Fear that folks won’t see me the same way, fear that I’m somehow faking, or they’ll all think I’m faking. Fear that I’m not enough, even when I feel this whole inside for the first time in my life. “Nevermind”, I tell myself. “My birthday is coming up in two weeks. I’ll see her again on March 16th, maybe I’ll have a chance then.”

It’s week two of the Quarantine. My birthday comes and goes with a lot of fear and little fanfare. The Pandemic eats up my mind, my time, and my life. It is exactly two weeks since I left the office, a chaotic and unorganized evacuation after Covid was discovered in the building. I feel a settling in my understanding of being nonbinary. I feel confident in the mornings when I wake up and I’m still untethered.

I wake up in a female body and I don’t feel female.

My friend used “they” when describing me and my heart burst apart.

I smile a lot.

Today is my brother’s birthday. It’s Aries season.

The rheumatologist calls, and I expect her to tell me the labs came back with nothing like the last three doctors, two specialists, three x-rays and seven blood draws found, so we were going to continue treating my vague, nebulous autoimmune disease with small doses of steroids and some lifestyle changes and I’ll be skipping on my merry way. “So at this point, given the ANCA levels and the heightened eosinophil count, and a consult with my colleague at Brigham Women’s, I feel confident in a diagnosis of Eosinophilic Granulomatosis with Polyangiitis”

Another flash grenade.

I’m getting good at autoresponse.

I grab a notebook, I take detailed notes with someone else’s hand. I ask detailed questions I didn’t know I could ask in a voice that doesn’t feel like mine. I am serious, composed, and, oh my god am I laughing right now? I’m joking with the rheumatologist. I can’t figure out why she sounds so serious. The call ends.

I realize I’m numb, and I think of folks who have cut themselves cleanly open to the bone. How they report seeing the bone glimmering through muscle and skin, and with honest but thankful confusion in their eyes they say:

“But I didn’t feel anything at first, not for a while.”

“It didn’t even bleed”

I explain what I know to Nyssa from the doorway. When I’m depleted of information I slide over to the couch, depositing myself cross-legged in my favorite corner. I lean forward, suddenly hungry and needy for what I’m about to ask.
“I’m not sure Rachel is totally working for me right now, could you, would you, please, help me pick a new name?”

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