(CW: cancer, death)
I was cleaning out most of my wardrobe of boy mode clothes today when I found a long coat I stashed away.
My partner bought it for me as a birthday gift. It's a very expensive, forest green coat and god, did I look good in it. I was probably at my most handsome then. We were about to visit Melbourne during the winter. The winds were biting cold; funnelled between skyscrapers it could grow to a howling beast that nipped at every bit of naked skin.
I think I was already dying. I looked at every one of my selfies and felt like I was disfigured in some way. An unspoken thing had long taken root and it had finally eaten me hollow.
I came out a month later, all tears.
Out of morbid curiosity, I pulled the coat on again. It had laid untouched for more than a year. And when I looked in the mirror, a cold realization gripped me.
I don't know who you are, I said to the reflection. I really, really don't know who you are.
No wonder you shrivelled and died. Because I never once loved you.
Later, as I was cleaning out a box of knickknacks, I found a tie my uncle once gave me and broke out into tears.
He died of throat cancer when I was seventeen. The sickness took him quickly and violently. I saw him once in the hospital and the gentle voice he'd always spoken in had become nothing more than a croak.
And then, I never saw him again.
My uncle was an elementary school principal. There were loud and frequent criticisms of his work. They said he was too kind, too sweet on the kids. Our country needed strict rules to raise our educational standards. This was when we were still shaking off the dregs of Japanese Imperialism and the patriarchal education systems placed upon us.
My uncle was the kindest person I ever knew and my role model as a child. He taught me every bit of how to be a person, to ignore any and all gender roles, how men could do washing and cooking and be loving and romantic in every aspect.
I think he would've accepted me. I think he would've--gently, never raising his voice--told my parents to not disown me.
I wish I could've told him who I really was.
And I think, if he knew just how much I took after him in kindness and love, that he would've been proud of me.
🫂