It's scary when you see the real me

Jumping into seeing and being seen

When you go underwater in the pool, eyes closed, the water comforts you, surrounding and holding your entire body. Your hair and clothes float. You feel any small current passing by. Then, you open your eyes.

It hits me, face first. The need to breathe. Seeing that I am surrounded by water. The impossibility of opening my mouth. I gulp in my throat, without taking in water. The fuzzy light streams into my eyes, overwhelming. I hover, compressed. Then I push up to the surface and the water breaks over my head and drains away. I can see normally again.

Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash

I went contra dancing for the first time since the pandemic started, in a new community that felt familiar but I didn’t know any of the people. I recognized some steps of the dance but it felt odd to be dancing with people I’ve never seen before. The dance community with all its overlapping groups of friends was a huge part of my life in the place I lived before the pandemic. Now, everything is different.

We all wore high-filtration masks—that wasn’t strange—what was strange to me was that almost everyone had their pronouns on their name tag, including myself. “They/them” was perhaps the most common.

And I mean it wasn’t strange, but it was, it was like opening my eyes underwater and seeing other people like me, and knowing they saw me too.

Unlike all the other people I know who look at me without attempting to see me.

I felt like I was underwater and choosing not to breathe.

I felt that panicked gulp in my throat of being hit by that sensation of an experience I wasn’t used to.

Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash

I chose to leave the dance early, at the halfway break. Walking away from the building, I pulled my “They/He” pin off my flower-print tank top. The last time I wore a pronoun pin was, I think, Trans March in San Francisco, 2019.

I felt troubled as I biked home and my stomach was bothering me for the next couple hours.

Isn’t it supposed to feel good to express one’s identity?

Maybe it doesn’t need to feel good, it just needs to feel necessary.

Several years ago, I went dancing two to four times every week. Every week! I had a collection of dresses with full, spinny skirts. I would most often dance in the follow role. I had a very feminine name at the time and played my part as a girl.

Maybe it wasn’t right, but it was comfortable. Society told me I was playing my part correctly. My emotional mask was comfortable for others.

Dropping that mask and showing other people who I am is a terrifying vulnerability.

Photo by NEOM on Unsplash

I have to relearn, or maybe just learn, how to be myself and how to interact with others as myself.

Jumping into the pool and opening my eyes underwater has never gotten easier. Every time, I feel that whoomp as the sensations hit me.

Maybe that’s okay.

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Take care,

Rey