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By Rebecca, June 3, 2010 11:15 am

Just sent this email to my dad.

Dad,

I owe you an apology. I’m sorry I hung up on you last week – it was immature and unfair to you. It’s impossible to have a conversation when one party is no longer on the line.

That said, I’m not sorry I brought up how I’ve been feeling, even though I expressed myself really poorly. I need you to know that it hurts to be called “kid” and “child,” when I know you’re doing so to avoid gendered pronouns. It’s hurts, a lot, to hear you slip up and refer to me as “he” or my old name. I have no doubt that you love me. But like I said, I think you love me as your child and I want – desperately, painfully – for you to love me as your daughter.

But my frustration over how we communicate goes deeper than names and pronouns, and I need you to know that, too. I love you. I see so much of you in myself: my humor, my attentiveness to detail, my love of knowledge and education (and gadgets). So it’s all the more painful when I feel like we’re talking past each other, something that seems to be happening more and more.

When we talk, I feel like we’re having different conversations. You’ll ask a question, and before I’m half-finished answering it you’ll have asked another. It makes me feel like a client (or, worse, an opposing witness) rather than someone you love and care about. Or I’ll ask about how you perceived Billy Elliot’s father – whether he resonated with you – and be absolutely baffled when you say, “No, that wasn’t my experience.”

Than what was your experience? What is your experience? Because, from where I’m sitting, I feel like you’re ashamed of me. Or embarrassed. Awkward and unsure how to interact, torn between loving me and wanting to be done with whatever conversation or interaction we’re in.

So that’s why I hung up on you. I shouldn’t have, and I’m sorry I did, but I become so flustered and so hurt when we talk, that I lashed out.

I love you, even when you frustrate the hell out of me
-Rebecca

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By Rebecca, May 29, 2010 9:04 pm

I'm not convinced my father could carry me on his shoulders these days...

Earlier this week, I asked my mom to call my dad. I hate having her act as an intermediary between the two of us, but I wanted to figure out what – if anything – he’d be doing about my hospital bills and insurance since my telling him off. He’s been speaking with the “risk management” department at the first ER I visited, because when I finally got my gallbladder out they strongly implied the first ER should have caught the gallstones.

So my mom called my dad. She said she’d thought things out beforehand, and opened by asking him, “Rebecca asked me to talk to you about the insurance situation, and if you need to return any of the paperwork to her.” (My mom knew he didn’t, as I’d provided him with copies, but wasn’t sure how to say “So are you continuing to help your daughter while refusing to speak to her, or not?” without sound like she was judging him. Which she was, but didn’t want to sound like it.) He replied, “Nope. She’s fine to speak to the hospital herself,” and said goodbye.

Continue reading 'Oh father of mine'»

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By Rebecca, January 26, 2010 11:35 pm

So all that anger I’ve been talking about? Turns out my mom has been thinking about it, too.

I went to my mom’s on Sunday night for dinner, and was trying to figure out if I wanted to bring up the anger toward her that I’ve been thinking about. I knew I wanted to bring it up eventually, but it had been a difficult weekend and I wasn’t sure I had the energy to go there.

After dinner, though, my mom said that she’d been thinking a lot about the example she and my dad set for me. See, I never saw them fight. And, in recent talks with my mom, apparently they never really did fight. Part of the reason I have trouble with anger, I’m coming to realize, is because I have no framework for it in my life. My experience has been: everything’s fine, everything’s fine, everything’s fine, my parents are getting divorced.

And, apparently, that wasn’t because my parents were going to great lengths to hide their anger from me. They just suppressed and repressed it to the point where they barely were able to acknowledge it themselves, let alone express it to each other or show it to my brother and I.

Which leaves me really not knowing how to deal with anger. I don’t know how to express it, and I don’t know how to handle anger directed at me.

Continue reading 'My mom is awesome'»

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By Rebecca, October 21, 2009 1:52 pm

This is an excerpt from the script I’m working on for Trans Form, which is going up this December. Enjoy!

I’m fourteen, sitting on the chair in my therapist’s office.

I started going to therapy by choice, because the year before, at thirteen, I still couldn’t get past the panic attacks and separation anxiety that had kept me from sleepovers and overnight school trips and sleep-away summer camp for as long as I could remember. The pattern was always the same: I would get excited about staying at a friends’ house, at an overnight event at the Museum of Science and Industry, at whatever. I would go, convincing myself that this time would be different, that this time I’d be able to make it all night.

But as we started to get ready for bed, the panic would creep up. For those of you who have had a panic attack before, you know how it feels. To everyone else, it was a very physical sensation, a creeping along my arms and legs to my core, to my center. My blood would start to rush, tears would inevitably spring to my eyes, and if I didn’t go home, if I didn’t get away from whatever mundane childhood experience was driving me to a panic, I’d go into fullblown hysterics.

Finally, the summer after seventh grade, when I’d missed most of the seventh grade weekend trip to Wisconsin because of a panic attack, I decided  I would go to the eighth grade trip to Washington DC. So I started seeing a therapist. We worked for months on controlled breathing, biofeedback techniques, ways to divert my focus from panicking.

But the trip to DC is in the past. (I made it, by the way, and haven’t had problems being away from home since.) Now, I’m fourteen, sitting in the chair at my therapist’s office, across from my parents, about to come out to them.

Continue reading 'Coming Out'»

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By Rebecca, April 15, 2009 10:28 am

Edit: She’s out, and everything went well. I still haven’t seen the doctor (was at lunch, so missed her when she came out) but according to the check-in desk everything went “extremely well,” and I’ll be able to see her in another hour or so when she’s out of recovery.

I’m sitting in the hospital waiting room right now (huzzah for free wifi…) because my mom just went in for hip replacement surgery. (Everything should be fine; I’ll post a followup later today when the surgery’s over.)

Sitting in the prep room while the nurses got her hooked up to IVs and explained how everything would work gave me a lot of food for thought. First, it was an odd (but good) experience to be ‘ladies’ed with my mom, and referred to as her daughter. Obviously, both of those are good things (it was particularly nice to be ‘ladies’ed while I was still in my big coat and only my head was really visisble) but I haven’t had a ton of experience being read as a woman while with either of my parents.

But the much bigger shock, and what I’ve been thinking about the last couple days leading up to the surgery, is that my mom is getting old.

Continue reading 'Hospital waiting rooms'»

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By Rebecca, October 23, 2008 8:02 pm

I finally talked to my dad a bit about the divorce. Or, more accurately, I asked him about it and he talked about it for a while.

I’ve realized over the last year (and posted some about it here) that I’m still pissed at my dad about the divorce, eight years later, but never actually talked to him about it or heard his side of the story. I’d pieced together a version of events from overheard conversations and my own impressions, but never actually asked him what happened.

So at dinner a week ago, I did.

Continue reading 'Talking to my dad'»

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By Rebecca, July 17, 2008 5:13 pm

This is what I just sent, as a followup to this post.
-R

Dad,

I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you earlier. As I said, I’ve needed some time to think things over, and figure out where I am.

I think for right now I’m not really up to an overnight trip. I would like to spend more time with you, and maybe even figure out a weekly or bi-monthly time to go for a couple-hour bike ride (like we did over fathers day) but I think overnight is a little too much for me.

Continue reading 'Letter to my dad'»