If I were a boy
Last night, we went to the Krewe de Vieux parade, stopping in at a friend’s party – the same one we have been going to for the past few years, with the same crowd of friends. And similar to last year, when one of my male friends pulled me aside and asked me, “Well, now that you are with a woman, what do you think is the biggest difference?” – another male friend pulled me aside this year and said, “I have this burning question to ask you and I hope you don’t mind, but how are you handling having a son with regards to your feelings about men, as in do you dislike men, are you angry at them, and how does it feel to have a son?”
I laughed and told him I love men, I love male energy, and I have always wanted in particular a son. I grew up with four brothers and had more in common with my dad and my brothers than I ever did with my mother and my sister. While they were busy making up and dressing up, I was interested in things other than the mirror. As I grew up this boy tendency I had either worked for me or against me, it depends on how you narrate the story. But I went through life oblivious to needing to wear make-up, needing to take a backseat to any discussion, needing to be coy. It wasn’t in my make-up.
I was attracted to and married effeminate men, metrosexuals are what they are called these days, but they were men who were not intimidated by my core strengths for the most part. And later when I was in my late forties and found myself on the dating scene suddenly, I had one too many male friends counsel me that I was a tough nut to crack. A source of mine for years told me over dinner that he would be hard pressed to know what kind of man I could find because I am free spirited and self-contained – a lethal combination he said over our fourth glass of wine.
While I was still entertaining the notion of creating a family this late in the game, men my age were looking two decades younger for mates if they were at all thinking about family. When it dawned on me that perhaps I could be with a woman was when I went on one of those MS bike rides where we all camped out and the man that came with us was someone I was attracted to but after the weekend I knew that it was only in the company of women that I could stretch my wings and fly.
Do I love men? What a weird question, I find I’m more like a man than a woman most times. I have been told I intimidate men, but I’ve never been intimidated by a man. As far as how my perception of men goes and how I raise my son to be a man, Tin will know that his uniqueness is in becoming a man, but that his transcendence will be to grow beyond his gender. As I believe I have.
Here’s my boy with all his boy energy – another photo by Marc Pagani.