Fighting the Tide

Content warning: mentions of drug use and self harm

I cursed to myself as blood trickled down my chin, leaving a deep crimson streak on my jawline. I fumbled for a tissue, groggy from the haze of a twice-snoozed alarm. Only 6:15 am and I’m already bleeding, what a solid start to the day I grumbled as I tentatively patched up the nick on my cheek. I reached for the razor again, gently pressing it against my half-shaven cheek to finish the job, albeit a little more carefully this time. I trailed the razor along my face, watching the blade rise and fall with the curvature of my cheekbones until my face was smooth and bright from the absence of a five o’clock shadow. I studied my reflection in the mirror. I wasn’t sure what caused the memories to flood through my mind so abruptly, maybe it was the youthful essence of a freshly shaven face, but in that moment a younger version of myself was staring back at me. I gripped the cold marble countertop as the memories washed over me, like violent waves crashing on an unforgiving rocky coastline.

My childhood was blissfully ordinary. I loved watching cartoons before school and eating rainbow goldfish crackers. Mom and Dad got along, and I grew up alongside a twin brother, which was kind of like having a built-in best friend. Life was stable, and things were good. I’m not sure exactly when I started to feel different, but at some point in time, a feeling of wrongness slithered into my mind and infected my body like a parasite.

Although I can’t recall exactly when that feeling first appeared, I can recall the moment I could no longer deny its presence. 

I was at a neighborhood gathering, awkwardly hovering around my mother. She was amidst a drunken conversation with a neighbor, slurring words and utilizing exaggerated hand motions, a state that had become far too familiar to me. Mid-conversation, she directed her attention towards me with a dramatic flip of her hairspray-caked blonde hair, as if noticing my presence for the first time. Hot embarrassment bubbled in my belly, I knew that look. I knew that in her intoxicated state, she was about to reveal something that any sober person would deem wildly inappropriate. She looked me up and down before announcing to our neighbor that I had started puberty, offering details about my “budding breasts.” 

At that moment, I wanted to claw my own skin off so I could throw it in the washing machine. I was desperate to escape my body and felt a gnawing urge to bury myself ten feet under the earth. Shame and incongruity pumped through my veins and sept into my organs, polluting my very being. I realized then and there that I had a lifelong battle ahead of me. 

I starved myself over the next few months, not to avoid gaining weight, but as an attempt to delay my own inevitable development. It worked, for a while at least. Despite my best attempts, starving myself wasn’t an effective long-term strategy, and over time my body continued to betray my mind. I started hiding behind a security blanket of oversized clothing and began duct-taping my chest, an act that would end up breaking cartilage in my ribs and cause lifelong ailments. I was desperate to fight the tide of my own biology, but every attempt I made was futile. I was only eleven years old. 

It would take me years to fully understand that feeling, but slowly I began to uncover my identity, like an archeologist gently dusting a dinosaur bone with an old paintbrush. 

At thirteen, I remember sitting in a squeaky salon chair as a plump, overly cheery hairdresser bustled around me in a fit of nauseating enthusiasm. She combed through the strands of my limp, dirty blonde hair, lathering it in lavender-scented cream. “So what will we be doing today honey?” She asked, her voice as sweet and smooth as butter, despite the rather unimpressed expression on her face. I tilted my chin up, attempting to portray more confidence than I felt. The thin black apron tied around my neck crinkled as I gestured right above my ears. 

I watched a disgusted expression spread across her face like oil gliding across wet concrete, horrifying despite the rainbow mirage of beauty. “But that will make you look like a boy!” Her words clawed through my ears and wrapped suffocating tendrils around my brain. I nodded, biting my cheek and fighting back tears. We settled on shoulder length. 

As the years went on, I grew distant from my twin brother. As he became social, started dating, and excelled in sports, hatred brewed inside of me. As he progressed through early teenhood, I remained stagnant, stuck wading through jealousy and despair like sticky black tar. It was hard living alongside a perfect projection of everything I wasn’t, and everything I so desperately longed to be.

By the time freshman year of high school came around, teenage hormones had infected me like a deadly disease and the world seemed to crumble around me. I felt betrayed by my own existence, mom drank too much, older brother died of a drug overdose, but I knew things could always be worse. My friend’s parents were struggling to make rent, while my family owned a lake house, that had to count for something, right? Still, my fragile state of adolescence and lack of effective coping skills encouraged me to deal with the situation in the only way I knew how, and it involved burning far too much marijuana and disassembling pencil sharpeners. 

One day, things got bad, I went too far. I stood outside the school nurse's office, blood soaking through the ace bandage and old beach towel I had wrapped around my thigh. I stood there, frozen, tears screaming from behind my eyelids. I either get help now, or I won’t live long enough to get the chance. The thought burned through my scull, forcing my shaky muscles to drag my hollow shell of a body through the door. The next few weeks were a blur. 

Horrified nurses, hospitals, 7 stitches, counselors, time, healing, remission, relapse, peace. 

I met Max when I was 15. Things were better then, I still felt betrayed by my body; mom still drank; older brother was still dead, but I knew an assortment of breathing techniques and started running, it wasn’t much but it kept the razors out of my flesh. At that point, I had taken little steps towards ending the war between my body and brain. I had cut my hair short, obtained a wardrobe of twill joggers and Nike hoodies, and finally quit the girls' soccer team, despite being promised a spot as future team captain. That one still stings a little.

Max reached out to me first, sending me a direct message on social media to compliment my new haircut. Max and I were strangers at the time, not even mutuals. Living in the same school district and having unrestricted internet access resulted in an awareness of each other’s existence, but despite the lack of familiarity, I knew exactly who he was. 

That was the beauty of growing up in the 2000’s, you could know someone without actually knowing someone. He was one year older than me; previously went by the name Maia; and was the only transgender guy in our high school. For years I watched through the internet as he carved his own identity, like a Renaissance artist chiseling a slab of marble. I’m not sure what gave me the confidence that day, but I replied to his message and told him everything. I told a complete stranger that I was just like him. I told him that I needed his help. His response was simple-

“I know, why do you think I reached out? :)”

Turns out that people like us have a certain affinity towards those battling the same demons. 

Over the next few years, Max guided me through the darkness. He took my hand and led me through the good, the bad, and the beautiful. I changed my pronouns, started hormone injections, and got a double mastectomy. My body slowly morphed into something I could stand to look at, and I no longer wanted to peel off my own skin like a wet bathing suit. Some people were supportive, some weren’t, and others were downright cruel, but I was ok with that. I began to see beauty in my existence. I laughed, I cried, I fell in love. I mourned my lost adolescence, but let go of jealousy and decided to embrace the future. 

Eventually, Mom put down the bottle, and we built back what had been so callously broken between us. I miss my older brother every single day, but I decided to live for those still walking the planet alongside me. I’ve got countless scars from my journey, some I choose to hide and others that I don’t, but each day I grow more grateful to be alive; more grateful to be me. 

I stared into the foggy mirror, my deep brown eyes swirling with enough emotion to last a lifetime. For the first time, I realized that it wasn’t a scared little girl staring back at me anymore, it was a man, and I never would have thought that he could make it this far. 

It was a surreal feeling, seeing the razor nick on my face and the flakey trail of dried blood that streaked my jawline. With forgiving hands, I gently washed the blood off my jaw and tucked the razor neatly back into the bathroom drawer so I could do it all over again tomorrow. At that moment, I couldn’t have felt more grateful for that little cut on my cheek.