I am into my mid-fifties now. I am older, slower physically, and still unhappy with whom I am, but overall, my mind is as keen and nimble as ever. I remember the names and faces of most to those I have encountered over the past 54 years, and what it was like being a child growing up in the late fifties and sixties: they years of childhood, puberty, and adolescence. The pains of not being able to be myself and to be fulfilled, and the futility and emptiness that I now feel. It was real, maybe too real, but all I have left are regrets and memories. I never became the person that I was born to be.
I am successful in my own fashion, but I am not complete; and that, is my fault. It could have been otherwise if I had not withheld my tongue, and said what I wanted of life, but I worried too much about trying to make others happy, live up to expectations and hoping that I could pull off a total masquerade. The endpoint is that I have made no one, including myself happy, and without that degree of self-satisfaction and surety, I have dragged others into the abyss with me. Now, I live with the knowledge of the damage that I have wrought, by being disingenuous and living between two worlds: both in my dreams and the bounds of reality. My feet are anchored nowhere, and I blow with the winds of nature.
I remember that when I was a child of four and five, my mother would try to put myself and my younger brother, by two years, down for a nap while she tried to lay down for some well deserved rest. I also had brothers, five and seven years older, that she had to raise, but they were off at school. While my younger brother slept, I would venture to where my mother kept her laundry basket,--I cannot be absolutely sure of the actual location, but I know it was in my parent's bedroom. because my mother would be napping on the bed--and then would begin to dress in her stockings and garments, and watch Roy Rogers and Dale Evans quietly on the television. I thought that Roy was cute and sweet, but I wanted so much to be Dale and have a fringed cowboy skirt and vest like she wore. She was so beautiful to me, and who I wanted to be.
I remember one time that I had come upon her going to the bathroom, as a woman would, and when she noticed me she told me to close the bathroom door. I do not remember any mention being made of how I may have been dressed at that time, and nothing was ever said of this incident. In my child's mind, I thought that when she was sitting on the toilet, she was doing the same thing I did when I sat. I knew nothing about the differences between the sexes, and just though that girls got to wear dresses, have long hair, play with dolls, and I just thought that my parents dressed me as a boy because they wanted me to be a boy. I felt that I had to accept that, and had no choice in the matter
When I was about nine and school was out for the summer, I was in the backyard, when our neighbor's three-year-old daughter came walking down the back steps as free and naked as a songbird, just chirping and singing sweetly. It was then that I noticed she had no penie, which is what my mother called mine, but instead had a little split that ran down between her legs. As I was terribly naive, and had never seen a naked female before, I just wondered when she would grow one. I just knew that she would, but did not know when that would happen. Her mother came and escorted her back from the steps into the house to dress her before she ventured out again. I thought that she was precious and beautiful, and wondered when I had been that way, and at what age I had changed. As I said, I thought that if your parents wanted a girl, they dressed you in girl's clothes, otherwise they dressed you as a boy, but I still wanted to be a girl.
What I really wanted though was to be a girl, and for my parents to dress me as one, buy me pretty dresses, grow my hair long and wear bows and ponytails, and play with all the things that girls did. Little did I know?
I had boy friends, but I also got along better with the girls in my neighborhood and school, and I enjoyed being with them and playing all of their games, and wishing I could look and dress as they did, and having dolls and girl things of my own. I hated that I had to separate from them after lunch, and play with the boys. Why did my parents not see me as I was, and treat and dress me as a girl?
I was so thrilled, when in the fourth grade, a friend of mine name Nikki, asked me over after school, with some other girls, and we played girl games and had a great time. Nikki, and the other girls, had me change into one of her dresses, a pair of her panties, and shoes before we started to play. I felt so great, was accepted by the other girls, and fell right into the games and conversation. I felt so pretty and girlish, and knew that this was where and how I belonged. I believe that her mother came into the room when it was time for us all to leave, but she never said anything about how I was dressed. I changed clothes and went home looking forward to more afternoons like this, but was sadly never invited back again. I never understood that. We still stayed friends, but something had changed my place in the girl's games, and I never understood why. I suppose that I thought that if I could continue to play with and dress as a girl, I would eventually become one. Now, I felt lost and as if there was no hope. I would look through the Spiegel's and Sears catalogues when they came in, and pick out the most beautiful dresses, slips, panties, and shoes and pray that I would soon have and wear them. Then, at about the time the other girls started to develop, I wanted a training bra so badly I could hardly contain it. I thought that was how girls developed breasts, and I thought how I could get them on my own, and I would develop breasts by wearing the bras, but then was frightened by what my parents would say when my breasts started to grow. Surely they would notice that my body was changing, and would be unhappy with me for not wanting to be a boy for them. I still did not know that having a penis would be an impediment to that, and so I was frustrated that they would not buy these things for me. I tried to screw up the courage to ask my mother to buy them for me when she showed me the catalogs and asked what I wanted for the new school year, but I was terrified what they would think of me and not love me anymore, because I did not want to be the boy they had chosen me to be.
I had started to wear my mother's clothes whenever I could, and one summer I went out to the backyard and into the pasture behind us wearing one of her panty girdles with hose attached to the garters. I walked by her and told her where I was going, and I am to this day surprised that she either did not notice or chose to say nothing.
There was a tree house that had been built about twenty feet up a tree in the woods behind the pasture, and I climbed the tree house, stayed there for a long time, but before I left, I hid the panty girdle and hose in an opening in one of the walls. I would go up there daily to retrieve and wear them while I read and watched from the tree house to see if anyone was coming. I am pretty sure that she must have noticed that the panty girdle and hose were missing, but she never said anything. I wish she had, or that she noticed me wearing them the first day. I would have been terrified, but at least I could have been honest with her and told her what was wrong with me. She and my father were worried about me, and the fact that I had not been the same since we were transferred from Mobile, my birthplace, to Ohio when I was almost eight. I should have been honest with them, but could not bear disappointing them. I also had three brothers to think about, and I could not see them understanding. My oldest two brothers were great, and no one could have asked for any better, but my little brother was a nightmare. I remember being so jealous of him when at five, he asked for a Betsy Wetsy doll and a self-bake oven for Christmas, and actually received them: this was an argument that my mother got my father to concede to I had been longing for the doll, a doll house, and some pretty dresses and shoes for Christmas, but I could not imagine asking for them. He asked for what he did and got them. I do not think I could have gotten the same wish, or anything close to it. Despite having two very athletically talented older brothers, I found out later that I was the one that my father felt could become a professional athlete, and I was encouraged along those lines. Personally, I would rather have been playing field hockey, running women's track, women's softball, or dancing ballet. As it was, I lettered in football, wrestling, and track in high school, and ended up wrestling at a major university, but I could never reach my full potential as that was not what I really wanted to do. I was physically gifted though, and played baseball, basketball, golf, and later softball. I still did not want to do so as or with men, and could have had a very successful career as a woman. I even ran cross country one year, but I would have been happier competing as a woman. That was all I ever really wanted: well that and to have a husband and family. I would give anything to have had one period or baby.
The irony of it all is that I was nominated for the best scholar/athlete, and voted the handsomest boy in the class. I dated only one person in high school and not until February and that ended rather sadly. I felt sad, depressed, alone, and ashamed of the secret that I was hiding.
Getting back to my younger brother, he had no interest in being a woman, but is instead gay and has been in a long-term relationship for over fifteen years, in which he is dominant. My older brothers are about as straight as you can be. My father died in 1975 without knowing about my secret, but now the rest of my brothers, my mother, and a whole lot of other people that I would choose not to involve are very aware of it.
All of this being said, the story runs much longer and deeper, and involves a much wider cast of characters than I have named, and will hopefully encourage and inspire those that have already put their foot in the water, and those who are still testing the water in hopes of finding out who they really are. I have taken many hormones, had electrolysis, bought and thrown away some beautiful clothes, lingerie, and makeup, and am still waiting to complete the circle. So come with me on my journey, and I will tell all the truths that I know.
This is the first chapter of a book that I am writing. and I hope that it will help my sisters, and maybe lighten your path and load.
Michele Elizabeth Cutrer
Time and Time Again
Chapter 1