Thursday at work I wore the soft blue androgynous top and matching stocking cap and the mini-aubergine earrings...moderate dangle, no sparkle. Catching my reflection in windows and such, I still looked like same the old Dave everyone's used to.
Yesterday I left the cap at home and let my hair fall loose and fluffy over my ears. I also wore my favorite antiquey-chandelier earrings - significant dangle, moderate sparkle - and a short soft-and-fuzzy wool scarf in gender-neutral light tones, and when I caught my reflection, I was snapping more femme. It's the hair, mostly...that's such a powerful gender-signifier...although it would look much more femme if I had neatly styled it rather than just roughly patting my bed-head into shape.
Nobody said anything, except my dear friend Deb just before I left...she confirmed my impression that I was closer to the center line. It doesn't take much, it turns out, to waltz right up to it. A touch of lipstick would bump me across.
I wish my hair were thicker... :-(
Anyway, this morning when I woke up I lay in bed pondering the question I ponder every morning: what to wear? ...and with some trepidation I decided to go with the same hairdo and earrings, plus the super-fuzzy lamb's wool sweater with the big gold-and-white buttons which my children have already seen me in.
Why trepidation? Because my son is still uncomfortable with my femininity, so I have been keeping it under wraps at home, at least with regard to appearance. I've never held back on how I hold my body and move, and I'm letting my voice wander as it wants across the gender divide, with sometimes curious results. But out of respect for his ambiguous feelings, when he is around I have maintained consistent drab (man-clothes).
At the same time I'm agonizing all the time about how to talk to him. We have a close and loving relationship, but we don't converse very well.
So, my dressing choice this morning was actually a parenting choice. I have elected to wear what I want to wear - what I wore in public yesterday - and to let him deal with it as he sees fit. He's up...I can see him at his computer from where I sit at my computer...and we've had some light chat, about coffee and so on. His eyes were elusive...but then they often are. I feel self-conscious, bashful, and vulnerable, but I'm going to play it out.
Maybe he hasn't even really noticed. And even if he has, maybe he doesn't care. And even if he does, maybe small steps like this will impel conversation, and that would be good. Anything's better than a Talk.
[Note added 5 minutes after original posting: my son just noticed my earrings. "Nice earrings," he remarked. "Why thenk you," I replied, striking a pose. "They're my favorites." Then he started joking around about something else. Yay! :-) Once again I re-learn what I have already learned so many times before, that the subtle setting of tone is at the very center of parenting...and that this can not be faked or forced. Their moods resonate to mine like unstopped guitar-strings...]
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