I Write to Heal

There is one person that has likely influenced my life the most, and that is my mother. Before you stop reading, just know that this is not going to be a sappy oh my god, I have the best mother ever, thank you so much for life kind of post. That's not my style, and this post will not be in the celebratory happy mothers day kind of feel. Emotions in my blood run much much deeper than that, likely a reason we don't give gifts in my family. Our existence is the gift.

I think about gender, I think about gender A LOT. More than most people I think, and it drives a lot of who I am and how I conceptualize the world. I do this because I was never taught gender growing up, it was a very confusing concept to me.

In many ways, I'm sort of glad my dad was absent for my early years, and that my mother was so protective of letting me just be my own kind of kid while at the same time kicking me to the "streets" a lot in order to help me become a better, tougher, more adaptable person.

The reason gender in our modern society confuses (and infuriates) me so damn much, is because I never grew up with women who were women, or women who I thought of as men. I grew up with women who were people before they were gendered bodies.

My mom, and especially my grandma have always served as huge role models for me. I think the fact that we are all so alike, we clash we clash hard, and this means we don't talk to each other for days, weeks, months, (not quite years). Despite this lack of direct communication, I always feel my grandma and mom as a part of me. I am them, they are me, and that link is strong, unbreakable.

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things my mom and especially my grandma do that I just can't understand. I don't blame them though, colonial and especially religious ways of thoughts run deep, and when those ideas are institutionalized, any sort of digression gets called crazy. As much as we say being called crazy doesn't bother us and we're gonna do it anyway, well, years of that can really drag, it can really start to fuck with you, but we always find the strength somewhere.

I'm glad I left home so young, learned another (third) language, and sort of just spread my wings and flew. And oh dear, did I fly (and continue to). It was good because I got to apply those morals, that gumption, that desire to be alive, and that willingness to experience it all and learn from it; my mom and grandma taught me all of that.

My mom, my grandma, and I fight. We fight a lot. So much so, that putting us in the same room can be intense, and a mistake most of the time. On the same note, when we do have our good moods (and we are very moody people), we will literally shake the house with our laughter and presence. We are those people that you notice, and we are those people you never forget.

Moving back to gender, I never saw my grandma or mom as women. And this is because in the very conservative society we were raised in, my mom and grandma never did the things that society had told women they had to do. They weren't just strong willed women, they were women who would tell men no to their face, laugh at them, and then go do whatever they wanted to do anyway. If my grandma didn't like the work my grandpa did on her house, she would take a sledgehammer and do it herself. In fact, this past time I was living with her (yikes!), she was basically restructuring her house from scratch the way she had "always" wanted it. Sledgehammer, carrying brick by brick to make a walkway, mixing concrete. People called her crazy, I called her self-sufficient (okay, I also call her crazy, but not for her drive).

I learned to respect bodies, not just women, but all bodies. As chunky as I was as a kid, I never remember my mom making me feel bad about my body, not once. I distinctly remember here being very calm and open when she would talk to me about my body, and she always made sure to remind me that it was my body, and it would tell me what it needed. I also remember my mom wearing what others would deem "inappropriate," but my mom loves her body, so that didn't matter one bit to her. My grandma is the same. Women's bodies are not to be policed, not to be sexual objects for men to glut off and think about how they can take advantage of them. Their bodies were their bodies. The only times I would remember that the world problematizes women's bodies was when my mom or grandma would stand in front of a man and say this is my body motherfucker, and would stare them down and assert themselves. That is a strength in asserting yourself and telling the world that you, and you alone own your body. And when women themselves policed my mom or grandma's body, the assertion and the message was even more clear, it was always a fuck you, how can you tell me what my body should look like, and what I should do with my body when you yourselves are policed on a daily basis and know what that feels like. The same stare down, the same assertion, and the same sense of self worth that was unshakeable, undeniable, and the message that they inhabited their body and had all the say in how they wanted to "display" and use it throughout their lives would be theirs. I have never known my mom to go along with anyone objectifying her body and just not say anything to that person's face and make it very clear not to fuck with her. My mother can be VERY intimidating. I am thankful that my mom has raised my sisters in this same fashion, and they are empowered and know how to love their bodies and not take anybody's shit. This is the same way I feel about my body, it is mine, it is beautiful, and I am my body, nobody elses, so nobody else can tell me how to live within my body. That is solely my decision to make.

My mom, she cuts grass, and works on her Jeep if needed. She goes to the beach by herself, and takes road trips whenever she can because that women loves to be out of the house. She forgets she has kids sometimes (and occasionally leaves us food at home, but rarely), and teaches us that life is for living, not worrying.

At the same time, my grandma will sew and cut fabric for hours. Everything has to be to the T, and everything has to measure up. My mom will spend hours having deep conversations with people, and figure out little ways on how to make people's lives easier. She adds sunshine to otherwise "hopeless" situations. Though people would likely classify this as "feminine," I always saw this as something that anybody could do. You don't have to be gendered to be a decent person.

Don't forget our connection to nature. I can't count the amount of days I have spent outdoors with my mother and grandma, by the river, outside in a park, traveling with the windows down, or just being outdoors. We LOVE being outdoors, and we have a strong connection to nature that we nourish, and it nourishes us.

I never saw my mom and grandma as women. I saw them as strong empowered people. The only time they were told they were women was when they were to question a man. All the things my grandma and mom did were normal for those people who had penises. Of course, the people I grew up with who had penises tended to be emotionally distant, could not cook for a rat's ass, and were just so full of themselves with their head up their ass, that I never related to them in the sense of that's who I wanted to become. If becoming a man meant being a jerk to women, having such a fragile ego, and always having to assert how much of a "non-women" you were, then I didn't want to have anything to do with that world (and still don't).

And so my mom had given me the basic tools I needed to carve out a life for myself. I learned that the best way to figure out more about who I was was to throw myself out into the world, and so I did. I've had, and continue to have, rich and unrepeatable experiences, and have met some amazing people along that way in which our lives have become richer because we share them. I've come to understand that everything in life is transitional.

So then I came to get to know myself. Once I met other free spirited people, realized that [modern] culture can be so restrictive, and so much is just surface level, then I started to realize that I was just like my mother (and grandma). Make your own kind of story kind of person, don't let anybody tell you no, especially your blood relatives, and do what you want. Make LOTS of mistakes because that's how you'll learn, and in my case, keep writing and documenting.

As I started to study, started to go into lots of older traditions, met some very wise people, recognize how convoluted our modern societies are and come to understand what gender really means, I began to recognize that my own gender is quite interesting indeed. I don't identify as male, or female. I identify as Ainan, an identity I've developed for myself. As much shit as my family might give me because they've been cultured to say that people like me are crazy and confused, I am more stubborn than that. I think by this time I've shown to my family that I am who I am, I am not crazy, I am true to myself, and if they don't agree, it's not going to matter to me, and they respect me for that, and in turn I hope that I also inspire them to be more themselves.

I know it's going to take a while for my mom to understand that I do not want to "be male" as defined by these rigid rules, and that I don't want to be her "son" but more her child, or offspring. Because I know that when she thinks of me, she sees me as the whole person I am, and I am almost certain that in her parent mind, I am not male or female, I am just me. She could care less what people tell me my body is, she just hopes that I am happy, and I am. That's how I see my body, and that is how I wish others saw it too, but I know there is still so much work in our world before we can even have a glimmer of hope of getting there.

So I know it's hard for her to really understand and grasp when I say I'm not your fucking son, and fuck gender, and I REALLY mean it, and when I get so uppity when she says something about gender roles to my siblings or (unintentionally) perpetuates some type of stereotype with them that I catch and go off on her like a hot firework. She taught me that, to tell it like you see it, even if it is to the person who taught you to be so self-expressive. I can't tell you how many times I have yelled at my mother, and her at me, and how much better our relationship has become over the years because of this crude and unapologetic honesty.

So when I think about asserting myself, and the population of students I am "tasked" (and would do for free anyway) for looking over and advocating for, I am very vocal in my "let's look at this from an organizational perspective and see how we are perpetuating certain values we say we're against at the same time" kind of way. I am not afraid to call people out, and I am not afraid to be called out, it's part of my charm, and it's where I have pushed farther than my grandma and my mother in this life. They taught me how to yell strategically, how to use my smarts and charm to accomplish more, and how to not let anyone hinder my real values and perseverance, and to facilitate the process of allowing a voice for those who are kept silent.

I live in my own world, in my mind. Luckily, I've met a good handful of people who also inhabit this own world, and some very intelligent people recently who I would call family. Where gender is not binary, where people are considerate and respect self-determination, and where the world is surprisingly (and this is only surprising if you're an idiot) less complicated with much more diversity.

And so as I have my intellectual conversations with people, as I argue, and as I go all mama lion on administrators, coworkers, and friends when they make unintentionally stupid remarks, I think of how my mom (and grandma) showed me how to do all of this. They did not tell me, they showed me. They did it by living as themselves in a society that told them they are less because of their bodies, that the fact that they possess vaginas makes them somehow inferior. Despite that, I always liked them better than the people with penises in my life anyway.

I took after them, and as scary as it was to look into myself, I kept doing it, and I continue to do it. My mom and grandma taught me that you have to push, push hard, and when you think you can't do it anymore, push harder, or just jump. So I did, and I do. As I evolve, as I have more life experiences, become more "educated" (mainly outside the classroom), I have those strong, stubborn, dedicated mom and grandma that have inspired me to be so damn myself, and to never fear that.

This is why I changed my name (all of them), why I left town so young, why I allow myself to come into myself, and why I go with the flow of who I am and what I need. That tends to inspire others, but honestly, I do it for me first. The more I grow myself, the more rewarding I find building stronger relationships with all types of people more valuable. I think it's because the more I get to know about myself, the more I learn, the easier it is to relate to other people, even those I would likely strongly disagree with. I mean, we're all in this together, so even if we can't get along (which is not likely anyway), at the very least we can empathize with where people come from, and build from there. Hell, it's how my mom, grandma, and I can barely stand each other, but how we keep strong by thinking about each other at the same time. We need each other, and just because that need does not express itself in "conventional, respectful" ways, doesn't make our bond and relationship any less valid, or any less strong.

So I write this as I think about gender a lot. As I think about how I do not identify with nor want to be included into a gender binary system (I've always had this feeling, but only recently have been able to articulate it), I realize that there are so many aspects of my mother and grandma that live within me. They were the original rebels of the system that taught me we were not rebels, it was a label that was placed on us to objectify us and make us think we were crazy so we would not question the oppressive structures that seeked to control our minds and bodies and just give up and give in. We are not rebels, we are people, should be treated and respected as such, and should treat and respect others as such as well. The fact that we are so self determined, so in tune with who we are, and respect every aspect of ourselves, means we can relate to other people, and respect them for their own respective journeys, and are able to learn from each other. We're not the people that step into your life and leave you unchanged, and we are moved by others just as much. I write to heal, I write to express, I write to articulate, and I have put in type what I wanted to say.