I'm tired.

This thought recurs a thousand times a day. I'm sick with it. It chokes me when I want a sip of water, stifles me when I need a deep breath, stabs me when I fall into the embrace of a loved one.

Nothing feels good anymore. I can appreciate things, same as I always did. The taste of my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe hasn't changed. The beauty of a Texas sunrise is still just as breathtaking.

But behind every smile, every moment of bliss, there is a vast, gaping exhaustion threatening to take over. And when the bright moments have passed, I fall back into it, and the honesty I feel in allowing myself to take on the weight of my disguise once more is almost a relief despite the pain it brings forth.

I've tried everything to shake it for good.

I thought perhaps my weight or physical appearance may be the culprit, so I stopped eating. I lost weight, but I didn't feel better; as the rolls disappeared and the curves began to stand out, I felt like a piece of marble being chipped away with hammer and chisel. The beauty of any change is lost on the material used to create it; a chunk of marble does not know it's becoming art, only that pieces of it are falling away, lost forever to the idealistic vision of somebody else.

I embraced and fetishized my body, even going so far as to throw myself into communities and kinks that specifically made use of the parts of my body I loathed. I modified my breasts with piercings, accentuated them with pretty bras, framed them with rope and clamps - and still they feel ugly, detached, like tumors or skin tags. A part of me, but not one that I want or accept, the way I feel about my arms and legs and nose.

I dressed the part I acted. Dresses, cute underwear, expensive bras - one for every day of the week. Loving, kind friends and family routinely mistake my dysphoria for a lack of self-confidence, and a part of me dies every time I hear what a beautiful woman I am, even as I thank them with real tears for the compliment. So many well-meaning people have struggled in earnest to impress upon me that I'm pretty, and cute, and attractive, and feminine. And I appreciate every one of them. But it isn't the former part of "beautiful woman" that bothers me. It's the latter.

I grew my hair out. Last week it was long enough to tie up in a bun, or braid, or do anything else with. It looked good on my feminine body, framing my feminine face, with long waves that I could straighten, condition, style, and fluff to accentuate my feminine outfit of the day. But I ended up putting it in a ponytail most of the time. I've spent countless hours in the bathroom with a pair of scissors clutched in one hand and a paper towel in the other, blotting furiously at my frustrated tears. That hairstyle looked good on a woman, on my body, but it is not me.

I am not a woman.

Accepting my birth assignment as part of me and trying to equalize it didn't work; the darkness just swallowed up all the light.

I'm a guy.

I've been openly genderfluid forever. Most people nod and smile blankly when I explain or try to discuss my gender with them; they think "she's just one of those people who wants to be a special snowflake" and tune it out. Some go so far as to insist that they see who I really am inside, and that they know I'm actually a woman. Still more have outright shrugged it off and said "You'll always be a girl to me."

My heart breaks each time I hear that, knowing that I can never, will never, trust those people with who I really am or they will rid themselves of me.

Friends, family, loved ones, partners - I've had perhaps half a dozen people in my life who truly understand and accept me for me, and who will listen and support me when I'm struggling with dysphoria in the worst way. Over the past couple of weeks I've fought with myself to bring it up to a few friends and even one family member.

Heartbreakingly, the major response has been "well, if you have to, then okay, I support you". The reluctance and thinly veiled horror behind their reactions is not lost on me. I am disappointing people that I love. I am not living up to their expectations. And that kills me.

I know this is not what anyone would choose me to be. I certainly wouldn't choose it. I would like to be cisgender; if I could love my body for its full potential and be content as a woman, I would. I wish this was a choice that I could choose not to make.

But I am down to only two real options; either I must make the messy incisions and disappoint a bunch of people whose opinions and love I value highly, in order to live free of the shackles that I've been saddled with since birth...

Or I stay in them indefinitely. I keep lying to maintain the love of those I care for, letting them believe that what they choose to see and accept of me is all there is to worry about. I continue to gag down the feminine epithets my friends and admirers in the community kindly shower me with. I force a smile when someone calls me a good girl, and pretend that I don't wish I could be somebody's good boy.

I don't know what the right option is. I am what I am, and that isn't going to change, as I've proven to myself over the past 6 years of being openly genderfluid and struggling with it. It's not enough. I need to present as male.

It's terrifying. I feel broken, ashamed, lonely, and confused. Why do I have to be this way? We can quantify the chemical fuckups in my head that give me dyscalculia, depression, and ADHD. Hell, those are acceptable things to struggle with on a daily basis. Why can't we quantify the fuckups that make me loathe every aspect of being female in favor of being a male?

But I have to at least try to change that. It's going to be painful. I'm going to have screaming matches with my mother, and my father is going to cry. My boyfriend is going to have to back me up to his family when they talk about me behind my back, and once again deal with the pains of being put in a M/m relationship. He'll struggle to to help me recover if - when - I eventually get top surgery, and help me take the financial hit of paying for it. My sister will never get to braid my hair again, even though I promised her she could. My mom will never go wedding dress shopping with me or put my hair up in that special traditional way the wives in our family always have. My friends will stumble over pronouns.

I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry. I hate this. I don't want to have to do this. Not to all of you who care, or think you care, or want to care about me. Not to my family. Not to myself.

But I'm out of options if I want to be happy and honest.

So I'm leaving your lives as a woman. That part of who you know me as is gone. Dead. Buried.

I hope you can all learn to love the boy that eventually comes back to fill my place in your lives and hearts.




But I won't hold it against you if you can't.