When I was younger, I had a fascination with mechanical things, cars especially. To me they were a thing of beauty. My grandfather, who raised me for the first few years of my life, encouraged many of my quirks, one of which was reading, which stymies a lot of my family members.
This is a picture of me going through a Sears catalog, which was really the only way to get really cool stuff in Hilo at the time. Please notice the page. Cars, and Hot Wheel tracks.
Of course would it have killed them to wipe my face before they took the picture? I was a very grubby child…who they kept insisting on dressing in light colours. The bleach bills must have been outrageous.
The woman next to me is my mom. She looks about the same, except her hair isn’t blond any more. It’s back to its natural brown-black. She swears she never had her hair blond. We all say… huh. Sure. I’ve got about 10 photos of her with her hair like that.
But I digress.
My love for cars in my family’s mind equals a masculine trait so therefore, I must be a lesbian. This was a curious thing for me to encounter, mostly because I’m fairly clueless about people outside of my brain (we’ll get into that later) but mostly because I really love men. I even lived with a few but this did/does not shake my family’s undercurrent of belief that I like women.
It doesn’t really bother me. It gives them something to talk about in church, I guess but it feels strange to be in the closet for something I am not. Because believe it or not, there is actual encouragement although very light that I should admit to my loving women.
Very complicated. Suffice it to say, I’ve grown okay with my supposed conflict of who I am and who I’m attracted to. I’m a girl that likes cars, whisky and well, boys. Even boys that love other boys. I cook and can change out a toilet’s guts. I design for a living and write for a torture. No really, writing’s a torture. It hates me.
But I’m okay with it.
I used to wonder if people now were raising their children to accept who they are. That’s my biggest concern. It’s not enough of a concern for me to have a kid but one I have anyway. Are people letting their heterosexual leaning little girls like cars? Are they letting their heterosexual leaning boys to like dolls? Are we heading to being okay? At some point, I hope we are.
Then, I came across this and thought; Yeah, thanks for raising this kid right. You all give me hope.
Rhys Ford 