No one's life is a mistake.

For as long as I can remember, I never felt like I was a man or a boy. When I was little I use to tell my mom I was a Ryan, not a boy, of course Ryan is my legal name, but wasn't the point to call myself by my name as my identification rather it was because the idea of being a boy made me sick to my stomach then. I did not fully understand as to why I felt that way then, but I do know now. It was because for all the attempts at trying to be a boy, to be a man, to be masculine, it never ever worked out. No matter how much I tried to cuss like the other boys, or tried to be rough at play like the other boys, it just did not come to anything enjoyable. Now I wasn't "a little sissy" as the old saying would go, but I was different. I loved reading books, drawing, and day dreaming. I loved science as well, the power to understand things that seemingly were impossible to know was something I wanted to do. And above all, I never wanted to be handsome, I wanted to be pretty. I wanted to look refined, graceful, and beautiful. To me that was what I was, not bulky, tough, and handsome. This made me an outcast to many, even to teachers and other adults. I was told that what I valued made my life a mistake. And I was taught this with threats of force if I did not feel guilt or repentant for my values. It worked, I hated myself, my reflection, and even my life. This made me a hard person to deal with through most of my life. I was not open to conversation, or friendships. I just hid behind books and food, getting smarter and cooler to human contact. I even hated my family for it, as if was there fault, even though they had no part in it.



When I discovered the concepts of transsexualism and transvestism in my teenage years, I was more than simply curious, I wanted to know the truth of it. It seemed like what I had dealt with when I was younger. For a while I thought I was a transvestite, because I did like the idea of dressing beautifully, but I did not feel like a man still, so later I supposed I was a transsexual. I still think I am transgendered and I am very much happy with that thought, but today I am still doubtful of the status of being a transsexual only because I do not think that sex reassignment surgery will help me and I feel no loathing toward my body, only toward people telling me what I can and cannot do with it, especially people who try to force me to be a man. From then on, I began to realize my life was not a mistake, nor could it ever be a mistake because that implies that I should never have existed, and to a greater degree it implies no human being should have ever existed either. And that is a terrible thought indeed, to reject your existence and the existence of others. To even reject existence itself, because that is all we have to go by. There is no other realm than existence, and it is antithetical to a good life to reject it and your place in it. It can be still argued that I have made mistakes in my life, but that does not imply in itself a rejection of existence or my own existence, it is simply a recognition that one can err, and that one can also learn when one errs. That's a good thing too, it means we can change and grow. For folks like me that are transgendered, that fact is most important as we change to be ourselves, to express our identities in a more integrated manner, since making a mistake should never be confused with the idea of supposing one's existence is the mistake.



No one's life is a mistake.





-- Brede