One Week of March

1-800-273-8255

eally cool and I would love to be friends with you, but there's one thing. I'm transgender. So, if you're against that you don't have to text me or anything. But if you're cool with that's, my number is 735-198-5532, hope to see a new text:)"
"Oh we are so texting her," I said.
"Definitely, it honestly seems like she could use some friends," Lillia said wide eyed.
So we texted her, a simple text but a text nonetheless,"Hey, it's the girls from the diner, we're totally cool with you being transgender." We used my phone because I'm better at getting back to texts than Lillia is.
After we paid the check at the diner we each parted our separate ways and I headed home. I was checking my phone every 10 minutes just to be sure that I don't look rude if she texts us back. But then I realized that she was probably working most or all day, so then I relaxed about it a bit. I imagined all the fun things we could do together, the three of us could ride our bikes down the gravel driveway. We could paint, and speak German, and play cards, and read books, and go adventuring. Oh, the possibility's, a pansexual, a heterosexual, and a transgender. The golden trio.
I decided that I was too bored for a gorgeous Sunday so I put on my favorite German rock group. Rammstein. So I could translate their songs into English. I liked doing that quite a lot, it gave me a sort of portal between German culture and English.
There is one exception for when I do speak German around other people though. I say things to people at gymnastics and my family who obviously have no idea what they mean. Like "fröhlich" which translates to "gay." And sometimes to Lillia, I whisper under my breath, "ich liebe dich" which translates to "I love you." To my family I like to say,"ich bin nicht gerade" which translates to "I am not straight." One of my favorites to say at practice is,"ich bin so ein Ausgestoßener hier." Translated to "im such an outcast here." Fun times, fun times being passive aggressive in German. "Passive aggressive in German" that's a great book title. No, even better is "passiv aggressiv auf Duetsch."
After I had showered, I laid down on my bed and stuck my earbuds into my ears. I closed my eyes and turned on the dear evan hansen soundtrack. Then I get the awful realization, tomorrow was Monday, I practiced on Monday's. I loved gymnastics, but I hated having to practice with the girls at my gym. I felt as if they didn't see me as a person but just another gymnast who competes with them. They always talked about how I was such an oddball there, jokingly, but their jokes were my reality. My parents' always told me how I needed learn to take a joke, but jokes hurt me more than actual insults did, nonsensical, but true. My anxiety causes me to think these things, even if they're not true. Anxiety rips apart my life, it hurts.
My breath began to shorten and my eyes and nose began to sting. I felt it coming on, yet another panic attack. Panic attacks on Sunday nights, i got them because of practice, while normal girls would get them because of school. I felt so ungrateful. I felt so weak to be afraid of something many girls would kill to even afford to do. My chest felt tight, like it was spiraling in on itself until there was nothing left of it at all. "Panick attacke," I whispered, attempting to calm myself, German has an odd way of helping me calm down sometimes.
Panic attacks always find the best way to ruin my day. At that point they were happening more and more often, once a week at least. I worried that I needed to see someone, a therapist or something. The thought of that made my anxiety even worse, I didnt want to be seen as broken, because I wasnt broken, I just thought differently. Though, at the same time, I craved having a therapist, having someone to talk to, a way to be fixed, even if I wasnt broken, I coukd use some fixing. Because sometimes unbroken things just need to be touched up a bit. But I could never muster up the courage to actually say anything to anyone.
Tears lick my cheeks and nose and lips and chin and neck. They trickle all the way down, feeling every inch of my pale face. Because "words fail." The weakness of being me is that I have such bad anxiety that I can't get through a Dear Evan Hansen song without balling. I relate to every word that Ben Platt utters in crystal clear reality. But oh, the emotion, I feel it everywhere. It hurts, but it makes me feel like someone understands my dry and sad reality of fearing leaving my safe room, of leaving my house. And I feel the awkwardness of always messing up, and not being able to get anything right. Always messing up, 'immer vermasselt." I repeated that phrase until the well in my eyes had stopped and I was nearly asleep.
I allowed the Dear Evan Hansen soundtrack to continue playing until I fell asleep, there was something comforting about hearing a voice while falling asleep. Maybe it was just because I was lonely. For I only have Lillia, a dad, and a brother. See, our mother has been absent from our lives ever since she died. And in a way, I was grateful that she died and didn't choose to leave. For I believe that loneliness by death is better than loneliness by abandonment. And in a way, she's still here, but if she had decided to leave us, she would have truly been gone. One is not truly gone until they choose to leave.