Pain Reconciled by Love

LOVE: THE MAGNIFICENT

Sunflowers were always my favorite flower. When I was seven, I got my second Build-a-Bear, which was a leopard named Sunflower. My first was a bunny named Daffodil. Needless to say, I loved flowers, however, I was a complete tom-boy.

At eighteen, I finally figured out the true reason I tried to be a boy from the ages 7-11. I was a twin the first seven weeks into my mother's pregnancy. My parents decided not to tell me, until I asked if my mom had ever had a miscarriage before she and my dad decided to have me. When I asked, she said there were two of us. When my mother started bleeding, after already finding out she was pregnant, she thought she lost the baby. When the doctor told her there were two sacks, and one heartbeat was still alive, they knew they would have had twins. It was too early for my parents to tell our genders, but I know for a fact it was and would have been a boy.

As a child, I had had dreams about a twin brother, and I had grown up pretending I had siblings and actually talked to them—I had a very vivid imagination. I was an only child because my mom procured Gestational diabetes a month before I was born, though they had wanted two or four children. Gestational turned into Type 1 after I was born, and I grew up without siblings, rather than without a mother. Something, as a child, I didn't understand, but am now very grateful for. Growing up without a sibling, and in a super conservative family was different, but also gave me insight on true love. This was a lot of the reason why I was so close to my cousins, and why those four years of loneliness, was so hard for me.

I loved everyone I came into contact with. I was completely innocent: probably hadn't learned what drugs were until I was 12 and had to have the actual "talk" with my parents when I was 10. And then at eleven, I started becoming a woman. Being so young and starting to bleed from an orifice you couldn't possibly comprehend how it could hold so much blood, was weird and challenging, for sure. None of my friends got their periods until they were at least 13. You are still a child at 11! But I was a weird kid already: from talking to inanimate twins, to pretending to be a boy—and at this time, no one was transgender or was willing to talk about their feelings towards LQBTQ. But, I knew I liked boys, and I was innocent to the fact on how the same gender could like the same gender. I was sheltered. My parents kept me that way and I enjoyed the bubble of security. Yeah, I was made fun of and bullied, but I was in private schools my whole life, what did I expect? I thought it was normal, and I was a tough kid.

Things started feeling real and I started waking up to reality in seventh and eighth grade. Two of my dad's good friends died in a train crash when I was twelve. One of them happened to be a teacher (Paul Long) at the school my dad taught at, and I attended.

In eighth grade the two worst deaths, in my opinion, happened. A suicide (Graysen) at my high school, and a death on my travel ball softball team. I remember hearing the news of Jessica's death. I was listening to music, and the song that happened to be on when my parents asked to talk to me, was "I Dare You to Move" by Switchfoot. Jessica had died in a car crash, with her father (father survived, I think, but was in remission for a long time). She was fourteen years old, a first baseman, and an amazing friend. She didn't go to my school, but travel ball softball in California, if you know anything about it at all, is insane. Parents make it crazier, but the girls all either get along super well, or there's major drama.  "Torch" was my dad's team. He had been coaching me since I was ten, and I wanted him to run a team, so he did of course. (He had actually had the chance to try out for the Pittsburg Pirates MLB team before I was born, but he didn't make the team even though he would have been a great pro player, in my opinion.) "Torch" had only been together for a few months before Jessica was killed, but that didn't matter. We all became super close after that, and for several months we kept the team going, until we couldn't find enough players to keep the team strong. I guess that candle was meant to get blown out.