What It Feels Like For A Girl

2.

Mexico welcomed me with a gush a hot air. As I got out of the plane, even the tarmac under my feet radiated heat. My second impression? The colours! So vivid. I never thought that colours could look different in different countries, but they do. In Mexico, they were intense, festive, full of light.

I was not exactly sure where to go, so I followed a man with a Hawaiian shirt through the customs and the baggage claim area. I followed him at a distance until I found myself outside the terminal and in front of a long line of taxis.

"Could you bring me to the bus station?" I asked one of the drivers in Spanish.

At the time, I was studying translation in university but Spanish had not been part of my curriculum for over two years, so it was a little hesitant.

Before my trip, I did try to practise the language with one of my co-workers, who was surprised I could understand him when he spoke to his mom.

I work in a hook factory, and while packing the hooks in different boxes, my co-worker, Elvis, asked me if I ever did estilo perrito.

For a moment I wondered what that was.

"Think about it," Elvis told me.

"Estilo is 'style,'" I started thinking out loud. "Perrito is a little dog . . . Oh."

I don't think I answered him. I probably blushed or giggled nervously. Because what else is there to do?

People say that all conversations lead to Hitler. That's Godwin's law. That's wrong. All conversations lead to sex. And I am not comfortable with that.

I gave up talking to Elvis in Spanish, or in any language for that matter. Too afraid of what he'd say next.

It's sad because I did like Elvis. I found him funny. I wished he and I could be friends. But that conversation made it impossible.

That's not the first time something like this happened. On another occasion, a supervisor I used to like asked me if I was a virgin. Unfortunately for him (or not), I told him I wasn't.

"Virgins are rare nowadays" was all he said, before walking away. He lost any interest in me after that. I was even assigned to a different supervisor.

I am always at loss as to what to say in those situations. Some people want to know how "pure" you are, others how "slutty" you are. Does that really matter? 

It's hard because it's already hard for me because I am already not the most sociable person in the world. Actually, if there is something you need to know about me is that I am weird.

I like people, and I wish I could talk with them, be friends with them. But I don't know how. I don't know how to behave around them.

For a long time, I thought my social ineptitude was due to the religious cult in which I grew up, which forbid me to make friends with "people of the world". But I'm not so sure anymore.

The truth is that I was born weird. Going through my father's stuff the other day, I found an old report card from my kindergarten teacher that said, "When Alexis doesn't know what to do, she sits down and stops moving and talking."

That stills sums up what I am like today.

It'd be nice to be normal, and I try to be. I think I'd be normal when I'll finally be comfortable being me.

With Saveen, being me was hard to do. He modelled me the way he liked. My hair is naturally light brown, but I dyed it black, for him. He also made me wear a fake leather jacket and rocker boots, to match his style.

They say that people express their identity through the way they dress. Well, I was never into rock that much. Sometimes, I wanted to wear pretty dresses with pretty flowers on them, but I couldn't.

What is also weird is that I also never complained. I never told Saveen I didn't like the way he wanted me to dress. Maybe I should have. But a part of me feared that if I told him, he would be angry with me.

In Mexico, that was going to be different. For the first time in my life, I'd have the chance to be me.

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