Sometimes I wonder if I should have that long conversation with my parents about me being male. And when I think about it I get angry. I get frustrated and just want to avoid the whole topic all together. Other times I feel it be pointless.

Like I can already hear them respond. When I tried to be honest with them and openly stated I was non-binary they seemed very supportive. But their actions stayed the same, like they didn’t even try. And when telling mom I changed my name, she was shocked. During our conversations she was mostly happy I spoke with her. I get that the Spanish language doesn’t have much in the way of non-binary terms but seeing and hearing her still refer to me as daughter in Spanish hurts a lot.

Like she is able to speak and write in English. But sometimes I’m just reminded how it’s all fake. How easily she would dismissed me growing up. How easily she turned her back when my siblings would beat me. How easily she went and sent me away. How easily she has abandoned me. How easily she would shame and blame me. How easily she became emotional and blame me for hurting her when I left NY.

I’m just reminded I never had a family. I simply was in a home with people who shared blood relations with me. I was in a home that only cared enough that I didn’t die, but not love me. I was raised by people who uses the word ”love” and “family” like it’s water. How those words never had any true weight to their meanings.
And the more I grow on my own the more I’m breaking the cycle. I’m slowly getting out of constantly caring for other people as my only way to feel like I belong. I’m slowly getting to the point that I am ok with not being able to help everyone.

I’m well aware of all the pain each of my family members have endured. But I’m not their band-aid. I can’t fix them, no matter how much I’ve tried. I’ll never genuinely be loved by the people I wanted to love me for so long. And it’s so hard to accept. Especially since that’s all I ever wanted growing up.

But as I’m going through my healing journey I come to realize that I had overlooked people that did love me. Such as my late grandma and grandpa, my biological mom, my aunts. I had plenty of great moments of being understood and loved that I had forgotten, all thanks to constantly being in a state of disassociation.

So, me coming out as a trans person is a great deal. Especially after I accepted that the people who truly loved me would only want me to be happy. They don’t care about names or how I look or who I love. They’ll just care that I’m being my upmost honest self.

My birth mom wanted a better life for me. My grandma accepted me without question. Thanks to my aunts and her kids I was allowed to explore gaming and art. Probably why Zelda is a huge deal for me.

Ocarina of time was the first game I played, all because my cousins allowed me to do. Something my brother would have beaten for even daring to enter his room (he had all the video games). My grandparents and aunts allowed me to touch things and fidget in church, which my parents and siblings would have punished me for.

I was free to be a kid in a household that spoke almost no English. Which was a night and day comparison to the home I grew up in. With my grandparents I had enjoyed sitting quietly next to them as they prayed. They made religion seem like a very positive thing. But with my parents and siblings religion was a weapon.

And after my grandma died, when I was about 8, I lost the most important person in my life. At that I had, for so long, blamed her death on me. Which I’m now slowly allowing myself to grieve and accept it wasn’t my fault. Along with being grateful that my grandpa lived long enough to have stories for grandma. He died peacefully and in a weird way was very comforting, compared to the heartbreak of grandma.

So, to live up to all the people that loved me without circumstance I’m trying my best to live a happy and fulfilling life. I want to have happy stories for the day I finally see them again.

And for that, when I’m ready, I’m going to cut all ties with the people who caused me to hate myself for so long. I no longer want to hold a broken bridge together when nobody has ever helped fixed it.

I’m crying as I wrote this. It’s painful but comforting to let out.