I’ve flirted with Internal Family Systems but I think ultimately there are a few women inside me that have emerged during transition. I’m going to write a few not-quite-fiction short posts on the traits I associate with each one of them.
click click.
Her stilettos gave a distinct sound as she glided through the entrance of the bar-shaped establishment this thought experiment takes place in.
Once, those shoes had terrified her. They seemed angry; severe. Now they were extensions of her fierce heart and warrior spirit. The sharpened point matched the hyper-vigilance that had become part of her life.
Her taste in clothing varied within the range of comfort she had finally settled into. Sometimes a leather jacket teased what was inside. Her orgy of fashion was Avril Lavigne x Girlboss x Hayley Williams.
Someone had once told her that her squishy insides looked like Courtney Love, but that was before. Before she got scars that she now hid behind eyeliner and blood-red lip stain.
Her id was no longer in control, a simple mantra of I don’t give a fuck had slowly but surely given way. Her ego now had its own mantra, some combination of I don’t give a fuck about what’s in my way and I will get what I want.
She hadn’t always been that way, but she had one too many be realistic and it is what it is-zes thrown in her direction. People born on third base had been her instructors, with more or less the same lesson: You get by taking.
She was annoyed. The choice of establishment was not hers; it was chosen by the friend she was meeting. Despite being vilified by the mediocre masquerading as elites in San Francisco, she still had friends here.
She was happy. A part of her had been dreading having to come back to San Francisco. In doing so, she had put the final bullet into something inside her that needed to die. The people who had hurt her would probably view it as the last bit of good in her dying; to her, it was the rebirth she had sought ever since screaming I AM A WOMAN into the public square a short few years ago.
Some people stared. A lifetime ago, she would have cast her eyes downward in a silent plea for approval. Half a lifetime ago, she would have shot icy daggers at them.
Now, she just smiled.
They all looked the same to her. Faceless, generic gatekeepers of society. Those stares told her she was doing it right. She had become used to them, even after being invited in. Whether it was mediocre men or catty women, there were always a few of them saying something very loudly, without uttering a word: People like you aren’t allowed here.
She still had the faint odour of trashy, it was another thing her riot girlboss exterior tried to hide. Most of the time, pretty successfully. Her smile was the embodiment of what she had accomplished: Clawing through walls of class and gender.
She was here, and if they didn’t like it, they could leave. The last brick in her recently formed walls had an inscription: I will not be fucked with ever again.
Her heels clicked a few more times until she found her friend. They embraced, and started with talk of old times. Then current times. The memory of those stares quickly faded, and was then erased altogether.
You’re glowing, her friend remarked. The woman who had told her she was like Courtney Love said that once too. Some corner of her brain resolved to never let the mediocre or catty dim her light ever again.
