Before I transitioned I dated someone who by chance was someone who came from culture I was raised from.
This person was from Beijing and for most of my life I had engaged with individuals that were born and raised in Canada. This person made an impact on me.
One of the first conversations I had with this person was about how they didn't believe in gender roles. I remember that exact sentence coming out of their mouth and vividly thinking to myself, how is this possible? My mother introduced us. Around the same time I was expressing my gender in how I few... a hyper feminine way. I was on the cusp of figuring out that I didn't enjoy expressing myself as a woman but for whatever reason this person accepted me for it.
We had a very passionate relationship, imagine something out of the Notebook but set in 2002 Hong Kong with Britney Spears playing in the background. Another reason I say the Notebook is because we didn't know why we liked each other, looking back at it now it was very physical. Sexually driven, might I say an... infatuation. There wasn't a lot of understanding between us, probably because there might have been a language barrier. I don't speak Mandarin, I speak Cantonese. ALSO because they were a self identified Christian Evangelist and I'm an Atheist/Nihilist. Yes. You heard it right. Contradiction I know. It was a very beautiful summer with them none the less. When I started shaving my head that's when things probably got uncomfortable for them. (Which is how I express my gender as Non-Binary/Transgender) I mean we were also fighting about other things but this isn't why I'm writing this.
There was a moment after we... made love. Whatever you want to call it.. intercourse, where we were lying in bed and my bangs (Because I had very long hair at the time) were messy and shifted to reveal my masculine wrinkles on my forehead. I've always had these two wrinkles that were given to me by my fathers genetics. I remember him looking into my eyes and he noticed my bangs. He immediately moved my hair back to the position of covering my forehead. Back to the shape of bangs. I don't know what it was about that simple moment but... it was a red flag.
To this very day the person I still think back to isn't my first love, it isn't the love I left my first love for. It isn't my love that I almost bought a house with, and it isn't this being from Beijing. The person I think about is the person I spent the longest time with. We had lived together, bought a dog and cat together, fought countless times together, traveled together, it's hard to forget someone who you dedicated over two and half years of your life to. You know? Whenever we were in bed and had messy hair that day. They would take their hands and brush the hair out of my face. I recall them saying "Why do you put your hair in front of your face? I want to see your eyes."
I'm pretty sure I bickered and said something like, because I like my hair this way. It frames my face. It looks better this way.
What if the being from Beijing had only felt those things they felt for me because of how I looked at the time? Not for who I was, not for who I am.
Whether it's true or not, I'll never know.
Who am I? I'm still figuring that out, but I can tell you what I'm not. I'm not young anymore. I'm turning 26 this year and it dawned on me that the apocalypse isn't going to be World War 3, it's going to be Millennials waking up one day and realizing...you're not young anymore.
TRANSITIONING from YOUTH. The realization that you can no longer hide behind those bangs, that hat, those clothes anymore. Slowly all Millennials will look into a mirror and see not just wrinkles but the wrinkling of your metabolism as you slowly become mushy couch potatoes. 26 --unemployed, In debt, chunks of lard playing Pokemon Go with beer on Friday nights. Saturday after Saturday with Pizza and #NETFLIXANDCHILL... soon they will become the thing they feared the most.
Old.
There is a science to why bangs make you look younger, you know that right? Human beings are drawn to symmetry. Symmetrical faces. The only reason we view old people as unattractive is because the wrinkles create an unbalanced appearance in the face. Framing your face with hair is our desperate attempt to turn back the clock.
Is it beauty we seek? or is really symmetry? OR what's on the inside?
By the way,
I don't have those wrinkles on my forehead anymore, well... they aren't prominently visible anymore. Just another magic trick thanks to HRT. Hormone Replacement Therapy.
Now it's just a question of whether the love any of these beings had for me has also been replaced, replaced by longer bangs.