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The Dr Pepper my friend purchased had already been opened earlier that day. She opened it outside the car lest it fizzed over, and pleaded for it to not do that, after which it promptly did. At least it was outside and the damage was done. Once the initial fizz over happens, you’re free from it happening again unless you shake your beverage around like a lunatic.
But imagine if that wasn’t the case and it got so much worse a few hours later. Except you don’t have to imagine because it actually got so much worse a few hours later. Four of us strolled into a movie theater that evening to watch Deadpool & Wolverine. I sat next to the friend with the pop. We were getting ourselves sorted out, laying our snacks and drinks in their places, putting our bags under the seats, the usual pre-movie setup. It was just after this, right after we’d sat down and gotten cozy when I heard my friend whisper-plead again for the drink to not explode as she twisted the lid off. It proceeded to explode, like, geyser kind of explosion. It didn’t stop, even though she immediately tried putting the lid back on. Once my brain processed what was happening, I frantically moved our bags out of the way and grabbed napkins and we fought desperately to contain the situation. The other two friends didn’t notice for a bit because the two of us were panicking in hushed tones. We muffled our wild array of emotion-induced sounds that escaped our mouths and so, by the time those friends tuned in, we were already soaked in sticky fizzy drink. We couldn’t leave though, the movie was about to start. Instead we remained in our damp, gooey state, for over two hours. The fake leather of the seats was flaking off onto our exposed skin because the sticky was so powerful. It was disgusting and I hated it. We had to half-assedly clean ourselves up via paper towel and water in the theater bathroom which was a super cute friendship bonding experience that I don’t ever want to do again. Luckily I also live within walking distance from the place so when we went back to my house I was able to change. My friend accepted her dreadful fate. We then went to dinner in our slightly less sticky states which was good since we didn’t ruin the fake leather seats there unlike the previous ones. And when all the food was consumed and our bellies full, we called it an earlier-than-usual night because my friend felt gross and wanted to go home. Understandable. I desperately wanted to shower myself. What a wild roller coaster of a Saturday that was. I love that I can look back at photos from that day and remember why I had a different outfit later on. I’m so glad I spent an amount of time planning my look only for it to get tarnished by carbonated death beverage.
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Basically for most of my life I was in clubs or sports or dance. I did girl scouts, cub scouts, soccer, volleyball, archery, softball, swimming, diving, and figure skating. I would always finish the season of whatever I was in but I didn’t always return to that activity the next year. I was figuring out what I liked and what I didn’t. My parents basically did the “throw spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks” method of seeing what I was into. I’m comically bad at sports, even though I did softball for several years and I absolutely love archery. I was decent at skating and I really liked it but in order to move up to the next level, I would have had to miss school so I backed out. As mentioned basically the entire time in my last post, I love dance so I’ve kept up with that.
I was able to indulge in the different communities around the things I was involved in. Some of those communities left me feeling odd and unable to relate to my fellow people. Others gave me a sense of family and allowed me to grow and thrive. This sort of discovery of self goes beyond all my after school hobbies. My taste in music has evolved and expanded as has my taste in movies and shows. The people I watch on youtube have become a rather sizable list of individuals. Much of these tastes were grown with the input of the friends I have around me. So has my wardrobe, makeup, and general appearance. I’ve been inspired to try new things that I would never have thought to try because of the company I keep in my life. The company that sees me for who I am and is able to recommend things that I might like. The company that I admire and value and pick and choose elements of to add to my own self. The same way I pick and choose characteristics, styles, and the likes from media that I love. This isn’t weird by any means since it’s just an incredibly roundabout way of saying that we get inspired and influenced by the world around us and we integrate into our beings only what really fits us genuinely. Though undoubtedly we’ve also been plagued by peer pressure and trends and, being social creatures, we desperately altered ourselves at times to be accepted. Underneath it all however, I still knew what I truly treasured, no matter how much I edited my personality and tastes to keep the people around me happy. Adults don’t often take the words of children as fact. Instead children have been dangerously generalised as unreliable narrators and speakers of nonsense. I was listening to an episode of a podcast for the second time that mentioned that. The topic of that episode also inspired me to write this post. Something one of the hosts had said when it came to listening to children was, and I’m paraphrasing, “kids will say they’re terrified of the monster under the bed and while you know the monster isn’t real, the fear that they’re feeling is and it’s important to address that”. Children of all ages know more than we give them credit for, especially when it comes to themselves as humans. They just often don’t have the vocabulary. My friend has a mild peanut allergy and she didn’t know for a while. But this lady, I can’t remember if it was a neighbor or what, would give her peanut M&Ms. My friend would always spit them out and itch her tongue and say she didn’t like them but this lady was convinced that if she kept eating them, she would eventually fancy the taste. That obviously never happened. My friend knew she was against that weird candy but she didn’t have the words to say, “I have an allergy to those nuts”. Sometimes it takes a while to realize something fully. Sometimes it was there since the beginning and there wasn’t a way to say it. That’s why it’s important to listen and allow youths to figure out what makes sense for them while giving them the love, support, and care that keeps them safe all the while. And here is where we get to the meat and potatoes. There is no difference when it comes to gender identity. The episode I listened to is about the panic of rapid onset gender dysphoria. It talks about all these parents who are convinced that their kids are trans suddenly because it’s “trendy” or the internet told them to do it or their friends are peer pressuring them into identifying as something else. They’re saying that there were no previous signs that their kids were in any way trans or feeling dysphoric because of that. So, here’s why these parents are incredibly incorrect. I will use myself as an example.I think I talked a lot about this in the post where I came out so to speak about my genderfluidity but I will repeat it here too because I can. Ever since I was a wee thing and played make believe with my sister, I would flip flop between playing a boy or a girl. As I got older, those boy and girl characters sometimes also became more androgynous in my head. I’d always wished I could magically shift into whatever I was feeling at the moment but I couldn’t and I just accepted that as impossible. The characters I saw or read about and wanted to be varied gender-wise too. Mulan, Jack Sparrow, Peter Pan, Katniss Everdeen. I wanted to be a strong heroine, a scruffy street rat boy, a pirate whose gender would change depending on the game and the day. I wanted to fight with swords and wear beautiful gowns at a ball. Going beyond the fictional desires and into my pastimes, there was never a consistent flavor of gender. Like, I did ballet which is often seen as feminine as well as girl scouts. But I also loved manhunt and running around in the woods is often made to be boyish, plus I was in cub scouts which was originally for the lads but my mum convinced them to take me because I like camping and the outdoors. Softball was a girl sport. Archery is traditionally a ladylike thing but with fantasy, I think now it’s sort of all over the place. I loved to play with dolls and draw and write stories and have epic battles with my sister using Nerf guns. From an outside perspective, I was just a kid playing pretend and doing a shit ton of activities. From the outside, I was my parents' daughter because that’s what was seen. Even with my range of clothing and the parts played in the Nutcracker being both male and female and…mouse I guess because I was the mouse king. I was still a daughter, a girl, a young woman, a lady, female. It never felt entirely right to me and I would portray what I was feeling that day through my clothing. I focused more on my mannerisms being gender neutral, I sauntered and slouched and avoided sinking into one hip when I was standing. I gradually let my voice deepen to its natural octave after purging the customer assistant voice from my system because it always felt awkward and wrong to sound that high pitched. My hair could be up in the same way on two different days and have a completely opposite feel on each that no one would notice obviously since it was internal. My brain would always be at war with my body because it never did what I wanted it to in terms of appearance. I never had an hourglass figure and after I gave up on that, I never had an athletic androgynous one either. I’ve always been at a weird middle ground which is convenient in some ways but annoying in others. But I never had the idea to research anything because I was never really exposed to the question of identity being a thing. I never thought about a breast reduction being an option even! I just thought I would forever have a heavy oversized chest, and that wasn’t even gender related, it was simply discomfort. When I met my friends on the island, they had already done significantly more research into who they were. And they weren’t even that much further ahead than me in terms of realization. But they had the vocabulary and they recognized certain signs. Just looking from the outside, it would seem as though I were suddenly influenced to become a weird looking genderfluid idiot. I haven’t lived here that long and I’m a completely different looking individual with completely different knowledge than I was when I moved out. It seems like a rapid change from the outside. It wasn’t though. I was assumed things that I knew to be false, like being attracted to girls. I was told terms that could maybe apply to how I identified that didn’t fully feel correct. I never actually changed, I just finally got the words to describe how I feel. My friends didn’t create me as I am now. They didn’t reinvent me or alter me or pressure me to be something that fit into the group more. I’ve been the same from the beginning, but I found a community that allowed me to grow and thrive and gave me a sense of family, just as I had found with my dance people. Instead of learning about different styles of dance and various dance schools and possible careers and opportunities involving dance this time, it was a plethora of gender related knowledge. I was surrounded by people who knew things and knew how to look up things and they helped me blossom, but they never planted the seed in the first place. That might be a rubbish metaphor but whatever. What I really want to reiterate is that kids are not suddenly becoming something out of the blue and sticking with it. Trans kids are not made, they are born. Non trans kids will not commit so far as to get gender affirming care when they aren’t actually trans. The same way that people with peanut allergies will not become immune to peanuts. If a child is saying they feel a particular way about their identity, give them the time and space to figure it out, to see what fits and feels right. But don’t forsake them or disown them or cast them out into the streets. Don’t try to deny them or scare them away from these thoughts. Hell, try to learn with them. Find sources that explain all the terms and names and meanings that you don’t understand yet. With an open mind and patience, you can save a young life from an early death. Because you affirmed and accepted something, a child may be spared inner turmoil, fear, and confusion. In reality, it isn’t much to ask yet it will reap beautiful and wholesome results. This only happened twice but it stuck with me because of what I saw around me. People commented that it was kind of strange that I was still at my dance school after graduating high school. See, most kids would graduate from both high school and the dance academy I went to. Their twelfth grade year would be the last for classes at two buildings where a majority of childhood was spent. After that, the new adults head off to university or leave to travel or even stay at that same dance academy but as teachers. Very few kept going to dance as a student after completing high school. The adult classes that were offered were made up of more middle aged people, oftentimes parents of the dance kiddos. So I stood out a bit.
I wanted to continue my contemporary, jazz, acrobatics, and ballet classes because I enjoyed them. Why would I stop just because I got through twelfth grade? Dancing is, and honestly always has been, a passion of mine before I even knew what a passion was. I get so antsy and anxious and lonely and bored without it. It’s something that keeps me moving and strong and keeps my ADHD in check to a degree because I’m not stationary. I missed one year of dance during Covid and I hated everything. When I started classes up again, I’ve only increased the amount I’ve taken and/or expanded the locations I take them at. I started gymnastics this week which I’ve missed a lot in the last several years. I did ballet classes at an actual ballet academy over the summer and those were a blast. And my contemporary and jazz classes start next week. Why am I rambling about this? Well, these classes that I’m doing, that I’ve more or less stuck with since I was two, are largely considered childish hobbies. It’s odd to do this as an adult in some people’s eyes. Adults go to the gym or jog or swim laps. Adults don’t carry on such childish activities. But, like why though? Why is continuing the things that we love to do as children weird? I’d consider fashion another hobby of mine and I’m not going to stop buying fun clothes or makeup just because I’m an adult. I’m not going to stop reading young adult books despite not being a young adult. I’m going to keep buying stuffies and DVD’s and nail polish. Once my plants stop threatening me, I’m gonna get more of those too. While I do that, my friends will buy dolls and figurines and art commissions of their favourite fictional characters and merch from their favorite bands. Strangers are going to keep loving Star Wars and animated shows and Studio Ghibli movies. They’ll buy replica swords from their favorite fantasy stories. They’ll purchase sixteen different sets of dice for D&D and many a pack of cards for Magic the Gathering. They’ll still love Pokemon and Transformers and Barbie and My Little Pony. There is absolutely nothing weird or wrong or stupid about that. It isn’t immature or childish. It most certainly isn’t something that should be tossed away because you turned a year older. I’ve said before that growing up shouldn’t mean growing away from everything that lived in our childhoods and this is just another thing I feel like we should hold onto. Where do you go when your shift has ended and the school bell is rung, but your house is a disaster getting renovated, your visiting extended family is a nightmare, your dog isn’t trained where to poop yet and leaves his mark all over the floor? When the places you have to be like school and work suck and the home you go to at the end of the day isn’t suitable, what do you do in the between time, the weekends, the days off? Where do you and your mates gossip and get your sillies out?
Third spaces have been disappearing. The spaces where interaction with friends, other humans, self, and the world are fading away and it’s a problem. We need community and exposure to life outside our homes, schools, and workplaces. We need to be able to cross paths with strangers that can become friends. We need an escape from our obligations and responsibilities. We need somewhere to go to fully be ourselves and run into others who are like us. But we don’t really have anywhere to go. For multiple reasons too. A lot of us are working because we live in a capitalist hellscape and need fifteen jobs to buy a single bell pepper. We don’t have time to go anywhere else even if there were places. By the time work has finished, we’re absolutely bushed. There are only so many hours in a day and things are only open so late so it’s a losing situation for a lot of us. As for everyone else who does have the time, they be left with few options. Especially if you lack a lot of spare funds. Our museum here used to be by donation, it’s not anymore. The aquarium on the mainland is like fifty dollars. Malls are desolate in some places. And if you go to any joint with food just to chat, you’re loitering. Libraries are great except you have to be quiet. Arcades, bowling alleys, skating rinks are solid options but how many people have those? How easy is it to get to them? Parks are perfect if the weather favors you. But, like, remember Blockbuster? Having Blockbuster enter my brain really pushed me to write this because it was such a good encapsulation of a third space. You could just peruse and chat and chill and it was basically a library but the volume was dialed up a bit. Movie rental places were wonderful. There was one where I used to live and the woman who owned it was a gem. There was human connection there. She recommended movies to her customers who she knew well enough to believe they would enjoy them. I’ve no idea how many movies and shows she said my family should try, but I am almost certain, most of them were hits. Bookstores are also great for this, but I think because it’s books, we assume library laws apply and it’s to be quiet. It’s places like those though, where people can run into other people and find out common tastes in a completely organic way. We don’t have enough of that. Board Game cafes come close I think, but from what I’ve seen, most people go in from the beginning with their own mates and a lot of games can only have so many players. When I go with friends, we only go when we know there’s a decent number of us for ultimate game play convenience. If we were to meet others, it would already be incredibly crowded. Grand place though to go specifically with your friend group as an activity, I will say. Just not as great for solo folk or wee crews. We just need more “hangout like” spots in our civilizations that don’t cost an arm and a leg or don’t throw you out for not purchasing anything. I live in such a touristy city and there are so many potential places I could go except for the fact that I’m poor. We have a bug zoo here! An indoor zoo of just bugs! And it’s great, but I don’t have thirty dollars to spend each time I want to go. If we had more chill cafe-esque things like the board game cafe, that would be a start. There could be a book cafe that isn’t whispery. There could be more cat or bunny cafes. Maybe some indoor public markets that are fun to wander around and window shop. And I’ve thought recently about indoor public parks and gardens for when the weather gets shit. And can we PLEASE bring back movie rental stores because streaming services are becoming no better than cable and raising their prices and are downright sinful at this point. Also seating in food establishments! The mall where I work has horrible seating in the food court, but I’ve also seen that places like McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Tim Horton’s have been revamping their interiors to have very little seating. I know that where I live specifically, we have a lot of sketchy douchebags and gangs of youths that hang around and make a mess of everything so making it less appealing to stay in there isn’t unreasonable. Though putting a stop to the douchebaggery and tomfoolery seems to be the more sturdy solution but that’s another conversation. We live in a weird age right now where technology seems to be consuming us and few seem to be happy about it but no one has any escape plan. We need our brick and mortar shops more than ever. We need our malls to flourish again. We need physical gathering places that don’t require anything other than you just being in the location. We were already losing touch with one another and the pandemic only exacerbated that and we need to go backwards a bit. We need to rekindle our humanity and we need to rebuild the safe places in which that can be done. |
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