Sound Mind-Troubled Moments

Bar Harbor Maine.  Its a beautiful place, especially on days when the air is clear like today.  So of course when my Dad suggested hiking, and my uncle selected Bubble Rock, high on Bubble Mountain, I was  ready to go.  So here I am, up on a mountain, and strangely, feeling really insecure despite the relative seclusion.

I look terrible.  My face has a hint of facial hair, as I'm due back for laser in a week.  Little patches around my chin and upper lip are just dark enough and close enough together to cause slight shadowing.  Very large carpenter jeans and a loose, black men's button up shirt drape my body, creating a gangly, figureless appearance.  My hair has been reduced to frizz by humidity, and is now mostly out of sight,  wound atop my head and covered with a ridiculously masculine Cincinnati Bengals ball cap.

 Traveling androgynous with people who consider me male can get dicey.  With every interaction there are all these questions.  Do these people see me as female?  Do they see me as male?  Are they trying to figure out what I am?  Am I embarrassing my Dad?  Trying to present as my own gender was out of the question, and being androgynous feels awkward, second guessing what everyone thinks, so this morning I decided to tip the scales of perception toward male, just for a day, to keep everyone comfortable and make interaction a little easier.  I hated the decision from the moment I made it, but there weren't any better alternatives.

Now, I'm hating the decision even more, as I sit on the mountain trying to enjoy the beautiful landscape while thoughts of my appearance and other people's perception keep slipping into my mind.  The climb up here was not good for my self esteem.  Almost immediately upon hitting the trail, a young couple caught up and passed us.  As I heard the first foot steps I turned for a glimpse, and my heart just sank.  The girl was dressed exactly I wished I could.  Shorts and a tank, only she pulls it off better than I ever could.  Shorter, curvier, just a very normal girl, living an active lifestyle with her boyfriend.

This quick passing stirred my emotions and left me feeling terribly insufficient and inferior.  But I was meant to be humbled further by the end.  The trail turned out to be a parade of such couples.

Still sitting here at the top, looking out over a placid lake far below, I replay the climb's emotional climax in my mind, trying to figure out exactly what is wrong with me.

It happened less than 1/3rd the way up.  Couples kept going by.  Except for my little group, that's all it was. One cute little couple after the other.  Then it happened.  We stopped at a flat section of rock with an interesting view when yet another couple happened by, only they stopped, and proceeded to ask Dad to take a photo of them.  The guy was gorgeous.  Maybe slightly younger than me, but still very cute, striking the perfect balance of boyish charm with a dash or rugged handsomeness.  His hair was dark brown, short and tousled, and he had just a touch of stubble.  Very athletic.  Kind, gentle eyes. Normally he would have had my full attention, but I was focused on his  girlfriend.

Like almost every girl up there, she was actually dressed for the hike, and pulled it off gorgeously.  There she was with her cute little outfit, near perfect body, and gorgeous boyfriend.  And here I was single,  vacationing with my parents, and climbing a mountain in summer, dressed like a male Seattle grunge musician.  She made me feel like such a loser.  Envy was just flaring. Yet at the same time, curiosity.  How much curvier was she than me?  How wrong is my body really?  What kind of shoes did she pick for this?  All these questions  could have been easily answered with a simple glance.

But I couldn't do it.  I just could not look in her direction.  The why is the crazy part.  In the wake of my insecurity and perceived inferiority, I had become hyper aware of my god awful masculine presentation. I just knew that she had to see me as a guy, and that if I looked in her direction for even a moment, that she would think I was attracted to her.  The idea of her writing me off as a guy was annoying, but bearable.  However, imagining this girl thinking privately "Ha! That goofy weird looking little guy is into me."  was just way too much for my pride to take.  I think my sanity was slipping a bit.  My inability to even look in her direction made me feel even more inferior.  So it became a catch 22.  With the idea of looking in her direction, or not, either making me feel bad, my brain basically started going in a feverishly panicked loop.  I settled on finding some other direction to look while the couple conversed with my Dad and Uncle.  I was afraid my envy and emotional turmoil was completely transparent, and I felt ugly and masculine besides.  I didn't want the girl to see me looking so hideously inferior, and I didn't want the guy to see me because next to his girlfriend I'm such a nothing.  I wanted to disappear.

In the end, the cute little couple finally struck a pose for the camera and I casually looked their direction for the first time since their arrival.  A very romantic choice.  She hugged up to his chest and he wrapped his arms around her.  His arms looked so strong, and his chest so solid.  Hurting my pride I even more, I realized that I wished I could be her.  I looked away.

He explained to my Dad that his camera doesn't have a viewfinder, because it was an expensive extra cost option. Hmm, the lack of a built in view finder, and the viewfinder being costly meant the camera was an expensive import like a Leica or something.  His implication that he didn't have loads of cash to waste on something as frivolous as a viewfinder was very humble.  Hmm, moneyed and humble.  She's a lucky girl indeed, I thought.

When they finally left, my nervousness started to fade, but my self esteem was just crushed.  In addition to my physical problems I was now reminded by this sudden frantic interval that I also have some kind of weird social anxiety that is probably completely unique to me.  How many ways can one person BE messed up?

Still sitting here at Bubble Rock I snap out of my reflection.  Its a major curiosity-a curiously rounded bus size rock sitting on a slick, sharply angled cliff face and balanced on assorted smaller rocks beneath it.  Its estimated that it has been here for over 10,000 years.  A glacial erattic.  Fascinating, but I'm focused on my insecurities.  I wish I had a mirror so I could see just how awful I look compared to all these other girls.  What are people seeing when they look at me?

I rise to leave and yet another couple is coming toward us.  They look to be in their fifties and sixties.  After a brief exchange, the husband continues for a closer view of the rock, and the wife chats up me and my uncle.  At first she is mainly talking to me, but my insecurities, inferiority complex and jittery social ineptitude left from the humbling experience farther down the trail have left me feeling to insecure to converse.  The added distraction of wondering how she perceives my gender further scatters my thoughts.  Again I find myself wanting to disappear.

While my uncle is carrying the conversation for a moment, I casually look for a place to sit, innocently picking a spot that puts him between us, so that she can't see me and I speak as seldom as possible.  She leans around my uncle to ask a question of me in particular.  "Isn't he getting awfully close to the edge?"

She is speaking of her husband.  Why didn't she ask my uncle?  Honestly I think she is wanting a woman's opinion.  A new surge of self confidence.  It's a big conclusion to draw, but I'm almost sure.  I mean really.  If you ask a man if someone is standing to close to the edge of a cliff, what's he going to tell you? :P Maybe I don't look that much like a man after all.  Now a let down.  What happens if she catches a glimpse of beard or sees my face at another angle and suddenly has to wonder what on earth she is talking to?  I remain mostly disengaged from the conversation.  Presenting like this, everything is just too much work.

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Moral of the story?  Hmmmm.  Being caught visually between genders can be difficult.  Carrying on conversations with people who think you are a woman, at the same time as people who think you are a man, can be difficult.   Being an envious, childish, overwrought loser with an inferiority complex can be difficult.  :P