A Conversation
by Raul Rivera-garcia
In a kinda corny way, I feel like my life officially began last year. And for all intents and purposes, it did. My reality changed, my life would never have to be what it once had been before. For so much of my life, I felt a need to hide. I don’t know where it came from, I’m still trying to figure that puzzle out. But as I began to learn about myself, taking time to figure things out, some things were quickly becoming impossible to hide despite how hard I would try.
And believe me, I tried. Every fashion trend, every popular new look. I wanted to understand what the other girls felt when they got dressed. I wanted that feeling. I told myself over and over again, I’m just insecure, that’s all. For years, I played that role. Until I couldn’t any longer. I began dressing in an overly masculine way, with pants that did not fit and unflattering button-ups. My parents would ask what it meant, and I refused to say what I thought for so long. I knew who I was at that time, but the words would not come out, I could not say it.
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My family had brought me back from a mini vacation to visit back home. It stood in the back of my head, tell them now. But I couldn’t. It might have been fear, shame, maybe even unintentional selfishness. I sat across from my mother at a picnic table, as my family went to bring lunch back. Her sixth sense led her to ask me what was wrong, she knew I was off. She was right. I was barely speaking, hardly wanting to be out anymore. It felt painful, it felt like a cruel lie to say nothing with so much in my heart. I want them to see me. But all at once, I don’t want things to change.
How much longer could it last? How much longer could they bear it? Being locked away from knowing who their family really is.
It was in an instant, a now or never moment. A whirlpool appeared within my head, a storm with never-ending hail crushing my brain. My lungs suddenly shrunk, barely able to contain a full breath before exhaling it. My hands, my hands never shook harder. The hail melted in my head and began coming out my eyes, tears. My voice trembled and came out in non-understandable garbage. And then-
I told my mother I was a trans man, and that my name was Raúl.
During my rambling, trying to talk my way into comfort, her eyes never left mine. She listened, and I thought I could hear her heart pounding harder and harder. Her eyes matched mine, filled with rain from the storm, though hers with an air of understanding. This was a real conversation about it. No beating around the bush, no more pretending. In that moment, I think we both really saw each other for the first time.
I saw my mother, a woman built from stone and hugs, who could never carry hatred in her heart. And she saw me, her child, terrified of being broken.
She asked me questions, some I didn’t yet have an answer to.
She told me she loves me, and that nothing could change that fact. And suddenly, the storm broke. My heart felt more at ease, like it had been given permission to beat again. She joked, “You picked a new name that’s just as hard to read as your old one”, and I laughed. My first conversation with my mother.
I feel that was the day I lived. She told my father, h He helps me pick new clothes to wear and nitpicks at my hair. He taught me to shave my weak little mustache, and tells me he loves me. I’m his favorite son now.
My sister, who I had told weeks prior, flexed in the rest of the family that she already had the insider info. She helps me pick out clothes, and style my hair properly. She calls me her little brother, I think she’s the best sister in the entire world (that is not up for debate whatsoever).
I sent a long, long message to my tia, telling her who I am. She told me she had to reread the message a few times before responding. “Tu tia te ama”, she said. She thanked me, and made sure I knew how loved I was. My tio and my cousins took time to greet me by my name. And I felt that storm break further, my heart swelled.
My mother told me abuelita and other tio, they hug me when they see me. My abuelita tries her very best to remember my name, though occasionally I’m Roberto in her eyes. It doesn’t even matter, she took time to learn more about me. She said she would keep me in her prayers, as while I experience this joy, the world grows more terrifying to live freely in.
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The moment I told my mother, I thought about this, how the world would be just as difficult in a different way now. Some people hate that I exist, they hate the way I live. It scares me, it’s hard to wake up sometimes and see the newest addition of hatred on Senate floors. The stares I get when I go out, the constant questioning from strangers.
“Will you be doing this? What about this surgery? You don’t dress-”
But then I recall that moment, and the many moments after where I felt seen. My friends, my family, the people who truly matter in this lifetime. I think how lucky I am, how impossibly lucky I am to say they have accepted me.
This is living, I can live now.
They ask me questions, I have the answers to them now.