The Life I Might Have Lived

Would my life be better if I didn't drop out of high school? If I didn't take SSRIs and Zyprexa as a teen? If I worked hard to learn and refine my craft (or crafts) from the beginning instead of wasting my time on infatuations, lies, anger, politics, etc?

Well, all I know is I'm still here living in a one-bedroom apartment with my mother at 37 years old. I'm still suffering from chronic pelvic pain syndrome (AKA pelvic floor dysfunction). I'm fatter than I've ever been (except for when I was on Zyprexa in 2007). I feel unhealthy. I definitely need to exercise more.

I was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia and my mother immigrated to Canada with me when I was about 7 months old. I was raised in Edmonton, but I first started to realize I was more attracted to other males when I lived in Red Deer and Wetaskiwin.

Puberty started for me when I was around 11 years old in Red Deer. A drawing in a magazine of a mostly nude guy with a towel was almost like soft core porn for me. I definitely liked looking at it. Likewise, a picture of naked ancient Greek men running in a (picture) book about Greece was also something I stared at (in the car) until my mother's boyfriend said they were gay.

Nevertheless, in Wetaskiwin, I tried to imagine myself being married to a woman. Yet when I was at school I found myself attracted to a boy in the same grade as me. When I thought about this in bed at night, I fell asleep with tears in my eyes.

Another boy in my class, who had blond hair and at the time seemed like the type to get into more trouble than me, said, "Your face looks like a girl's. Girls don't like that." I honestly don't remember it bothering me much or what I said in response.

About a year earlier, a girl with curly brown hair in Red Deer asked me, "Would you ever get a sex change?" I answered her with a "No," of course, yet I also don't remember it bothering me at the time.

I also remember all the times when I had to wait in a bookstore or in the car while my mother and her boyfriend would gamble at casinos. One time, I tried to draw a picture of a naked woman, although I probably liked drawing a picture of a naked man more.

I thought my best friendships were in Edmonton in Grade 4 (before we had to move to Red Deer because of my "stepdad's" work). Then we moved back to Edmonton when I was in the middle of Grade 6. I don't think it was until Grade 6 that other students would sometimes really taunt, mock, or make fun of me by saying or insinuating that I'm gay. In Grade 6, it was only one or two boys as far as I can remember.

A Chinese-Canadian girl in my class (who, like me, was also born outside Canada) said that they were "taunting" me and judged me for not knowing what that word meant.

I remember near the end of the school year, one of the girls in our class said she saw the boy (who had homophobically mocked me before) kissing another boy. The teacher made a joke about how he should show him some magazines with naked women.

A show I used to like to watch at the time was Passions. I remember talking a bit about soap operas like Passions and Days of Our Lives with a girl, and an adult female/authority figure said we shouldn't watch chick flicks.