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When I was younger, I grew up in a Greek family, which meant that for me, every time I wanted to express myself in the way I felt comfortable, they told me that it's not like a boy, and that I shouldn't act that way. From using my hands to speak, to not being able to act the way I wanted.
A few years went by and I got severely bullied throughout it. Until someday when my sister and her friend dressed me in feminine attire. At that moment, due to me being somewhat childish, I told them I didn't like it.
After that day, whenever my parents weren't home and I got off from school, I'd always dress femininely by taking the clothes that my sister didn't often use, and always putting them back the way I found them. I'd always be listening to the sounds of the cars that I knew by heart. And if I heard the door opening, just from how the door closes I knew who arrived.
It was my way of being close to the real me. It was like feeling comfortable in my own skin, but due to my parents being Christian Orthodox I felt the need to hide from that side of myself, but it kept on coming back. When I was at the age where I first discovered about trans kids that came out on Dutch TV, I always used to think: Damn, they have some guts, I wish I could be as brave as them and be myself. But due to growing up in an abusive household that wasn't the case.
My family is Greek, and every summer vacation me and my sister went to Greece to see my family at the camping and my childhood friends. Since I was 8 months old my family would go to Greece. I would always stay there in a place called Camping Afroditi — as in the Greek goddess αφροδίτη — at first for half a year and then every summer vacation from school for 3 months each year.
I still have some memories of my time there, but the true emotions I still have of my younger days there were things such as playing cards, or having a massive water balloon fight with the entire camping. Or going to my family in the city and hanging out with my cousins.
But the memories I still feel to this day are memories like how I wanted to use the female verb of a word — in Greece you have male and female ways to pronounce someone's assigned pronouns. And when I said something in a feminine manner I got told I wasn't supposed to say it like that, and that we always had gender neutral toilets. The showers were separated of course, but I still remember how I always wanted to use the female showers, not for anything perverted, but more because I didn't feel comfortable in the male ones.
A few years went by and I still was running away from my true feelings. To the point where I wrote a song about it:
I am sitting by myself, thinking what I'll do,
I just want to realise what I'll do when she lies.
I know when she tries to hide, her real feelings are not right,
She tries to play pretend, but I know she wants to try.
Her mind just wants to hide, but she just wants to cry,
When she tries to realise, she doubts her own mind,
And yes she is in doubt, yes she is in pain,
She said she was alright but that was a mistake,
She thought she could just run, away from all the pain,
But now she feels alone, with no one else to blame.
And she just walks away, and our feelings are the same, she tries to play pretend,
But all she does is run away, she thought she could just run away from all the pain,
But she knows who she is, and tried to find her way.
Her way to be herself, her way to be saved
Her way to show herself through the pain and through dismay.
She tries to run away, from her feelings from her ways,
She said she is in doubt, she said she is in pain,
She thought she could just run, away from all the pain,
But now she feels alone, with no one else to blame.
All she tries to do is hide, she doesn't want to lie, about her troubles about her loss,
About her troubles that she's got, but all she tries to do, is not to worry us.
Which was my way of telling myself that I'm a woman and if I don't embrace it, I will never be truly happy.
Now a few years later I'm 22 years old, and I've built up a huge friend group where I'm allowed to be myself without anyone being bothered by it. My music is my own way of understanding my own emotions, so whenever a thought or an idea comes to mind, write it down. So you can better understand yourself.
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