When I was a boy

This post title comes from a great song by songstress Dar Williams. It was pointed out to me several years ago by my sister that this song perfectly describes me as a child. Here is an eerily familiar stanza:

I was a kid that you would like, just a small boy on her bike

Riding topless, yeah, I never cared who saw.

My neighbor came outside to say, "Get your shirt,"I said "No way,

it's the last time I'm not breaking any law."

I remember wishing I had been born a boy. My closest neighbors were two boys, Rustin and Brandon Banks. Brandon and I formed the quinticenntial boy/girl best friendship as children. My only complaint ever was that Brandon cried too much. I was jealous of his toys and ability to only wear pajama pants to bed with no shirt. . . lucky. Of course that didn't stop me from trying, a fact that I think still bothers my mom. On Saturdays, we would get together to trade baseball cards and look up their value in a Beckett. I still own many of my Nolan Ryans, Bo Jacksons, and Mark McGuires from the early 90s. Then we were off to set up bike jumps off his deck, or race remote-control cars in the driveway. I even received an MVP award for my role as catcher on my all boys Baseball team in 4th grade. Ahh, being a boy was awesome.

(Brandon and I on the 1st day of school, as well as me as a young man)

What really boggles my mind is when I decided to become a girl??? Brandon had moved a few years earlier, and currently my best friend of choice was a very feminine girl named Claudia. (We are still friends, I was her maid of honor 3 years ago.) It would seem that I was undergoing a traditional Vada Sultenfuss ("My Girl" reference) transformation, but not really. It wasn't until my entrance into 7th grade that I made any significant strides into womanhood. I wore a skort (skirt/short combo) on the first day of junior high and voila, I liked "No Doubt," and "Alanis Morrisette," along with every other teenage girl in the universe. How odd.

Granted, I've never fully been able to shake my boyish interests. I played Softball (an acceptable girl alternative to Baseball, but tends to foster same-sex tendencies) and Basketball in high school. Much to my sister's disapproval, I get along with my brother-in-laws swimmingly. And, I enjoy working outside to cooking a meal.

Here are a few remnants of the "old me" that is still very alive in Chelsey 2.0: