gymbunnycandiehart:Seek OpportunityLet me be a little forward.  Tonight (a few hours before I w

gymbunnycandiehart:

Seek Opportunity

Let me be a little forward.  Tonight (a few hours before I wrote this 4/23/21), i got the call.  My father has passed away.  We’ve been expecting this call for some time now.  He hasn’t always been in the best of health.  It stings, but it’s also a relief.  He’s been miserable for way too long.

What is it about death that causes one to reflect?  I can’t help it.  I must, i guess.  At least to get some feelings out there.  So, here you go.  I attribute much of my girly desires to my father.  He was never a man’s man, but he was never girly either.  I’d say that he was rather average and a good man.  But it was what he did that I attribute much of my girliness to.  He was a tailor–and a damn fine one at that.  He spent probably 50 plus years altering clothes and tailoring suits and dresses.  As a result, I was surrounded by clothing and fashion my entire life.  Add to the fact that my mother was a beautician and I jokingly say that I’ve been fashioned to be starched, pressed, hemmed, and primmed for femininity.  Yes, I know.  A man can know his way around clothing and sewing machines and not be inclined to be feminine.  But there are sons of these men, who while being surrounded by beautiful dresses and feminine finery, can, as in my case, find themselves drawn to want to be beautiful.

So, opportunity?  My father proved to me that it’s okay for a man to do what would be considered by many as a “woman’s job.”  Understand: He was a man who started a career in sewing during the late 60′s in a really small conservative town in the south.  He was first a shoe designer in a factory.  Then, he learned how to do alterations from my grandmother who made suits in a factory.  And that’s what he has been doing ever since.  He almost made it to 80, and right now, there is a pile of prom dresses in my parent’s basement, waiting on someone else to now alter them and prepare them.  He demonstrated that opportunities are not gender inclusive, that I can be who I need to be, that I can embrace something that might seem out of the ordinary–even for my male gender.

I really don’t know where I’ll end up on the spectrum of girliness.  As you know, I have a family and great security without being really open about my girliness.  I don’t regret the life I have.  But I do want to say to you who are younger: seek out your opportunities to be feminine if that’s what your heart says to do.  Push against the stereotypes and be you for you.

Maybe this is as much for me as it is for any of you.  Thank you for letting me spill a few words before you.  Just so we are clear, I have no intentions of ripping my shirt open during the funeral and showing off my red bra as in the Wings episode, but you can be sure that I will be internally grateful that my father has shown me that I can be who I need to be as long as I seek the opportunity for it.

Much love to you, girlies.  Make sure that you tell those you love that you love them.

CandieHart

Such a beautiful story, Candie, and a good message.  We’re made up of the collected sum of our experiences and the more varied and colorful those are, the more interesting and dynamic and we can grow to be as a person.  While some opportunities don’t pan out as well as others, it’s wise to be mindful of when they come a’knockin’.

I’m sorry to hear about your father.  My own died before I came out to my family and I really don’t know what he would have thought.  He worked in a STEM field and over the course of my childhood he nurtured my ability to observe from outside of myself and challenge my own assumptions.  I think it helped me learn to see “outside of the box” or in this case “outside of the closet”.

I can’t give any advice on grief except to say that though my Dad’s left he world, he’s never really left me.  We all carry a part of the people we love with us.