Age 7

Look at that stance. Total tomboy at age 7 in my friend Paul's school jacket and winter coat.
Need I say more about the origins of my tomboyhood?

Retreat A'hoy

We leave for our retreat on Wednesday morning. The primary goal of this retreat is to discuss our future, our future with a capital F, future. Future means jobs, commitment ceremony, family, houses, school, etc.

I am 35 and if I want to bear a child I need to hurry up. There is no doubt in my mind that I want to be a parent, I have been clear on that for a long time. What I have not been clear on is the idea of being the biological mother.

I am a tomboy...still, even at 35. I have been tomboy through and through my whole life. My favorite Christmas ever I got a wheel barrow, a drum kit and a giant tractor. I have always climbed trees, played sports, ridden bikes, and had short hair (and for the brief times when my hair was long, I was absolutely miserable). I've been called sir more times than I care to remember. I even got beat up once because a neigborhood bully thought I was a boy and since it was ok to beat up boys, he kicked the crap out of me.

I have never wanted to be a boy, the closest I came was wishing for some intersexed blend of boy and girl where I would have male anatomy on top and female anatomy on bottom (this to assure that breasts would never grow and then proceed to get in my way when I was playing ball). I was so angry on my 13th birthday and the corollary approach of puberty, I threw a fit at the receipt of pantyhose from my grandmother. For me, 13 symbolized the death of freedom and the onset of a life filled with make-up, heels and bodily changes of which I wanted no part.

Somehow I made it through 13 and high school and then college and in the midst of all the gender confusion I found myself comfortable in a lesbian identity. Now, as I am getting ever closer to that scary word "middle aged," and I have a wonderful partner and am thinking about starting a family, I am coming ever closer that dreaded decision. To carry or not.

And thus, this journey begins...