A Bit of Self Discovery

The summer just before I turned 10, I discovered that there were cool ‘nature’ things to be found in my Indianapolis suburban neighborhood. The creek down the street had crayfish that could be caught in a bucket, inspected for days, and then returned relatively unharmed when my mom discovered them in the garage. I found large grasshoppers were plentiful and easy to catch. They became the subjects of many scientific experiments that would take hours of my time. The corn fields behind my home were explored until my mom forbad me from going in because of her fears that I’d become lost. I also discovered an empty lot where I could find fossils if I sifted through the gravel that covered the ground. It was like discovering buried treasure. Whole afternoons slipped by as I found brachiopods, bryophytes, and crinoids emerging from stone.

One may wonder if I had any friends along on these adventures. The answer is no. I didn’t have close friends at that age. Girls were odd. I couldn’t relate to the things they found interesting. Boys my age would let me hang around them when they had nothing else to do, but they didn’t want to be seen hanging out with a girl too much. I didn’t find either of these issues too disturbing, however. I had no problem keeping myself entertained, and my mom, busy with my 5 younger siblings, was happy to let me roam free.

That summer sticks out in my memory in many ways, but the most important is an ‘a-ha’ moment I had towards the end of summer. I was walking down the road barefoot late one afternoon doing a bit of self analysis. I had spent almost the entire summer able to follow my own interests and think my own thoughts. One thought that came up regularly was my ever present feeling of being male. Up to that point, I couldn’t explain why I felt male, but had a female body. Suddenly, an idea occurred to me. What if my body was female, but my brain was male?

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this was the best explanation I had for the way I felt. I didn’t share it with anyone. Who would believe me? My mom would have said something like, “Heavenly Father didn’t work that way.” Instead, I just kept the idea in the back of my mind. It was a bit of self discovery that would help later as I worked to know and accept myself fully.