I wasn't especially concerned about my gender for much of my childhood; I was more focused on extending the androgynous state I felt myself in as long as possible. Our family moved to a house sort of in the country when I was six, and I got a dog when I was eight, so I spent a lot of time roaming the woods and fields with my new best friend. This cemented my desire to live my adult life in the country, and probably didn't help my social skills very much. The pattern arose that when my family or unhappiness got too much to handle, I would set out for the woods. This pattern continues today, only now it's more likely to be the desert and on a mountain bike. It took almost four decades to get over gender. These days I feel like, "gender-- what's that?" But the older I get, the more I want to be outside. The fear of trying new things died much earlier than my preoccupation with gender. I've come full circle to that wide-eyed, androgynous state.
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