I coined a phrase for my own gender identity when I was five years old. I used to like dolls, tea sets, and playing pat-a-cake with girls instead of playing with boys. I liked talking about my thoughts and feelings more than most boys. I was slightly effeminate — sometimes more than others. A girl I was playing and talking with one day in a far corner of the playground at school asked me why I was that way. This is what I said:
“You know how some girls are tomboys? Well I guess you could call me a marygirl.”
Like many tomboys I outgrew that and became more typical of my physical gender; i.e., more masculine, but I’m proud of my ability at that age to give voice to how I felt, and even to normalize it. Other boys called me a sissy when I skipped down the halls singing, but I rejected that label and the pain that came with it, and declared my identity with a label of my own.
Were you / are you a marygirl? Is your son / nephew / grandson a marygirl? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
I’m writing about this not to brag but to share something positive. I flew out of town on business today, and I had an aisle seat I as usually do. When I sat down, the woman in the middle seat to my right was talking to her elderly mother in the middle seat across the aisle. So that she and her mother could keep each other company more easily – and honestly also so that she wouldn’t have to talk over me (my motives were not entirely altruistic) — I suggested that perhaps whoever had the aisle seat next to her mother could take my aisle seat, and I could take her middle seat so she could sit next to her mother. The man who originally had the aisle seat next to her mother was just as happy to take my aisle seat, so it all worked out. As I got up to leave the plane, she said “I wrote you a little thank-you note” and handed it to me. It read:
Thank you, Kindest of Strangers! My mom and I haven’t ventured out and about in more than a year. She was motivated to travel today to my daughters wedding. Thank you for caring about her comfort on this trip. All the best to you on your trip.
Safe travels,
Darla
It was a little thing for me, but it made a big difference to these two women on their very special day. I was taught in the Cub Scouts to do one good deed every day, or “Do a good turn daily” (Scouts slogan). I’ve tried to live up to this if not for others, then for myself— not to boast but just to feel okay about who I am. I’ll never forget what someone once told a group I was in: “Self-esteem is built by doing esteemable acts.” (The English major in me knows that esteemable should probably be estimable, but esteemable goes with esteem, so there you have it.) A person like me who has struggled with self-esteem his whole life understands that doing good deeds is like forgiving: it helps the giver as much as — or more than — it helps the recipient.
Again, I’m not bragging. I’m writing about this because doing this one little thing made more of a difference than I could have imagined to the people I showed kindness to, and because that kindness was repaid so graciously, and those thanks felt so good. So, next time you have a chance to do a good deed, do it! It might just make your day as much as it makes someone else’s.
Daniel Greene 