Please Delete All Memories Where I’m Not a Boy

Please Delete All Memories Where I’m Not a Boy

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Tell us if there’s a specific date or date range that you’d rather not see in your memories. —Facebook

I would rather not see November 18, 2008, the day I faceplanted on the sidewalk after school and snow surged up my kitten mittens and stung my wrists so deeply that tears froze the corners of my eyes as I stumbled home. My mother draped the mittens over the towel rack in the downstairs bathroom, directly over the heating vent, but the purple wool was still soggy the next morning when my brother and I were ready to leave. Casting about in the winter drawer, I found my father’s black leather gloves and put them on; they were so large I could make fists inside them, the fingers flapping free. On the walk to school I felt my shoulders broaden and harden. My steps felt sturdier, the imprints of my boots so snug in the snow that I knew I would not slip and fall. Instead of bone china, I was brick. When I got home, my mother said my father’s gloves were too big and handed me my still-damp mittens, and I was back to bone. 

I would rather not see December 24, 2010, in the scratchy tulle dress with sparkling snowflakes chosen for me to wear to the family Christmas Eve party at my great-grandmother’s always-sweltering house, the party no one liked where reeking uncles hugged you and aunts looked ready to jump out windows and dozens of cousins you never saw gazed shyly or sullenly at one another, plates precariously balanced on thighs, eating meals that consisted entirely of cookies. Rowdy boy cousins were eventually sent to the basement to wrestle while girl cousins suffered with the adults, perched on wobbly card table chairs and answering questions about favorite subjects in school, lips smeared with powdered sugar. I sat with my knees pressed together. I had on four pairs of underwear, because I did not like how air slipped effortlessly under the hem of the sparkly dress and traveled unhindered up my calves and thighs. I felt exposed—the air had eyes, and hands—so I’d added the extra layers of protection. Still, I squeezed my legs together with such force, and for so long, that I grew dizzy, and in the stifling house and having eaten nothing but cookies, felt my mind erupt from my skull like a startled bird. I tipped out of my chair and the next thing I recall I was on the floor, the dress at my waist, the adults standing and silent and my mother kneeling beside me, fear in her face as she smoothed down my skirt. Are you all right? she asked. 

I would rather not see April 1, 2006, when I put on my brother’s football uniform for April Fools and asked my mother, “Do I look like a boy now?” and she said, “Oh, you’re much too pretty to be a boy.” 

I would rather not see June 4, 2011, trapped in a Kohl’s dressing room with eight swimming suits while my mother waited quietly just outside. I’d chosen the suits from the racks myself, so they were the best of the worst—one piece, black or navy, high neck, wide straps. My back to the mirror, I stepped cautiously into each leg hole, shimmied the suit over my hips, hooked it over my shoulders, and then turned for a quick glance, averting my eyes from my reflected face so I could pretend the body I saw was not connected to the person who looked like me. Still, mid-turn, each time, there was a glimmer of hope tucked inside the dread—perhaps this one would not look so strange?—and each time the glimmer was snuffed. After I tried on all eight I thought of my mother on the other side of the door, her anticipation thick enough to taste, and I lowered my expectations and tried each of them on again. When I finally emerged, all the suits strewn limp on the floor behind me, I found my mother seated inside the triangle of mirrors, reflected to infinity. 

I would rather see October 31sts. All of them. Show me my hair tucked into a cowboy hat. Show me Buzz Lightyear and the Red Power Ranger. Show me Jack Sparrow, my chin dotted with drawn-on stubble. Show me Captain America, the top half of my face hidden by the blue mask, my mouth bent into the determined grimace I practiced every afternoon in the bathroom mirror. Show me the day, the only day I ever loved getting dressed, breakfast in costume, walk to school in costume, math in costume, lunch in costume, music in costume, party in costume, playground in costume, pizza in costume at home before trick-or-treat. And then the greatest prize: blocks and blocks of front doors opening in the dark, neighbors who didn’t recognize me, moms and dads I’d known my whole life, their eyes passing over me, just another boy in a superhero costume, the old lady on the corner who said, “Look at him!” and her husband, who, shuffling forward, said, “Lemme get a peek at that shield, fella.” Show me, show me, in my pajamas but still masked, in bed, body concealed under covers, looking out my open window at the slivered moon when my door eased open and my mother slipped in. I knew she was going to tell me to take off the mask to sleep, but instead she leaned down and touched her lips to my blue forehead. “Sleep well, Captain America,” she whispered.