Sad songs

Gender isn't always at the forefront of my mind, contrary to what you might think from reading this blog. There are times when it matters less. Sometimes, especially if I'm focused on a particular task, I can forget about it altogether. This happened the other day at work. Which, of course, was nice.

It didn't last very long, though. Without really thinking about it, I started humming a tune, as I often do when I'm working. Then I started singing the words to it, again without really thinking about what they were.

The problem is, the song happened to be For Today I am a Boy, by Antony and the Johnsons. And the words I started singing were:

One day I'll grow up, and I'll be a beautiful woman
One day I'll grow up, and I'll be a beautiful girl
But for today I am a child
For today I am a boy

Well... crap. So much for not thinking about it. I was pretty bummed out the rest of the day.

I've got to hand it to Antony Hegarty, though. He* is very good at capturing a certain mournful feeling that can come with living in not-quite-the-right gender.

Oh gosh. Now I just listened to this song again and I'm actually crying.

So... just to balance things out a bit, I'll add that I had a great weekend hanging out with friends and with my brother and sister-in-law. It's not all bad! :)

*He prefers male pronouns, even though he doesn't identify as male.