Stepping Out of the Orange Truck

A Metaphor of Transness

A recent dream: I’m driving an orange truck. Why is it orange? The truck I really drive is blue. Hard to say. But I’m driving an orange truck. I make a turn. It’s familiar. It’s “the way to go,” isn’t it? It’s a little tight. Will the truck fit? It has to climb this step and squeeze through this odd rectangular hole in the cement wall. It’s not until I’m sufficiently – and problematically – stuck that I remember... This isn’t “the way to go” when driving. It’s how I go when I’m walking and can climb wherever I want. So why did I try it in the truck?

It was a weird dream. One of those casual nightmares that wasn’t really so bad but was still a great relief to wake up from. I knew exactly what inspired it too. You see, just recently (March 1) I finally had top-surgery - and I’d like to appreciatively note it was only a $10 copay with my family’s insurance! I had this dream the night following the day of my week 1 post-operative appointment in which the surgeon told me I was clear to drive. Healing has been going very well, but I still didn’t quite feel up to getting behind a wheel; still, I guess my subconscious was interested in the fact that I was technically permitted.

I didn’t immediately give the dream any significance, but it was vivid enough that I described it in a flash writing exercise the next morning and a mentor of mine suggested I could put it to further use. I gave it some thought, and I think she was right. I’ve realized there’s a neat metaphor wrapped inside this idea of that orange truck.

Here’s the thing about being trans, speaking for myself anyway. It’s not so much that I was ‘trapped in the wrong body,’ or even that every moment of my pre-transition life was particularly uncomfortable. Especially before realizing I was trans and non-binary, I wouldn’t have told you there was anything wrong at all. It’s just that these moments in life come up where you try to fit somewhere – a social thing, perhaps, or a type of outfit – and looking at it from a distance it feels so natural that you should just walk right up to it and slip perfectly into place, but then you get there and it’s uncomfortable. The world pushes back. You don’t fit right, and it’s hard to explain why that doesn’t make any sense to you inside.

Or, perhaps, you show up in some group and they welcome you with eager smiles and open arms, saying you’re just like them and they can’t wait to bring you into their unique conversations. You smile, because they’re being nice, but you feel so out of place and, again, before you know why, it feels impossible to explain the reason.

But here’s a way to explain it. At birth, we are strapped into this car and told to drive everywhere. Not knowing any better, we obey. For so long, we continue that way, not strutting through the world on our feet, shoulders back and chin held high, but sitting, seatbelt fastened, driving this clunky orange truck. Of course we don’t fit through that hole that looks just our size, because we’re trying to bring this enormous orange shell with us.

Other times we drive into a parking lot and all the other cars flash their lights and honk their horns to tell us we’re in the right place. We recognize of course that we’re all driving the same type of car, but that doesn’t mean anyone out there is seeing the person who’s driving it.

The secret to the happiest life for us is in figuring out how to step out of the orange truck. The answer may lay in fashion, mannerisms, speech patters, names, surgeries, or any number of things depending on the individual. I expect it is a life-long journey, and one which is complicated by the fact that the deed to that orange truck is forever in our name. We can hide it or celebrate it, but it will be there either way. The best-case scenario is nuanced and knotty as it is without even considering the growing mass of politicians – and their supporters – who are trying to shove trans people forcibly into their orange trucks, child-lock the doors, and smash the key fob that can open it into a million bits. I’ve been lucky enough that none of them have gotten in my way.

I’m at the very beginning of my journey. The first thing I realized about my gender, roughly three years ago now, was that whatever it was, it needed to get top surgery. I could cut my hair, change my clothes, get on testosterone, change my name, and that would all help, but the shirts wouldn’t fit right, and I’d still have to deal with these intrusive things on my chest morning after morning after morning. Post-surgery, my mornings can finally be about simply welcoming the sun to another day. I’ve put a lot of work into getting out of my orange truck – put it in park, took out the key, even took off my seatbelt – but now it finally feels like I’ve opened the door, and it is thrilling. I feel like a cat dashing out of its carrier and discovering I can climb trees (although slowly and carefully so as not to rip my stitches).

Sometimes, the most exciting stories are the ones we get to make out of our own lives. Our orange trucks might be the central conflict and they might just be exposition; either way, I am very excited to read my next chapter.