#and I don’t wanna be accidentally flooding the tags with this either whwnsmoslaoqkm

[toonjazzy]

I am Not Perfect

Told in Devon’s point of view.

I have never been a perfect daughter. I’m more of a son most the time than a daughter anyway. But either way I’m not perfect at all. My mom was often judged by other moms or even her own family because of me. Because I would try to be perfect like everyone said I should be but I would fuck it up and then cry as people would talk about my mother rudely. But my mom would tell me “It’s Okay Mi rayito de Sol, you tried your best and your best is enough” But even though it made me feel better, I still wished to be like “Pretty Perfect little Reese Bianca” and “Señorita Perfecta Sicillia”, or even Stacey who got away with everything because she’s cute. But no matter what, I was never perfect like I wanted to be.

As a child, I was told by my own cousins that I was “Too much to handle”. They hated my high energy, that I was always smiling, that I would go from a “Nice quiet little girl” to an “Angry She-Demon”. I was so confused, I wasn’t allowed to be happy, sad, or angry? Did they want me to be emotionless? They were a bunch of assholes to be honest, to all of us, or even to our other cousins! There were 4 of them, Courtney, Crimson, Lola, and Deidre. The only one who was never actually mean was Crimson, they were more quiet and always apologizing whenever their sisters would be mean to us as kids. But man the bullshit that came out of their sisters’ mouths…

They were just AWFUL, they were Heteronormative, Cisnormative, and Amatonormative. And GUESS who were the Queer ones, me, my sisters, and Harley. Man they messed us up so much…Pretty much all they did was talk about boys and other shit that really made us uncomfy. Poor Lia and Harley, they often got dragged into it because as I said before, they saw Lia as “Señorita Perfecta Sicillia” so they of course let her into their little “Club”, but they wouldn’t allow her to leave. And Harley got dragged in because her and Lia were inseparable, Lia felt more safer if Harley was with her as they understood her. Also, Lia actually was never “perfect”, she was just better at masking than I was which is also why she was diagnosed late. Also our cousins did not know that her paper doll games were often murder games when we were at home—

Ah, I’m getting off track again, sorry. So…Playing with dolls was kind of strange around them. We had Gay couples, all we had were Girl dolls so we made those date each other. They thought it was strange…That wasn’t all, I sometimes made Polycules with my dolls and they told me “You can only date one person, you are supposed to date one person at a time until you find ‘The One’ and then marry them, have a family, and live happily ever after, and then it repeats because that’s how life works” ………EW!! Like, what the actual fuck!?!? That is just straight up bullshit! It is not my fucking top priority to date someone, never has been! Even though I do kind of want a relationship, why should I rush things!?!? And why am I limited to one!?!? Why is it called “The One”!? I don’t want just one when I could actually also have another one! Like…The Fuck kinda world do they live in!?!

And honestly it wasn’t just them who say this bullshit, a lot of people did and it just shattered my little heart. And also another thing…Gender Roles…Burn them to Hell…Since I am unfortunately AFAB I had a lot of problems growing up, some people told me that I couldn’t make a single mistake or I would be a disgrace on the Family. And they said I was too emotional because I was a girl. My mom however was always one to say “Fuck Gender Roles”, and she grew up in like the 80s-90s where Gender Roles were even worse! The more I think about it, the more I realize that my dad’s side of the family didn’t really like my mom and always judged her. They said she was a bad mother for letting me wear “Boy shirts” or letting us watch “Boy movies”. Like seriously, they judged her for something so stupid like that, also…I am pretty sure they thought something was wrong with her for being Neurodivergent too…

Not so fun fact, Guys, Gals, and Nonbinary Pals: Latino Families tend to be kind of toxic sometimes and some of them leave their family members behind if they “Weren’t perfect” which also included being Neurodivergent. For years, Autism has been misunderstood for so many things. People thought it meant that you were disabled which actually is not true at all! Autism is also not fucking caused by Vaccines either, that was proven to be false a LONG LONG time ago. And we are also not exactly the same, we have different symptoms, it’s a spectrum. Look at me and Lia, we’re both Autistic but we don’t really have the exact same symptoms. And yet we are just ignored, rejected, seen as burdens. My Tía Désirée even told me how people used to be annoyed with my mom and see her as an embarrassment when she was kid because she had Autism and ADHD like me. She also told me that people often tried finding reasons to get my Father to stop dating her and they would say “She’s Autistic” or “She’s not ladylike” or “People will judge you if you have a girlfriend who is taller than you” Luckily, my father never listened to them and told everyone to fuck off and that he loved her the way she was, awwww…

Whenever I feel bad, I remember how my mom used to tell me I didn’t need to be perfect. I would always hug her and just felt safer when she was around. And I would remember how she understood me because she went through the same thing as a kid and would tell me her experiences. I miss my mother still…I wish she were here so I could hug her again and listen to her talk…but in the end I know, she isn’t really gone as long as I remember her. Hearing my Tías and Tíos talk about her makes it seem like she’s there with us again. And I remember she wasn’t perfect either, she tried her best and it was enough, we all loved her anyway. She wasn’t perfect, my sisters aren’t perfect, nobody in the world is perfect, and neither am I. I am not Perfect and that’s okay!