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Willow didn't understand why the Hexside graduation ceremony felt so… off to her. She was so proud of all her hard work on the plant track and was so excited to continue studying plant magic at the University of Wild Magic. In her heart, she knew this is what she wanted, what she loved. She wouldn't want it any other way.
The ceremony was really great too. Graduating at the same time Amity (with Luz and Vee graduating from the Human Realm around the same time) was absolutely wonderful. Her friendship with Amity has really grown over the past few years, despite a few hiccups here and there. Gus and Hunter attended the graduation too, of course. And Boscha managed to not be an asshole to her!
In truth, she thought it was an absolutely wonderful graduation ceremony. She was so proud of herself and all her friends and could hardly believe that graduation day was finally here!
But despite all this, despite all these good things, something still felt so wrong when she was alone in her bedroom that night.
Willow hated admitting to herself how much she hated being alone with herself. She wasn't sure why everything always felt so off about her, why she always felt like a fake person who fell apart when no eyes were on her.
She felt herself fall apart in front of her very eyes when she looked in the mirror, wearing a dress she picked out herself to wear that day. It wasn't that she didn't recognize herself that terrified her, it was that she did recognize herself.
Who even was she? She felt like a stranger to herself, lost in the void. She felt numb. Her body was frozen. Nothing felt real to her.
She wanted to cry, but she didn't know why.
What was wrong with her?!
A single tear fell from her eye. She felt like a fake. She tried so hard to be happy, to make the most out of the cards she was dealt. She found plant magic, she found friends, and she loved her dads so much. So many people would be so happy to be in her position, so why couldn't she just be grateful and appreciate it?!
Willow had tried so many times to just get rid of this pain in her soul that scratched at her insides. That feeling that she wasn't being authentic and needed to find a way to express her "true self", whatever that meant.
It didn't make a lot of sense to her. It made even less sense that whenever she tried to find her "true self" that she felt even more isolated from herself than when she started.
She was getting ahead of herself again, caught in a nasty spiral of thoughts trying to "fix" herself. She hated how much she wanted to "fix" herself but she knew it wasn't natural for someone to feel so disconnected from themselves like she did.
Even things like Flyer Derby, friendships, and help with her mental health help didn't get rid of this awful feeling. Honestly, that made her feel even worse, the fact that things so good didn't even help a little bit with getting rid of this awful depressive feeling.
Willow silently cried herself to sleep that night, sleeping in the dress because she couldn't bear the emotional pain she got from changing clothes. She kept these painful feelings to herself just like she always did.
As she fell asleep, she wondered if there was even a possibility for her to feel better and heal this awful pain.
·•—–٠✤٠—–•·
Willow hated getting out of bed in the morning. She always did, even if being in bed felt awful. Something about it never got better, even when she actively tried to make it so.
With classes over, Willow didn't really have any plans today besides hanging out with Amity in the afternoon. That incentive alone kept her from rotting in bed for another.
Her mind was in such a haze. Even though she slept relatively well, she still felt all numb and dissociated from the thought of having to get dressed. Willow always hated getting dressed for some reason.
She puts on her headphones and starts playing some her favorite music to make having to get dressed a little more bearable. As she works through getting ready for the day, she thinks about how frustrating having to deal with the awful feeling really is, and how great it would be if it could just go away.
"I think half my problems would be gone if I looked like a guy" she thinks to herself without a second thought.
She stops in her tracks. Did she really mean that?!
There's no way Willow could not be a girl! She had questioned her gender before, even identifying as genderqueer for a while with some online friends, but she realized that she was probably just a girl. It was easier to just be a girl.
Willow didn't really love being a girl, but she didn't hate it either. It was fine. Same with her name. She enjoyed the plant connections with her name but she always felt a little uncomfortable when people said her name. But who didn't have mixed feeling about their name! Surely this was all normal cisgender feelings, right? Right?!
She looks at herself in the mirror, realizing why she's always felt so off about her appearance.
Holy shit. She has gender dysphoria.
Well that explains a lot!!!