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“Well” I thought to myself, “it worked”. It was odd, just a moment before I had been feeling so incredibly happy and now here I was in the depths of depression.

“I finally managed to become the woman I’ve always wanted to be and here it has just fucked my life all out of recognition.” I said these words to the image of the teenager in the mirror.

“Omygod, he’s gonna freak when he gets home and sees this waiting for him. I can’t be any older than 17 and here I am waiting for my husband of 21 years to get home and see me. What the fuck am I gonna do? He’s never gonna believe that I’m me.!”

I had no idea, but less than 2 minutes after having managed to change myself into a woman, I was curled up on the bed drenching a pillow with my tears. At the crucial moment, I hadn’t believed it was going to work and I was prepared for an altogether different variety of emotional devastation, but at least that one was familiar, like probing a loosened tooth with your tongue.

Now I was stuck with the idea that my husband was going to arrive home from his job to find a strange 17 year old female waiting for him. I think freaking out was just the beginning. I was assailed by self doubt, the notion that maybe I had in fact just been deluding myself and that he was right when he said I just wanted to be female because I just couldn’t handle being a gay man.

I just couldn’t get past the idea that I wouldn’t be able to make him believe me, that he would think I was someone else. Even worse was the fear that if he believed me and accepted who I was, that he wouldn’t want me the way I am now, as a girl. My heart broke all over again and I was so deeply sunk in my self pity and sobbing that I never heard him open the door and enter, expecting me to greet him.

What I never expected was to feel his arms around me, holding me to his chest as I sobbed piteously and tried to get out what I wanted to say through my hiccups. It only penetrated after a moment that he was calling me by my name.

“But, how do you know who I am?”

“Because I would know you anywhere, in any body. You’re still the girl I love. You always were, even when you were a boy. Your body changing doesn’t mean a damn thing about who you are!”

“But I thought you never wanted a girl!” I looked up into his face and it seemed for all the world as though he looked just the way I’d seen him in his modeling pictures from when he was 25, complete with that adorable moustache.

“You’re right, I never did. I don’t think I’ll ever want any other girl, because I never have before. I don’t see any reason for that to change. But aside from all of that, I know I’ve loved you for better than 2 decades, and whatever has happened has given us the chance for that to be a lot longer than it might have been otherwise.”

He reached down and kissed me gently. “I’ve never wanted any other girl, but I do want you. Don’t you get it?”

“Get what?” His kiss took my breath away and I could barely speak.

“That you’re one of only two people I’ve ever loved, and I don’t care what body you wear. I fell in love with you, the person, not you the body. I know damn well you are just as geeky as the boy I fell in love with. I know you’re the same person, and I don’t care what my parents think.”

“Wait, your parents? Um, honey, they don’t think anything anymore. We buried them 8 years ago. I loved em to death, but honey, they are dead.”

“No, they aren’t.”

“Huh?”

“Well, your spell changed more than just you and me. We got another 30 years together and my parents got another 20.” He held his finger to my lips. “Don’t interrupt! Yes I know what you did, I’ve known for a long time. I didn’t know if it would work, but I’m so happy it did! I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know how to deal with it if it didn’t happen for you. I kept my mouth shut because I know how much it hurt you for so long and I know how selfish I was to make you pretend to be a boy all those years.”

He kissed me again and held me tightly in his arms. “Please tell me you can forgive me. I only wanted for you to be happy, and for you to be happy with me, and I thought for so long that the only way that could be was you getting comfortable with being a gay guy. I still don’t understand it, but I know I was wrong about that.”

It seemed I couldn’t help myself. I collapsed into his arms and soaked his chest a bit more with my copious tears. I looked up at him after a few moments, tears still flowing from my eyes. “I’m sorry.”

It was the only thing I could say. “I should never have tried to pretend to be a boy to make you happy. I knew it was wrong and I told you and then you told me and then I just couldn’t handle it so I swore to myself I’d be the boy you wanted me to be but I couldn’t stop myself and I’m just so sorry! I lied to you for so many years about being happy that way and I couldn’t handle it after all and nothing I did made it any better and I just hate myself!”

I froze up a little bit then and huddled into myself. I just knew he was going to leave me. When he pried my arms from around him and held my face up to his, the tears in my eyes made it so that I couldn’t see anything.

“You silly little girl, I’ve loved you from the moment we met. And yeah, I was hot for you, but we’d only ever met over the phone if you recall, and I was hot for you sight unseen. If I recall correctly, so were you.” He kissed me again and the salt of my tears combined on our lips.

“So I wore a body that had issues and so did you. We’ve had a lot of good and bad times and now we have a second chance. I don’t have Crohn’s or a colostomy anymore and I think I’m about in my mid 20’s, and you, you are even more beautiful than when we met. We get another 30 years together that we wouldn’t have had and you get to truly be yourself. You don’t have to pretend anymore, baby. I love you no matter what body you are in! I knew you were on the verge of killing yourself and there was nothing I could do. To know that we have more time, that you won’t die on me, that you love me and I can do something to make things better for you, that means everything to me.”

He stood me up on my feet and knelt.

“Will you make the happiest man in the world and marry me?”

It was the best Christmas ever.