I honestly don't know where in my fevered mind Ms. Grace Kelley came from. Her idea on the name, not mine.

Last night I went to bed thinking that I would right a light hearted tale about a wish gone wrong. It is titled The Third Wish, and may eventually see the light of day, or fall back into obscurity.

I dreamed a dream about my life last night, which slowly became the life of Ms. Kelley. I woke up with a knowledge of this person that I have never had of one of my other characters. She is me in some respects.

No, I'm not a teacher, but I have been. No, I'm not in transition or have I ever been. That is a long personal story that I choose not to let out into the world.

My mother is a school teacher, as are two of my brothers. I plan on teaching college, if I ever get through my schooling. I taught Math to junior high school students for three months. I prefer the immaturity of college students, thank you.

This is not directly about me, however, it's about Grace.

Grace was born in 1955 on October 31st at 6:05am. She was 9lbs and 3oz and everyone thought she was the most beautiful baby boy in the world. Of course they were all wrong. Her mother named her Albert Andrey Kelley. She would end up being the oldest of six children (3 brothers and 2 sisters)

An "accident" with a pen knife deprived her of her gonads at age 12. She had been a shy child up to this point. All she knew was she liked hanging out with girls, but that boys were who she thought about in her dreams. She kissed one of her male friends on the lips while they were swimming. He attacked her, later, with his knife. She never told her parents what really happened, and shocked by what he had done, her friend has a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized. She vowed she would be like the "other boys" and try and show an interest in girls like a "normal" teenager. She acted interested, but she still couldn't feel about girls the way that she felt about boys and was deeply conflicted about it.

Grace was in numerous plays as a teenager, both for the community theater and school. She never got to play Juliet, something she has always regretted. She chickened out even trying out for the part. That was 1972, a year before she lost her father.

Her father served in the military until Grace was sixteen, when he went back to school and became an Army JAG officer. He was killed in 1973 by a soldier who was suffering from undiagnosed PTSD. Grace had just entered the building to pick up her father when she heard the shot.

She began seeing her first psychologist when she left for college in 1974. She had begun waking up with nightmares, and while in real life she didn't actually see her father shot, she did in those dreams. After almost two years, she told her psychologist about her cross dressing for the first time. Her psychologist was supportive, and Grace began speech therapy and electrolysis, but did not start hormones yet. She continued to fear public reaction, and as 1977 drew to a close, she still hadn't publicly dressed as a woman.

Her mother changed her attitude for her. Out of the blue, in July 1978, her mother called her and told her "It's about time you get your real life going, and stop pretending the rest of us don't know that you should have been born a woman." Grace started taking hormones in August.

On Christmas day, 1979 her mother gave her two gifts that she treasured more than anything else: A diary bound in white leather, and a wig made of human hair. Her siblings gave her an entire wardrobe of clothing. She went back to school after Christmas break as a woman full time. That was January 1980, and the real start of the story.

I will be telling this story out of order, but organizing it in order. I will not be writing a post for every day of this year. I will hit the most important days however. You don't need the buildup of the week from the 19^th of October through the 23^rd for example. The culmination of a week in mental anguish and the eventual attempt at self disfigurement is handled on the 24^th very nicely.

Eventually, you will get the whole story of 1980: its ups and downs, its twists and turns, and its hope of real love.