Tears streamed down my face, not because of sadness, happiness, or anger, but of complete despair. I tried to think of one reason not to go through with this, an excuse to live.

My parents will be destroyed, especially my dad, there’s no way he could cope with losing his “boy.” If I were lucky my parents would just get divorced after 20 years of loving marriage. If I were unlucky, which always seemed to be the case, then they’d follow me into oblivion.

This had always been enough for me to back out. Just the thought of destroying my family. Of potentially being the reason my own parents died, or at least lived a miserable life from thereon. However, it wasn’t enough anymore, it’s not as if it didn’t matter, but I was tired of living only for the sake of them.

If only they’d listened I wouldn’t be here… it’s their fault I thought bitterly. I tried telling my dad when I was four, and after talking for over an hour he convinced me I didn’t want to be a girl, I wanted to be with a girl. Little did I know that sexual orientation and sexual identity were different. When I was ten I tried telling my mom, but she explained it was just a phase and that it’d go away. And just this past week I told my dad again, confronting him explaining the terms, the medical condition, and why it was so important. “You’re wrong son, there’s no advantage to being a woman and this isn’t something you should decide before you’re an adult.” I argued further, but it was in vain, he’d decided that I could “destroy” my life when I was an adult, but he wouldn’t help while I was just a teenager.

“Well fuck them! I’ll destroy my life now and maybe they’ll believe me.” I was distraught, my crying had resumed, but now it was with hate. I grabbed the pen and paper sitting beside me as I wrote my farewells.

I’ve always loved you, and lived for you, but it’s no longer enough. You could have had a living daughter, but now you’ll have a dead son.
-Love “Son”

The letter seemed appropriate, even if it took my death for them to understand at least now they’d believe it’s not a phase. My dad would understand I didn’t need his permission to “destroy” my life and I don’t have to wait for puberty to finish destroying my body. The letter was a great reflection of my life, short and depressing.

Setting down the paper I picked up the gun. “Is there really no reason to live?” I was desperately searching for a reason to live just one more day. I sat there for an hour not coming up with any reason. Sure I could transition in four years, but by then I’d be 6’ 5” with huge hands and feet. A walking tower of masculinity.

As I realized this, I was destroyed. Any hope for the future I’d always carried vanished in a flash. And so with my tears flowing I pulled the trigger.

When nothing happened I sighed completely exhausted from my emotions. My tears had turned to sobbing as I realized my life was not gone, but my misery remained. And so I pulled the trigger even harder.

And again nothing happened, as I examined the gun I realized why the trigger wasn’t going in very far. I’d left the safety on. Fortunately? Unfortunately? Regardless I could not pull it a third time, whatever courage or desperation compelled me the first two times had left me. Instead of a serene corpse I was an emotional shell. Crying out of disappointment that my misery would continue and out of relief that I could continue my miserable life, I put it away, burned the note, and continued on.