The street sign pointed only one way, the little lane met the larger street but did not continue on the other side. A large Craftsman-style home occupied one corner, converted years ago into a sort of rooming-house-cum-residence-hotel-cum-bed-and-breakfast. A big squarish building with gables and porches, the one-time mansion bore its demotion to commercial property with the dignity of a bankrupt financier operating a hot dog wagon.

A woodlot sat on the other corner, a clutter of neat stacks of firewood and seemingly random piles of jumbled logs. The randomness, the owner would say, resulted from the necessary moving and turning of the piles of curing wood. A regular array would be less efficient at the task and would have to be unstacked and restacked to be sure the wood cured evenly. Simply moving the pile from one place to another once a week with an ancient forklift turned all the logs over and assured that each got enough sun and air to turn into perfect firewood.

The lane did not continue past the end of the woodlot or the small row of outbuildings behind the mansion. The house, being the only important building facing the street, bore a singular number and the name of the lane as its address. One April Morning.

On this particular morning, a resident of the former mansion woke to a life-changing discovery....
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I was looking for my son's pajamas in the laundry in the basement, sifting through each likely soft black item recently washed. Ah, hah! I thought, here's a pair..... cotton? a black dress? and another LBD - barely worn.

I paused, unsure now how long it had been since I'd dressed. Certainly not in the last few years.

How strange. I had no desire to dress up in drag today when I saw the dresses. Come to think of it, a few weeks back, I found my stash of jewelry: the peridot flower dangly earrings and matching necklace, the faux ruby earrings and bracelet, my "goth girl" accoutrements. BUT I didn't find the urge to dress.

I felt curious and like a kid poking the bruise to see how much it hurt, I conjured up images of my past...

The teacher droned on, lecturing about U.S. History, while I peeled my face off from the desk and my arm. I didn't have to look to know that the little round mirrors sewn on to the dress had left weird marks on my face during that nap. Oh well, at least the pastel peach, salmon, lavender and baby blue tie-dyed linen dress made my arm into a comfortable pillow, so much more than my textbook.

I wiggled, trying to make sure the hem of the baby-doll dress stayed put while stretching. I always felt uncomfortable and scared someone, a classmate, a teacher, would see through my impersonation. I certainly wasn't an outcast but I never truly fit... the other students sensing that there wasn't something quite right about me. I never quite fit in with the boys and the girls, well. I suppose I was well-liked, yet not fully part of their crowd either. Like primal animals with an orphan, they adopted me but I was never one of them. Never asked on a date, never asked for my number. I often wonder how they knew, if they even realized...

Lost in thought, I stood staring in space... this time the flashback was more recent:

I stood looking in the mirror, seeing a stocky blonde guy in a olive green plaid A-line dress. What did I want? I didn't know.... even if my life had depended on it, I couldn't have sorted my feelings at seeing the juxtaposition of my adult male body stuffed into that plaid dress. All I knew was that sense of wrongness was on the outside, visible to the naked eye. Even trying on my best auburn wig just made me look like a man wearing a dress and a wig. I kept the door shut hoping my ex and current roommate wouldn't walk in and see me dressed, it would be another long six months before sex again.

Like a moth to flame, the memories drew me back in time, to 10 years earlier:

There were 3 couples, six of us total, sitting under that canvas tent for breakfast.... It felt like another lifetime, remembering how comfortable I was to wear that dress in Arnhemland. As we were given the privilege of visiting where few white men had ever been allowed, I wore that dress in cool comfort, with the same aplomb seen in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Perhaps even because of the sacred lands and the magic of that place, my memories remained un-marred by the now ever-present dysphoria.

After a flurry of phone calls, the missing dress was shipped from Australia back to my home in America, to be tucked away safely in a drawer. Never to be worn outside again... but I didn't know this and I arranged the lengthy voyage for that piece of plaid comfort to return to it's proper home.

A noise startled me, bringing me out of my contemplative concentration. Churning thoughts and oddly, very little emotion to run amok while my body stood standing, like a robot awaiting it's next command.

A little piece of me pleaded, said, "but all those years of dressing, you can't give up that piece of yourself."

I shook my head. No time, no heart, no desire... I had invested so much time and energy throughout the years, trying to feel comfortable in my own skin, to feel like I truly was a real girl. Even now, I still feel a twinge, wishing that I could find happiness, that sense of belonging but I am very lacking now.

Despite lurking on BC-TG and my attempts at making the dresses I wore look natural and not like drag, I couldn't bring myself to commit to another attempt at dressing. But like many, I was sentimental... that was my downfall.

I couldn't wear them, my girl clothes, I couldn't be her anymore. Not even part-time, but I couldn't toss them either. They were my identity, my armour, my cross to bear (pardon the allusion) and so I was stuck for nearly 8 years: with the clothes, unwilling to throw out a part of myself, yet too paralyzed by fear to wear them again.

The taste of the fear brought another memory, long suppressed, complete with it's unique terror of discovery:

Despite the fear that bound my thoughts and mouth into silence, I had managed to procure one of my dad's fedora, to rest over my blonde hair. However, being in 7th grade, it was my mom's suit that fit me not my dad's and I was sent off full of hope to become the dashing gum-shoe in the Scout creative mystery video production. For a few hours my heart sang, while I envisioned the traces of my girl-ishness to be erased by this dapper outfit, making me a real man to camera. After all, the clothes make the man, they say. This time, I had to have gotten it right, this time I knew noone would recognize me, I'd hidden everything girly away.

The illusion shattered, I sat in stunned silence when we previewed the film. The other 4 scouts sat laughing, happy with their performance and the video. It must have been the suit, I rationalized. seeing myself through the camera - looking like a girl playing dress up in a women's suit, despite my efforts to finally secretly embrace my masculinity, trying to be the man I was supposed to become. I had no access to the words but this was the first and last time I truly tried with my whole being and soul to secretly pass as a real man.

Not wanting to linger on such tough times and heart-ache, I once again tried to shoved it all back into the little box in my mind. But like Pandora, I found there wasn't much I could do though, once the box was open... while the flashbacks were still potent and powerful, the clothes held no promise, no power to persuade me to dress, nothing for me to hide anymore.

I went upstairs, it was just another day to my family and friends. Life moves on yet I sit here, searching, writing, trying to figure out what changed.... am I whole now? ...did I lose that part of me, subsumed into the greater whole? I began, in 2005, a journey, I never thought to end. The monthly shots, surgery up top, GRS, ....am I now at the end of my journey? ...have I arrived? ...or am I slowly dying, losing myself piece by piece?

Please let me know if there are typos or other writing problems that need to be resolved.

I welcome feedback, comments, insights. For those of you who do not like this type of writing.... I do hope to write some feel-good fiction but somehow, I had to write this today.