Glimpses

You can blame Jaci for this one. Its the conversations we’ve had that led to this ...

At first, there were only glimpses.

Before Kindergarten: My mom comments, “He just doesn’t act like other boys.”

As a very young child, fighting with my brother by kicking, scratching, and biting instead of hitting, and him being unwilling to hit me back, even with parental permission ...

In elementary, my mom coming home to a house full of girls, and being unable to figure out which one of these girls was in fact her son ...

Still in elementary, taking a class on puberty and going home weeping because I had learned I was doomed to become a man ...

In junior high, me coming home in a skirt, doing a twirl, asking if I was pretty, before I ran upstairs to put back on pants and my normal glum expression ...

And In high school, hanging out with a couple of girls, and having them strip to their underwear because it was a hot day, seemingly unaware there was a boy in the room ...

By the that time, I was crossdressing occasionally. I would borrow my mother’s bathing suit, which I liked because it had something in the top that replaced my lack of breasts ...

But I had no words for what was happening to me.

Words for my condition existed, even then. The first sex-change operation was in 1930, but after the fifth surgery, the patient died. Christine Jorgensen had hers in the early 50’s.

But I didn’t know those things, not then.

So I kept trying to stuff this need to be feminine deep inside me.

And failing.

SHE just kept coming back, no matter how much I tried to get rid of her.

But I kept fighting her anyway.

And yet, glimpses of her kept peeking out ...

Finally, breakdown followed breakdown, until the mask collapsed, and this amazingly, totally, impossibly feminine person stepped out from the shadows, and started to make a life.

And now, she’ll enjoy it, for as long as it lasts.

Because she doesn’t have to be satisfied with only glimpses from behind a mask ...