So this has been a busy and challenging couple of weeks. I've been going out a lot more lately, mostly with Samantha and have started getting urges to be full-time. I just came out to my friends from high school and they all took it really, really well. Like it was a non-issue with them, which was really cool, but kind of odd to me. I guess I was expecting something of a response, not necessarily negative, but shock or something along those lines. But it was pretty cool, I saw two them two weeks ago and the other two friday. We were even joking a bit about it, going to our upcoming reunion and telling certain people from high school, who we knew would have bad, possibly comical reactions.

Thursday my Step-Mother basically made me tell her what was going with me and this meant that I had to tell my dad this weekend. So after a 5 hour Canoe trip, which was fun on the whole, I informed my dad about me being trans. He was sorta shocked I guess, it's hard to gauge him, because he isn't that emotional. So he asked me a to of questions and I answered them to the best of my ability. I also had a copy of She's Not There and Trueselves in hand. So I gave them to him and I printed out some info from PFLAG. I just don't know with him, because he is so reserved. I mean I think in the end things will be fine with us, but I just don't know how to read him. Eventually I/we will have to tell my little sister, which I'm not too worried about, but they don't seem to keen on the idea. But she has already noticed things, like painted toe nails and recently pierced ears, so it's probably just a matter of time before she wants to know or figures something out. It recently hit me that I was about to go from being Son/Brother to Daughter/Sister and it felt good to me. We aren't out of the woods yet, but I think there will be a light at the end of the tunnel (excuse me for mixing metaphors).

Today will involve telling my Mom and Step-Dad about me being Trans. We are going to do this at my Therapist's office and I have mixed feeling about having to do this so soon. However, my Step-father already knew something was up from a long, long time ago. Recently, he found some shoes and maybe a purse in my car when it was left at their house for a while. So he basically tried to coerce information out of my step-mom, which made her call me. Which has resulted in this therapy appointment today. I was getting more and more to the point of wanting to tell them, but I wasn't quite ready to do it yet. I wanted more time to think over what I was going to say and how I was going to say it.

With all of them knowing however, this removes a major hurdle from me going full time and changing my name. I did want to have laser hair removal, but I don't know if I'm going to have the money for it before the urges to be full-time becomes unbearable. So I might just have to suck it up and not quite look the way I want to, but still be passable enough. Mostly I just don't want to have to shave anymore and put on a ton of foundation. So hopefully I can figure something out next year, to get that accomplished. Haven't really figured out when to transition, but I really, really want to do it in the next 6 moths. I do want to err on the side of caution and not do things to fast, but I also don't want to wait too long, to where I'm miserable all the time. It's starting to be awkward for me to go out in public in guy mode, and I can imagine this feeling will only get worse. So as soon as I get through my family crisis, I am going to start talking to my therapist about setting up a realistic time-line. At the least I think I'll be near fulltime, being in femme everywhere except work, school(maybe), and going home. The prospect of name change does excite me though, because I already see myself as Christine and less and less Sean. I guess the fun part will re-introducing myself to my family and maybe some other friends.

Anyways, I am thankful for somethings in this process, like my friends, at least the friends I have now who have helped me get through a lot of this. Especially, Samantha who has listened to me babble at length about my problems and given me a place to crash, while I figure out my living situation.


Christie Leigh