We were teenagers. Seventeen to be exact. We were a little stranger than our contemporaries, though no one was probably aware how strange, not even ourselves. We were trying to navigate the pitfalls of rural life in a Red State.
And we loved each other. No matter what all occurred, I cannot bring myself to doubt that...
We made it through three years together. We lived through my senior year, my first year of college where we lived apart in different towns, and then the year I moved in with him and commuted to school.
We got engaged, something that everyone in our small town thought one should do when one has been dating for any length of time. I pushed for it, partially from the aforementioned social expectations and partially because my hopeless romantic mind had settled on him as the person with whom I would spend the rest of my life. I think there was a part of him that hoped by doing what was considered "normal" that it would make his heart and mind feel differently than it did.
There came a point where we had almost no physical or sexual intimacy. There was his intimation that if I were slimmer that we could experiment with sexual positions. There was the an infatuation on his part with a mutual friend of ours who had caught his eye with her feisty and fierce edges (mine had softened over time). There were many reasons that were given when he finally ended things between us. In the end, he wasn't wrong to do what he did, but at the time, I couldn't see that. All I could see was that the world I had imagined was crumbling.
Unfortunately, the stated reasons for the breakup stayed with me. They haunted my next relationship and my next... I took them to heart, believed in their truth, and let those beliefs shape how I viewed myself and my love life.
I still stayed in contact with him for a long time. I watched as he broke up with the mutual friend he dated after me. I was there at his wedding to a lovely girl I liked very much. He was one of the few people who I told I was into BDSM and was taking the plunge to move to a new city with my Master and his slave. And then, in the course of delving into my own life, I lost track of him.
The rumor mill in small towns is a killer, and at first I didn't believe it when I heard that he was coming into the town grocery store dressed as a female. I had been on the receiving end of some ugly rumors, so when my parents asked if I had heard anything, I assured them it was probably nothing more than either rumor-mongering or an extreme misunderstanding.
It wasn't until I was back visiting my home town in person that I bumped into an old mutual friend of ours who confirmed the news. Not only had my former fiance started dressing as a woman, but he had started the hormone and surgery process to become one.
By this time in my life, I had been exposed to Trans-folks in all differing stages, so it wasn't some huge shock in and of itself. However, it was the first time someone I had been so incredibly in love with and sexually intimate with had made that change. It took me a little bit to come to terms with because of that.
I finally called the number I had for him... now her... and a voice answered the phone. Unrecognizable and female. It was him. No, *her*.
She was nervous when I identified myself, not knowing why I called or what reaction her change was going to elicit. She told me the story of how she had gotten so depressed she was going to kill herself. How she stopped at the last minute and decided instead to be willing to suffer all that would come from daring to start a new life. She told me about her mostly amicable divorce from her wife. Of starting hormones. Of her new boyfriend (who I knew from our home town as well).
She also told me that she had wanted to be a woman, felt as though she was supposed to be one, from when she was much younger. She told me of a conversation between the two of us (which I have no recollection about) where she told me she had "girl thoughts" and I kind of "reared back" and she decided that she couldn't go ahead and tell me the truth. Knowing me, I'm pretty sure my response would have been the non-understanding reply of "Well, I have boy thoughts," by which I would have meant my stereotypically male desire for sex, beer, and watching football.
I like to think that if she had told me, that I would have understood. That I would have been accepting. But this may be giving my younger self way too much credit. I was still a product of the culture I lived in, and she would have been crushing my dreams just as much with that information. I don't actually know that I would have been able to be supportive and open-hearted. She may have been right assuming she wasn't safe...
The thing that I had to do now was to go back and re-write the pages of my history that I was so sure of before. I had to allow that there had been not as much wrong with me as the fact that I was a woman, and would not have worked as a life partner for him (now her) unless I was a man. All the assumptions I made, all the pain I took on, all of the "stories" I created about "reality" back then... none of them were true.
I am glad for her in her life as it is now. Everyone has the right to at least attempt to do what they can to make themselves happy.
And I am thankful for the gift of truth she gave me that allowed me to go back and let go of a lot of the emotional baggage I had taken on from during and after our relationship. Almost in an instant, what I had carried for almost my entire life melted away.
I wish that we had been able to feel safe with one another and to be honest back then. But we were young, and we did the best we could. Today, I am kinky and she is female. And I am glad we both made it here to see this moment.
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