Rolling into Year Three. . . .
I’m a pretty mature, stable woman. I have a sense of humor, and try not to take myself too seriously, but I’m not likely to hit you in the face with a pie if you walk into my office.
That being said, every now and then I just let loose with a comment in person or on social media that’s pretty silly. Every now and then someone calls me on it. I usually shrug and say, “What can you expect? The calendar says I’m sixty, but I’m really two.”
We talk a lot about gender dysphoria, and we should. It’s crippling and I hate to say it, but I believe it never goes away. Being able to live your true gender identity and make any physical changes you want and need to be whole will go a long, long way to easing the pain, but I’m thinking whether you lived 20 years or 30, 40 or 50 in a gender identity that didn’t match your sense of self-identity, then I’m not sure if that sense of loss ever goes away completely.
I have a friend who transitioned around age 50. She’s written a poignant look back at the girlhood she never had called “the girl in the green velvet dress.”
I can’t help wonder what little Claire would have been like. Would she have been shy and studious, like her male counterpart? Or would she have been a bold, outgoing risk-taker like her late big sister? I can wonder, but of course I’ll never know for sure.
Like a lot of other people working through the Covid crisis I formerly spent my time in one meeting after another. That’s pretty much my life now, but instead of going from place to place, I’m chained to one desk, computer and phone. B-O-R-I-N-G, but with so many people out of a job or on limited hours I don’t have any real right to complain.
Still, I had to leave it to my roommate to see something that’s been staring me in the face every morning. I still shower and wash my hair, of course, but when I’m going into an office where I’m going to see only one or two other people in person, and everyone else will be in a little box on a Brady Bunch screen, I gradually let a lot of things go.
Leggings, a simple top, lipstick (though some days I wondered what’s the point, since it’s hidden behind a mask most of the day) and that was it.
“How long since you’ve worn jewelry?” she asked. “A scarf?” She even curled my hair. Here’s a secret: I don’t think girls ever lose the joy of playing dress up entirely. I was letting it slip away. Thanks to a dear friend for bringing it back to me.
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Category: Transgender Body & Soul
About the Author (Author Profile)
Claire Hall was born and grew up in a large city on the left coast and has spent most of her adult years in a beautiful small coastal community where she's now an elected official in local government after spending many years as a newspaper and radio reporter. In her space time she loves reading, writing fiction (her first novel was published by a regional press a couple of years ago), watching classic Hollywood movies, and walking.Subscribe
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