When I was five my besotted mother took me several times to play with a very pretty little girl named Lisa. I was besotted too...my first crush, I used to think, and that still feels at at least partly true...but obviously it was more complicated than just that, because when I was asked for the first time post-revelation what my femme name was I just knew, and the name I breathed with a sense of blooming joy and release and coming home was hers.
Then I was writing an article about being trans and needed a pen name. Back in high school I took part in a curious three-way note-based flirtation among my friend Robin, a pretty girl named Cynthia, and myself. It was their flirtation at first, but he let me add to the notes. That flirtation gave me an elusive yet powerful thrill, which, it now occurs to me, probably arose not out of the ugly-duckling yearning for her attention I would have named at the time, but out of my secret love for him. The name I chose for the notes was Pomeroy.
Then lisa.pomeroy was already taken on gmail, so I added the middle initial for the name my mother told me she had picked out for me had I been born a (physical) girl: H for "Hillary."
Then my sister asked me if I was abandoning my family name, which I emphatically did not and do not wish to do; and at the same time I started experimenting with "Dee" as a transitional all-modes nickname...my male-name initial, and a perfectly fine femme name too...and so now my working draft for a final name post-transition is Lisa Dee Bunker.
Stay tuned for further revisions... (*sigh*)
For the time being, I have started asking some old friends and most new acquaintances to call me Dee. I'm not consistent about it yet, though, so I'm confusing people. Metamorphosis allowed to happen at its own pace gets bumpy sometimes.
And, when I talk to myself (as I habitually do) I find I'm also still using "Dave." I'll keep gently correcting myself to "Dee" for a little while at least to see if it starts to come more naturally. (I do still feel totally at ease calling myself "Bunker," which is a fine name to spit out when one is annoyed with one's more idiotic moments... :-) )
The other self-referential wrinkle is, I still call myself "man," and I've puzzled for a while about a good alternative to that and to other half-ironic pep talk names like "Bucko". It took me until today to think of being tender with myself...so now I'm trying out "Sweetie" and "Darling" and "My Love"...and I find that when I call myself by these names, I feel noticeably better than I did the moment before.
Hey, it turns out I can sweet-talk myself. :-) Useful to remember when, as they sometimes do, the clouds get darker...
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