I have a date to meet my friend Deb for coffee at 2pm this afternoon. It is 1030am now...plenty of time to shave, do makeup, select an outfit, change my mind a couple of times about which wig to wear, and go...and I am on the verge of calling to say, I'll be there, but I won't be dressed today. Despite that being the plan. Despite it being six weeks since I've gone out dressed. Despite aching with all my being for a little time in full femme mode.
It was six weeks ago that that man in the Goodwill parking lot looked in through my car window and yelled "faggot" after me, and I still cower inside when I think of it. I have always been terribly sensitive to what other people think of me. I can't seem to shield myself from their emotions, especially the negative ones...anger, hostility. And I feel most vulnerable when I'm dressed. My confidence drains away. I feel exposed and tentative and weak. I feel afraid.
One possible reason it took me 46 years to become conscious of my transness: I'm just that shy. So pathetically, absurdly shy that I came within a hair's breadth of standing on the sidelines of an entire life.
I have to go. I have to return to the public eye. I have to show the world who I am, and continue to learn to make my way. If I don't, I deny myself. If I don't, I step voluntarily back into the cell. I can't do that. I can't go back in there. I have to go. Out. Out. Out.
Didn't somebody once say, true courage is not fearlessness, but being full of fear and doing it anyway? If so, I guess I am about to be courageous.
Here I go.
Gulp.
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