My first Semester in college was full of many ups and downs but as I walked away from it I had grown so much as a human being. I remember driving home for Christmas break after my last final and just being in awe at how different my life was from the day I left home for school till the day I left school to go back home. Just one semester, a little over 4 months, and what a change in how I saw the world.
I get home, my parents home is all decorated for Christmas, my sister is home from TCU herself and she is there to meet me in the kitchen. She and I are close, always were, but something about me going away to school was a bonding thing for her and I. Sure she left a year earlier herself but something about me being away brought us closer. She hugged me and would not let go, it was so nice I must say to feel that love from your family member when you returned home. Wow, how awesome that truly was, a moment in my life I will never forget. She helped me get my things out of my car, we talked as I did laundry and shared stories of our semester. As you can imagine doing something as simple as laundry could be a changing moment in our relationship and in hindsight I was so stupid for not seeing it coming. I mean DUH! I just start pulling things out of my laundry bag and separating whites from colors and I guess my new life at school just didn't make me think maybe doing that in front of my family might be an issue. I pull out some panties, some tights, and a bra and toss them in the appropriate pile and WHAM! It hit me like a ton of bricks. My sister looked at me, I looked at her back, in my mind the lie was created in an instant, tell her it is a girlfriends who left it at my place after a hot night of sex! Yeah! That will work. No, no my sister and I are too close and I could never lie. It was a defining moment in my life.
She picks up my bra and my tights and puts them on top of the dryer. She tells me, hang on, you don't want to wash these with your jeans and stuff, I have a load of delicates and Mom just bought a bottle of Woolite so let me go get them. I sat there in the laundry room and I was stunned, what had just happened? I must have chewed off every fingernail I had in that five minutes of waiting for her to return and I guess I had tears in my eyes. My sis walks in and looks at me, she says "hey I know, and it is cool, but be careful with Mom and Dad ok? I'll wash these with mine, you don't have to tell them a thing, just let me help you." Wow, what a great sister huh? I hugged her, we went on about our business, and all was well.
Christmas Eve comes, my sister tells me she got me something really fun for Christmas but she needs to tell me something about it first before I open it tomorrow in front of the family. I kinda' got scared, I mean I was already nervous because I had gotten her this really cute dress from Banana Republic and these awesome Jessica Simpson shoes from Macy's but would my parents freak when they see her open it and think wow, he got her that? My story was going to be that I took her shopping and she picked it out but you know, not easy in my mind worrying about their reaction. My sister comes to me and tells me "hey I got you a gift, when you open it just know that I am going to replace it with something different later, just go along." Mmm, ok, uhh, what?
Christmas morning we are opening gifts, my Mom gets me clothes, yuck, boy clothes from the Gap no less, as boring as you can get right? But I am appreciative, my Mom is trying to take care of me. I smile, fold them, and start thinking Thank God there are receipts in here (Mom is always anal about things not fitting) and started to wonder what kind of cute clothes they have in the women's section I can return these for. But it is all good, we open gifts, my sister opens hers and freaks as she is so happy, mostly about the shoes as she was dying for those, but she is elated. My Dad asks, you picked that out for her? I answered "Nah Dad, we went to the Mall the other day and she tried all that stuff on, I went back a day later and got it for her." Smooth criminal there. I then open my gift from my Sis, it is an Academy gift card. I remembered what she said so I played along and all was good. Later that day, she comes up to me and says "Ok give me that card back, that is for Doug (her boyfriend) and I am going to his house later, I need to re-wrap it." So I do, she then hands me a new gift, wrapped in a pretty pink bow that is still on my mirror in my room today as it had sentimental value to me. I open it, it is a gift card to Charlotte Russe. For those who do not know, go to www.charlotterusse.com and see what they sell. I looked her, my hands trembled, she looked at me and said "I love you! We can go hit up all the after Christmas sales and get something fun for you to wear ok? Besides, you need some fun things and deserve happiness." I hugged her, I cried, I hugged her some more, it was such a Merry Christmas, even if I am an abomination in the Bible on the biggest most sacred Christian day of the year. I was so happy.
A couple days later my sis says she needs to go to the mall and asked me to come along with her and bring my card. I told her I was stressing about one thing in all of this and that was going in to the store as a guy and picking out clothing, how awkward! The thought really made me nervous! So she asked me, "do you want to dress in some of my clothes and go as a girl?" The truth was yes, I really did, but maybe I was not ready for that yet. I told her I will be your boyfriend and you go get things and I will go in the dressing room with you to you know, approve. She thought that was a good plan and off we went. We got there and I found so many cute things, I had such a ball running around and picking out cute things to try on. Prior to that all I ever had were costumes from costume shops who never care and get men buying girls stuff all the time and clothing I bought off the internet in the privacy of my own laptop and the world wide web. This was too cool! I tried on clothes for almost two hours, settled on 2 dresses, a couple tops, a lace skirt, and 3 pairs of tights. Oh and some earrings that are still to this day my favorites. All for $100, the amount of her gift card she gave me, gotta' love Charlotte after Christmas girls, all I can say about that. I used my money on a cute pair of hot pink wedges and a pair of black pumps. All in all I think $140 made me happier than $10K ever could.
We went home, we had some fun looking at them again, I placed them in her closet just in case, and again took the time to reflect again on how much my life has changed in a little over 4 months. I went from wanting to jump off a bridge to thinking this person inside who I really am stands a chance. I don't think I ever had a merrier Christmas before or since.
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