As you can imagine, I did not start college in a very good place. Not very fair when you think about it as this should be an exciting rite of passage for a young person. Out on their own reaching out into the world to make something of themselves. But my entire foundation was crumbled to dust as I started my days of my new life and I was really not in the best of places.
I went off to college, I had an apartment already set up real close to campus, and my best friends family insisted that they paid half for the year as they did not want me to have to get a smaller place or live with someone I did not know in the 11th hour after the death of their daughter. I had a real problem with accepting their money, in fact I wouldn't. I didn't know how I was going to make ends meet but I refused their money. But being the great people that everyone in that family truly is they sent the money to the apartment office for the year in one check and did not let me refuse. So here I was all alone in the world and probably making a huge mistake in living by myself. I was lonely, but I did make a few friends in some of my neighbors. One was a great girl named Tammy who was from Ft. Worth and another named Suzanne who was from Plano. They were so sweet, they heard my story from the apartment manager and befriended me and made sure I had someone to hang out with and they showed me the school and the town. I feel like God sent those people into my life to save me, and I think my bestie had something to do with it as well. Angels they were, and if it wasn't for them I may have dropped out and moved God knows where in this world.
That first semester was fun really, I got on with my life, I had some great friends, and I was free of being at home and under my parents rules on a day to day basis. But in starting over with people close to me I had a lot of anxiety and nervousness as well. What if Tammy and Suzanne did not understand? What if they thought I was a freak? If I lost them where would I be? I still remember the day, funny because it seems Halloween drove so much in my early days. It was mid October sometime and we all went to a Halloween store in Georgetown to see if we could get some Halloween decorations and they wanted to look for some sexy costumes for a party we were all going to. I remember standing in the store not really knowing what to do, should I go to the boy section or the girl section? I wanted to go get this awesome little costume I saw on the rack, a sexy saloon girl with these super cute black vertical striped thigh high stockings and feathered hat. But had I gone and gotten that I would be risking judgement from my two friends. So I sat there, wandered around not knowing what to do, looking at everything just stalling. Tammy hollers out to me to come and see what she was trying on and tell her what I think. I walk over and she drags me in her dressing room with her. She was trying on this cute Alice In Wonderland costume and I remember asking me what I thought. I told her I thought it was really cute and cute on her and she should get it. She leaned over and whispered in my ear, "you can borrow it if you want." I stepped back in amazement. "What?" I said, and she told me that she had never known a boy who was that in touch with women's clothing who was not at least gay. Guess I am more transparent than I ever imagined. I told her I really did not consider myself gay so she then states "well then you are what exactly, a woman trapped in a man's body?"
Wow, how does one answer such a defining question? Again you know I am in search of normalcy, scared to death of being alone in the world, left alone already in many ways, and here is the line in the sand like Col. Travis at the Alamo. I was sweating, how do I answer and be honest yet not lose my friends? I was in a panic, my heart started to race, my face turned red, and I sat down on the bench in the dressing room. Tammy looked at me and said, "It's ok, really, I am sorry and I didn't mean to pressure you." I stood up and somewhere from deep inside I found this massive amount of courage and told her "Well you are right in some regards, I was born a male but I am not a male. I see the world through girls glasses and I see myself both internally and externally as a female. I am not really attracted to women as a man and I do find myself attracted to other men but only when I am in my female version. If that makes me gay I guess I am but you can see why I don't see it that way." With tears in my eyes I sat back down ready for judgement to come down on me. Tammy sat next to me, picked up my hands, kissed my fingers, and said "I am so sorry I put you through this, you are a beautiful person and I am so glad you are my friend no matter what. I do not feel any different today than I did yesterday and I am so glad to know because I knew you were keeping something from me."
We walked out of the dressing room, Suzanne came over and was worried, "what's wrong?" she asked as she saw we both had tears in her eyes. Tammy took Suzanne outside and spoke with her for about 5 minutes while I stood inside the store staring at this tombstone that was made out of styrofoam. I cannot tell you what it said but I stood there and stared at it the whole time hoping Suzanne would not judge me. They both came back in the store, one took each hand and they hugged me. Suzanne said "why didn't you tell us sooner? We have known you for 2 months!" I looked at her with tears in my eyes and said that I loved them so much and was scared I would lose the only two real friends whom I valued so much in life and I would rather live in misery than lose them. We cried, and we cried some more, I swear those people that worked there think we are nuts and are telling the story to this day. We went and bought Tammy the Alice costume, Suzanne picked out a Candy Corn Witch costume which had these cute orange and yellow striped stockings, and we left the store. We got to the car and Suzanne looked at me and said "You don't have a costume!" I remember saying "yeah one traumatic step at a time" to them. They smiled, insisted we go back in, and I got that saloon girl costume.
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