This past weekend I had two really lovely phone chats with two of my dear male friends from ESMB. Both have posted in this thread, both have really supported me and I love them both.
But I had to laugh when one of them said he loved this thread but that it got "too girly" for him to stay with every posting and he just let the girls go to it.
This made me think of the countless times throughout my life that I had to go with the boys to watch sports or whatever in one room while the girls chatted in the other room. And despite all the noise of the TV and the boys cheering or laughing during the game, I would often hear the girls laughing or chatting and I just so much wanted to go out and join them but "couldn't". I can't tell you how much that tore at me throughout my life. I felt so left out and so "trapped". The sounds of the girls laughing and chatting in "the other room" haunted me and decades later I can still hear them as if that all happened an hour ago.
Well, something simple but wonderful happened to me late last year at the home of the other of those two guys mentioned above when he and his wife invited me over for a little get together with some wine and treats and good company. I went with a really good girlfriend of mine and her husband and so there were the five of us adults there having a drink and a really enjoyable chat.
But then the two boys wanted to go watch some "big football game" in the other room and they asked me if I wanted to go with them. I said words to the effect of "Oh my God no!!!!!". So I stayed at the table with my two dear girlfriends and enjoyed the chat, the laughs and just the wonderful feeling of friendship amongst us. And then a funny thing happened. While talking with the girls in one room I could occasionally hear the boys in the other room cheering or laughing. And I thought "Oh my God sixty or so years late though it may be, I FINALLY was in the "right room" at one of those get-togethers.
And later when I reflected on that one simple get-together in the right room I started laughing and then crying and then sobbing as so much of that pain I felt over and over throughout my life came to the forefront and just overwhelmed me in emotion. Even now more than a half a year later as I type this my throat burns, my eyes water and I am doing all I can not cry. But now a lot of that emotion is happiness and relief when once it was just sorrow and despair.
So although I cannot now name names, I want to thank both of those guys I chatted with last weekend. One for inviting me over late last year and understanding when I wanted to stay in the "right room". That meant SO much to me. And the other I want to thank for reminding me that I am in "the right thread" too
I love you BOTH (even if you are afraid to post here anymore
).
And while all the above may sound really silly or petty to some who may read this thread, it is not for someone who has spent her whole life in "the wrong room" and now is not.
Thank you everyone here for helping make this "the right thread" for me.
I'm trying not to post anything more about my actual transition (such as the above) as I try to let this thread die. But those two dear boys just made me think of the above this past weekend and I wanted to thank them.
I am so glad you put those pictures of you daughter up, cause I couldn't get the woman with the bad blue eyeshadow out of my head, hahaha.
