Everything changed for me today. Absolutely everything.
For like the umpteenth time throughout this long, drawn out, and seemingly never ending transition of mine, everything I thought or saw or knew or felt or previously believed – BAM – it all changed.
Yet again.
This time, though, it happened rather quickly. It happened, in fact, over the short, quick span of just one, small, very specific and isolated moment in time.
It just took me about an hour or so to figure it all out and recognize what was happening for what it really was. Then, as the passenger in the front seat of a Jeep SUV driving through rush hour traffic through metropolitan Guadalajara, I promptly broke down sobbing and crying my long tortured tranny heart out.
I blame the delay in my response to shock. As in, the sudden and immediate shock that overtook my brain and my system when I entered into that one, small, moment of time and exited out the other side but mere moments later. I went into shock. Mind-blanketing, emotions deadening, thought killing shock.
What's funny, though, is that I never saw it coming. I just didn't see it. I had no clue whatsoever what was about to explode through my head and reverberate throughout the entirety of my being.
So when it happened, I was completely blindsided by the significance of the moment in real-time as things were going down.
And all it involved was a simple, yet elegantly modern, giant sized mirror located within my doctor's office.
Oh, and it also involved one more thing – it involved me staring at a life size reflection of myself within this giant sized mirror within my doctor's office. Me staring at a reflection of myself, that is, with of all the bandages, tape, and stitches that had been holding my new surgically reconstructed face and augmented breasts together all removed simultaneously for the first time.
All of which had never really occurred to me that it would be that much of a big deal. I mean, it's been close to a week already since I had my surgery, and I have obviously seen both my breasts and my face since that time. Everyday, in fact, given that they are now my breasts and my face.
So I have a pretty good idea what everything looks like and all, you know?
Except that I really didn't know. I just thought I knew.
Because the reality is that I had yet to see myself like THAT. And I say like “THAT” because let me tell ya, I was completely unprepared to view the image staring back at me.
I was unprepared in a manner that I never thought could be possible, given all of the time, effort, and resources I have poured into all of this in preparing for my future as Anne Kelly Skinner.
What I saw left me speechless. But I wasn't left speechless in a happy-happy-rah-rah way, and I wasn't left speechless in an omg-what-the-hell-have-I-done-to-myself-and-how-do-I-go-back kinda way.
Rather, I was rendered speechless because I felt no discernible reaction within myself at all. I didn't feel empty, but I didn't feel anything I could throw a label on, either. My brain, my feelings, my emotions and thoughts were just blank, just kind of missing in action.
My doc, who was standing proudly and expectantly to the side asked what I thought as I viewed myself within his giant mirror.
Not wanting to disappoint (because my docs and the staff here are seriously awesome and amazingly skilled in their art and craft), I told him that I couldn't believe what I was seeing, and that I never would have thought such a thing was possible. I also told him that I simply couldn't get over it, that I didn't even recognize myself.
These things, of course, are the things he wanted to hear, and deserved to hear given the excellent work I believe my docs have performed on me. And the thing is, all of these things that I told him were 100% accurate and true, and I knew ALL of these things the very micro-nano-second I laid eyes on my reflection. The difference between the before and after is that stark, and it is some seriously night-and-day difference kinda stuff.
Even though I implicitly and instantly knew these things, though, I didn't feel these things, and I had no appreciation for these things in the actual moment at all.
All I saw in the mirror was someone that I barely recognized, and who was a woman. Which, just for the record, was the whole damn reason I came down here for the first place – to physically acquire the very image I was staring at while nary a reaction occurred within my head as I gazed upon myself standing there half-naked.
It was bizarre. Just completely bizarre.
After my doc and I finished up with the remainder of my appointment, I returned to the waiting room to wait for another trans-patient to finish up her appointment (we have the same docs, had similar procedures done, and had traveled together from the recovery home where we both are staying).
So there I was, sitting comfortably in a very comfortable chair, just hanging out, minding my own business when I noticed that I was beginning to have difficulty breathing. It wasn't anything caused by the procedures that had been performed, I was confident of that.
Still, my breathing slowly became more and more labored to the point where I was consciously taking the occasional deep breathe just so I could get enough oxygen in my system to keep comfortable.
As I continued to sit there, I couldn't figure it out. As my breathing become heavier and heavier, I focused on one of the facility's flat screen televisions within the waiting area that was describing and promoting a certain rejuvenation procedure performed there. The information was in spanish, so I couldn't understand what they were saying, but I focused hard on the screen, just to keep it all real.
Shortly thereafter, the other patient (we had also become friends earlier in the week), finished up and returned to the waiting area with me. From there, our doc's right hand man who is responsible for the recovery home and its recovering patients escorted us to the Jeep I mentioned earlier.
Traveling from the hospital to the recovery home through Guadalajara typically takes half an hour to forty minutes or so depending on traffic. On the way back today, we got caught in some heavy traffic. Not that I cared, because I was just staring off into the distance anyways, not really feeling anything at all, just checking out the sites.
About five minutes into the drive, though, and completely out of left field, my breathing became labored once again, and then I felt a small amount of wetness begin to grow in one of my eyes. I wiped it away. But I wondered about it. Where was that wetness coming from? What's the deal with that?
And then it hit me.
Or rather, it slammed full force smack right into my face like a million gajillion megaton load of bricks being hauled by a heavy ass iron plated beast locomotive forged by the hammer of Thor himself.
This. Is. Real.
This. Is. REAL!!!
THIS. IS. REAL!!!!!
And then the dam crumbled completely apart and exploded to pieces in a cascading tsunami and avalanche of pent up emotions and feelings.
Next thing I knew, I was uncontrollably crying my butt off. Right there in the Jeep, somewhere in the city of Guadalajara, surrounded by incredibly dense and slow moving traffic, with other drivers and passengers going about their own lives only but mere feet away from me.
I had been in shock. I could not comprehend what I had seen. I could not process it.
And I could hardly believe it.
That image in the mirror. That image with the new face that was not Greg's, that image with the augmented breasts that no man would ever, ever have, and that these things that I saw in that image were now truly MY reality, that they were ME, that they ARE me, it was all too much . . . .
I was unprepared for it. So I slipped unwittingly straight into shock when I saw my image.
But when I finally came out of that shock, in for a penny, in for a pound, I suppose, so I really belted it out. I cried and cried and cried some more. And it was magnificent and necessary and meaningful and beautiful and cathartic in the extreme.
I just let it all out, and cried until I could cry no more. Not that I could have stopped it, because I tried. It was too powerful, and it needed to happen regardless.
What I saw I cannot come back from. What I saw is who I am supposed to be. What I saw is who I am.
What I saw was me.
The real me . . . .
And it blew my freaking mind completely the hell up.
All those years of fighting against myself. All those years of hating myself. All those years of being horribly ashamed of myself and believing I was broken. All of those years of suppressing and denying what I previously knew to be true so long ago. All those years violating my authenticity and who and what I really am. All of it came out during that intense cry-fest out there somewhere on the road in the city of Guadalajara.
Today was a day that I never thought I would see or experience. Today was a day that not so very long ago I dared not even begin to dream could ever be possible because the more likely alternative was simply unbearable to consider.
Today was an amazing day.
Today was a true awakening. Today I woke from my dreams to find my new reality is actually true.
I am now who I have worked soooooo hard to become. Through all the loss, through all the battles, through all the self-loathing and self-pity, through all of the collateral damage that my transition has so ruthlessly left in its wake, through it all, I am who I am.
I am me.
Finally, at the tender young age of 45 years, I am me . . . .
And I love it. It's as it should be, it is right.
Funny that I needed a big, giant mirror to get this through my thick skull, though. But my docs know exactly what they are doing, so I'm guessing that big, giant mirror was not there by accident, and that I am far from the first to stand before it and be completely and totally blown so away like that.
Damn, though. Who knew a mirror could do all that??!
