Another coming-out-of-the-closet story
No real purpose to this thread, other than to share my own recent coming-out-of-the-closet story. :)
Hope you enjoy.
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The thought of telling my best friend and my (non-biological, but still lovely) sister (they’re a couple!) all about my “girl side” rattled around in my brain, as it often has for more than a year, and frightfully, it didn’t reject the idea… again. Egad, stupid brain! You’re supposed to be in charge of keeping the iron wall of secrecy around ‘mira’! Lately, I’d been in a permanent state of semi-freaked out, and realizing I can’t just hold things inside forever and still make good decisions. Sigh. OK, then, onto the matter of actually making the words somehow physically come out of my mouth; surely, I’d be more eloquent and composed if I wrote a letter…
On the weekend, it was just my sister and I in the living room, and I knew this was as prime of a chance as I was going to get to actually be able to say what I wanted. It was all written down and everything! Of course, as soon as that dawned on me, my eyes began desperately darting around waiting for some sort of hole in the ground to open up for me to escape into forever. “So, what is it Conrad..? What’s your secret?” sitting on the couch she cheerfully asked me with a disarming grin.
A couple weeks ago, I subtly hinted to her that I had something to reveal about myself. Except that it was so subtle she didn’t really get that there was a hint. A few days later, I suddenly blurted out that, maybe, just maybe, I was soon going to reveal something about myself. Whatever she was doing, she didn’t stop doing it. But, eventually, finally a spark of curiosity as I pretty much directly told her that… I had something big to tell her!
I reminded her of this often over the past few weeks, playfully deflecting all lines of repetitively chirping questioning, because, well… I wanted to torture her for a bit and to make my announcement more momentous! I mean, this has been a PRETTY GODDAMN BIG secret that has tormented me since, like, puberty, so it was only fair that I get to dish some of that pain onto my loved ones… just for a bit. Plus, how could I EVER effectively make fun of her again, knowing she had the trump card knowledge of the fact that I like to wear g-strings and lipstick and call myself mira (and it actually only begins there)? It was a mild form of torture, all things considered, but of course even in those few weeks I lost sleep and I’m pretty sure she didn’t, so I didn’t even get my little bit of fun. UNFAIR.
I thought that I was totally cool with myself, at least it felt like it before I reached the door, and I actually felt, (editor's note: hahahaha, idiot), I’d just say it gracefully, with gusto, because I was now Chinky Stardust, who was a genderless, raceless, ageless shaman outlaw! Of course, getting your brain to cut down all those fences it has erected to defend the words “I am a transvestite” from coming out of your mouth... It would have been easier to, I dunno, confess to shooting my dad with a crossbow or something. I opened up a carefully thought out document on my laptop of the letter I’d written confessing my transvestitic sins, and looked at her beaming face. Oh God. Did it have to be so beaming? ****ing Christ. I made my best pathetic puppy dog face, and it was pathetic, just hoping it might get me out of this somehow.
The document was open in front of her! Now, I just had to read it. One… word… at… a… time. I started reciting it like a kid who just learned how to read trying to co-ordinate his brain and his mouth in front of his class. Of course, in my letter I’d made sure there were a couple paragraphs of rambling before I said anything of any consequence. That, combined with my stuttering pace, made sure to draw out this entire ordeal until I was sweating and having a nervous breakdown. Actually, the whole I AM A TRANSVESTITE thing didn’t really appear till the end of the letter and was a shockingly small portion of it. It did give me time to stop and make her pledge unconditional love again, however. After an eternity of dry mouthed, monosyllabic jumbles of words, I eventually did get to that dreaded point of the document.
“I have…” Pause. She looked at me. I tried to hide from her inquiring eyes by looking at my computer screen, but all those earlier words were drowned out by one, just staring at my slanty-eyed face: transvestite. Puppy dog face.
“You have..?”
I just stared at her, trying to silently ask her to please love me. I knew I’d finally gone too far to back out of this now, that I couldn’t really get out of it, and that if I did, I’d be a dunce, and worse, I’d STILL be a transvestite. Unless…? Nope, still no hole in the ground. The clock kept ticking, even the damn thing thought I looked pitiable, and I was still sitting in that exact same spot, staring at her helplessly.
“I…. have….” She was trying to piece it out, but I craftily worded it in a way where she wouldn’t be able to guess! Ha! Except for the flaw in my plan in that I would actually have to say it. “I…… I…… have….” I couldn’t help but glance up at her quizzical, amused expression. It’s like my girl side was conspiring with my sister to make me squirm. “I… have… g….” Why would you tell me I should do this, and then prevent me from saying the words, BRAIN?! It kept dragging the letters back in! I sat there and sighed aloud for dramatic effect. She looked at me, trying to find the words to reassure me.
“You… like to have sex with animals?” She dwelled on that for a bit. “I mean, even if you did, it’d be a bit weird, but I’d still love you”. Did she mean that? I guess being a transvestite isn’t as bad as having sex with animals. I guess.
“No… no… I don’t like having sex with animals…… That’s not it”, I replied, with perfect seriousness. “No sex with animals”, I reiterated, with a sweaty face. She smiled at my inability to even crack a corner of a smile. “I………… have……………. g…g…g…..” It was unfair how relaxed she was, using her genetic-female-multitasking skills to be amused at me melting down while simultaneously being supportive. Me, I was single minded in my inability to say the words. “Ggggggg…..” It wasn’t fair that I could feel all confident and then it could disappear completely like this. “End…er we..i…rd…ness.” Wait. Did I just say it? After all these years? Really? Well, kind of: she looked more confused than before. “Gender… weirdness” she asked herself?. It was probably because I said it like my brain was being sucked by a vacuum cleaner. And the description didn’t really tell her anything. “Jena, I have… gender weirdness”, I repeated. Puppy dog face. Please love me.
Well, this was it. I was officially a transvestite weirdo now. I felt like one big raw nerve, my every thought and her every expression making me want to curl up into a ball. Of course, by not being a big-girl earlier and saying gender weirdness instead of transvestite, I had to clarify pretty much everything all over again, plus some. “Wait… So you like to sleep with transvestites?” she asked. “No, no… Well, actually, yes, but…” “So, you like to just wear outfits… Or like makeup and everything?” “Everything.” Pause. “Interesting.” She nodded at me and studied me for a second like I was a capibera or something. It would have been a nice time for that hole to open up.
As she was digesting this information, turning away for just a second, I sat there, unable to move. My whole body was awash with a cluster**** of emotions, some classifiable, most not, and I was overwhelmed, emotionally over exerted. I feebly tried to escape, but all I could do was flop against the couch, trying to look dignified, helplessly waiting for a response. I sat there, and with all my might, tried to keep myself contained, which I’m normally really, really good at. But not today. A burning feeling of indignation, as I felt tears claw their way slowly out of my eyes. Oh no! I was really not going to be able to laugh at her uselessness for a while. Not only did she know that I liked to dress as a girl, but now, she had seen me cry too (to be fair, it was more like salty secretions were leaking from my eyes, not actual actual crying). C'mon.
“Ohhh.” She startled out of whatever thought was drifting in her brain, wrapped her arms around me, and I was overcome with sisterly warmth. I felt my body and all those foreign emotions it was housing at the moment melting into a small puddle. I tearily blinked. It was a hug I actually felt inside my body, like my soul was being consoled by her sisterly-empathy-powers… I have to admit that her shaman powers are more potent than mine at the moment. It took a while to get there, but I had found a place far better than the hole in the ground.
She looked me in the eye, and said, like she had just understood what I told her: “YOU like to dress like a woman”. Our eyes were locked, I couldn’t escape, and I looked at her flabbergasted, ready to protest. She just looked back innocently at me. Didn’t she listen to all those paragraphs I had written! I was a bi-gendered outlaw! A dual-spirited shaman! There was so much more to it! My brain searched for a rebuttle, but nothing came out when I opened my mouth. I looked at her again, forcing a shy little smile. More burning, mocking indignation. OK. I like to dress like a woman. I love it. I need it, actually… It’s this really important part of me! Me, who you love... right?!
I was so tired, I didn’t feel elated really (that would be for later in the day); I just wanted to take a coming-out-of-the-closet nap. I was jarred back to my previous state of flooded by new emotions when, and I swear I didn’t even think of this in all the hundreds of times telling her in my head, she declared she was going to participate. I don’t really have a choice! I mean, I can’t just have a super-awesome girl side and not share it. “We’re going to have fun with this!” Big grin. Gulp. I guess my nervous times are pretty far from over. For the record, I also think at some point she said she was going to buy me a bejeweled bra. I don’t know what that is exactly, but I want!!!
This moment had taken me like 15 years to get to, and really, there’s only one appropriate way to celebrate such an occasion… And that’s by being a transvestite….! :D
