Tuesday, July 12, 2005

I'm jumping.

I was still in elementary school when I happened to catch an episode of Donahue. I had already known what I was when I saw this show, but I had no idea what was possible. The guest was Caroline Cossey, and the reason she was on the show was because even though she played a 'bond girl' in 'For Your Eyes Only' she was born a male. Donahue played up her part quite a bit because she wasn't really a bond girl so much as a girl in a James Bond movie. Her time on screen amounted to about 2 seconds - as a camera pans across a pool you can see her in the background. I didn't care what movie she was in though, I just cared about her body - it was perfectly female. They talked a lot about how a male could possibly look like her, and the answer was female hormones. I remember I was 10 years old and my whole life had just changed. I was certain I would be on hormones before I finished highschool, and I would be living as a woman shortly after that and I would end up being a beautiful woman just like Caroline Cossey.

Turns out I was chicken though. That didn't happen. None of the daydreams happened. Instead of trying to do something towards making my daydreams a reality I kept my secret hidden deep inside me. Still, every day of my life I would keep up with the daydreaming. I'd have to change them as time went on though. I'd leave a little bit out of the final picture because I knew the longer I waited, the less feminine as I would become. I knew that hormones couldn't undo the masculinization of puberty, and each day I waited meant I would be more masculine. I used to dream about being beautiful, then after a few years I simply dreamed of being passable. Eventually I felt like it was too late to even try. The daydreams stopped being an inevitability and they became a fantasy. If a couple years ago I thought about the state of my life it would really depress me. Missed opportunities are always sad but especially when the opportunity you missed was a happy life - and that is what I thought I had given up. Those times when I would be depressed over what I hadn't done I had one thought keeping me going. Even though I didn't really believe it really would ever happen, and even if I did the results wouldn't be as dramatic, the thought that kept me sane was "... someday".

"Someday" is a stupid term when used for hope. I don't know how it ever even gave me any hope at all because to say "someday" is like walking towards the horizon. You can almost always see it out there, but no matter how far you walk you never see yourself getting any closer. Imagine if it was possible to catch up to the horizon though. That would be something! It would take so long, and I bet it would be like you are walking along, your eyes set on that line dividing sky and ground and before you knew it that line is at your feet. One more step and you leave that familiar ground you have been walking all your life and you enter into the unknown. One more step and you could fall or fly, who knows which. This is where I am at right now - at that ledge separating my whole life from my daydreams.

For me, "someday" is today. In about 6 hours I will have the prescription for hormones in my hand and I will be ready to take that next step. I'm pretty sure though that I won't take it. No, I haven't changed my mind about hormones at all, I just mean that when the time comes I am not stepping off that ledge, I'm jumping.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sarah, you are already a beautiful woman, you will just be feeling more beautiful when you feel more feminine.