More specifically, that would be yesterday. I knew it was approaching, but it somehow slipped my mind yesterday. Oh well. I'll talk about it now. What was yesterday, you ask? Yesterday was the third Tuesday of January.
The three-year anniversary of the accident which nearly claimed my life...and helped set me on the path to building a new one. I think I would have discovered I am a transwoman even without the accident having occurred...but not nearly as soon. I was already in the stage of questioning my identity, so given enough time, it wouldn't have been hard for me to have put the pieces together and with guidance, accept the simple truth.
...But it would have taken me much longer than it did by having the issue forced in front of me. Having a near-death experience is a funny way of making your mind work in overdrive, after all, and the thoughts I had that day just helped it all...just click into place. It still took a couple of weeks for me to unscramble the thoughts, as to make sense of them.
Yet I still consider that the day where I realized I am a woman. It was unbelievably difficult for me to come to that conclusion. It wasn't easy. I struggled with it--I struggled a lot. And even though I was among friends and allies, fellow trans people, transgender and gender nonconforming individuals who were sources of information, there was so much I didn't know (and still don't know!), both about the transgender community and about myself.
It was scary. Especially the fear. The fear of, "what if I'm just deceiving myself?". That wasn't gone even a year later, by which time I was writing this blog. Long-time readers (few as they may be) and archive bingers will of course know that much, because I talked at various points about it, slowly and progressively coming to terms with it, coming to accept it, coming to become confident in it, and knowing, firmly, that yes, I am a girl. No matter what else, I know that I am one.
This is real. This is not a lie. This is me, telling the truth to myself at last. Finally free to express the real me--not the me I am expected to be, but the actual me. That much, I have finally come to realize. But it was no easy task. It's been a long journey, an incredible three years, and it has only just begun. I've got a lot more to do in my life, and my adventure is just starting.
So, belatedly, happy crash day to me!
I might've gotten a much later start on life than most...but I intend to make the most of mine now that I have it.