I, too, can dare to hope and dream. It’s not just for the privileged few that make up politics and the like. I wrote a lot of this for the National Novel Writing Month 2008. As it happens, today is the day after the election. I hear the morning birds chirping perhaps with a little more ‘pep’ in their chirp; the buses rumbling along with the sound of kids laughing and teasing; the sky, while grey, is still bright in some way.
Hope.
A powerful thing for a great nation and individual men alike.
I sit, gently puffing on my cigar as I ponder my future and what I’m becoming. The Pending Boi inside me is growing up fast with the realization of becoming a man one day, perhaps not quite what I want but the reality of it all. It’s been over 2 years since I started my transition from woman to butch to genderqueer to transguy. Some may question why I did it and why it took so long to do it. No path for any goal is the same for all people. Mine is my own path and it’s a unique one with terror, fear, love, hate, joy, dreams and even hope. I may one day call myself a guy, dropping the trans along the way when my historical self becomes a footnote to my present self. For now, I’m a transguy and I have hope for who I am, where my future lies and what will become.
Maybe one day transmen and transwomen won’t have to announce their transitions of the true selves they are; maybe they’ll be able to just become who they are supposed to be (much like many of us) and all of us will celebrate that, rather than remember the ones lost along the way for being true to themselves.
The cigars I enjoy today are not little Short Storys but rather ones that could make up novels and epics. They come with intricate details that weave a tale of mystery and temptation. I watch as the gentle smoke from the Gurkha Centurian dances at me, beckoning me to join into the story. It becomes the symbol of being apart and yet, being part of. I still remain somewhat of an outsider to life but less so today. I belong here as the transguy I am and the guy I will become.
Maybe one day, we too can have the audacity of hope and dreams to be seen as people.
Maybe.