Climbing Out: Breaking a 41-Year Silence

There are times when the climb out isn’t a steady, predictable ascent. Sometimes, the ground gives way entirely beneath your feet. You find yourself in a sudden, violent free fall, and for a terrifying moment, it feels like the cage is about to swallow you whole again. Since I last wrote, the landscape of my life has shifted drastically. I have recently navigated a sudden, brutal storm that I never saw coming. I am keeping the details of that storm close to my chest; some chapters belong only to the survivor and the quiet spaces of healing. There is no need to recount the winds that blew the house down. But I have always promised to be honest in this space, and I want to share the reality of where I am sitting emotionally and mentally right now. Right now, I am sitting in a safe, secure, and quiet place. The immediate danger has passed, but the aftermath has arrived. I am exhausted. It is a bone-deep, spirit-level exhaustion that I’ve never quite felt before. When you are forced into s...

​There are moments in your transition where you feel like you are walking through a hurricane. The last few days tested me in ways I didn't know I could be tested. Heartbreak and grief tried to force me back into the dark. As I wrote in my last post, the fear almost won, and I even put the old armor back on for a few hours. ​But I didn't stay there. I found my patch, and I climbed back out. ​Yesterday, I stumbled across a song that stopped me dead in my tracks. It’s the acoustic version of a song called "Shaking Cages" by Silent Theory. When I listened to it, it felt like the lead singer was pulling the words directly from the deepest, rawest part of my core. ​"I see a light on the horizon... I'm going to keep lighting fires... and I'm going to keep shaking cages." ​For 41 years, I lived in a fear-ridden cage. I spent decades quietly existing behind the heavy iron bars of someone else's expectations, terrified of the lock. I built an entire life ...

I didn’t post the update I planned to write a couple of nights ago. The truth is, my heart has been so shattered lately that writing felt impossible. Grief is heavy, and when it crashes into the middle of a major life transition, it leaves you feeling entirely lost. Today, the grief and the fear almost won. I had to go do some plumbing work at my friend’s house. For the first time since I stepped out of the cage, I didn't put on any makeup. Not even the eyeliner and mascara I normally refuse to leave the house without. I didn't take my purse. Instead, I dug and found my old boy clothes. All the way down to the boxer briefs (that I haven't worn in forever) and my Ariat work boots. For 41 years, that presentation was my cage. But today, when my heart was broken and my world felt entirely unstable, those clothes felt like armor. I slipped back into the disguise because when you are in excruciating pain, your mind desperately reaches for whatever is familiar, whatever will let ...

I haven’t posted in a few days. I wish I was coming back tonight to write another triumphant update about transition and finding my peace, but the truth is, I’m sitting on my porch at 2:35 in the morning, smoking a cigarette, having a drink, and trying to figure out how to breathe. ​Gabi and I are no longer together. ​Writing those words makes it violently real. My Facebook status says "single," but my heart is just completely shattered. There are barely even words for the kind of pain I’m sitting in right now. ​Gabi wasn’t just a relationship to me. She is a profound part of my past, my present, and what I had so deeply hoped would be my future. She was the one who helped me come all the way out of the cage. She helped initiate my transition when I was terrified. She was my anchor in the middle of the biggest storm of my life, and tonight, that anchor is gone. ​I know relationships are complicated. I’m not innocent, and I’m not naive enough to think any breakup is entire...

When I first started this journey out of the cage, I spent a lot of time thinking about the big emotional milestones: coming out, my first endocrinologist appointment, and putting on that very first estradiol patch. ​What I didn’t anticipate was just how much paperwork and mathematics would be involved in officially becoming Serenity. ​Let’s start with the wardrobe puzzle. Here is a little secret: I didn't just discover the chaotic world of women’s clothing sizes. I’ve actually known about it my entire life. ​For 41 years, I was supposed to be existing in the men’s section, where sizing is straightforward and a 30-inch waist is just a 30. But the truth is, my brain was always doing the secret math of the women’s section. Even while I was hiding, I knew exactly how to translate my measurements. I knew that I had to add 1.5 to a men's shoe size to find my real size. I knew to subtract roughly 21 from a men's waist size to find my women's pant size. I spent decades carryin...

When I talk about transition, people often immediately think about physical changes. They ask about when the effects of HRT will start, what I’ll look like, or what surgical steps are next. And don't get me wrong, those things are exciting, and I am eagerly waiting for them. ​But the real seismic shifts aren't happening on the outside yet. They are all happening in the quiet, unfiltered spaces within my own mind. They are emotional changes I never thought I’d be allowed to feel. ​It’s been about a week since I started my patches. The initial adrenaline rush of "Day 1" has settled, and now I’m just living in the reality of it. And that reality is quiet . ​For 41 years, my mind was a loud, chaotic battlefield. It was a 24/7 simulation of armor-wearing and pretense, forever calculating how to keep the shadow hidden. Now? The armor is down. The machinery has stopped. And for the first time in my life, I can actually feel . ​All the energy I used to burn on pretending ...