Throwback to Halloween 10 years ago, when my bass drum line went as the Scooby Doo Mystery Team (with yours truly as Velma). This was the first time I had “cross-dressed” (albeit in costume) since I was 13, and it would be the last time I would do it until age 23. I repressed a lot back in those years and repressed it deep for a very long time. To this day I still don’t know how I didn’t manage to cave, crack, or crumble under the immense pressure of what I was keeping inside me.
This isn’t to say these were bad times for me, they were pretty great to be honest, and they were made better by having friends like these to get me through each day. But I just wish I could have gone through those years without being so hard on myself for feeling the way I did, and I wish I could have opened up to just one other soul. It has taken me a long time to forgive myself for staying silent all those years, and I still don’t think I fully have forgiven myself. But I’ve gone through enough shit to genuinely feel like everything happens for a reason, and it happens WHEN you need it to as well.
Age 28 is when I was supposed to transition, not at 23 when I first got back into cross-dressing (but had a host of other things to deal with in my life), not at 18 as I am in these pics, and not at 13 as I was when I first started exploring my deepest inner feelings for the first time.