Wow, it has been a completely up-and-down day. If you read the "unhappy today" thread, you'll have seen that I was upset because my dad sent an email sort of questioning whether I had really thought this through and was doing the right thing. He means well, but I was still upset by the question.
Well... I sent a long explanation, trying to explain how carefully and cautiously I had approached this, and how it really was the only choice I could make. He's hard to convince of things, so it was a lot of effort to put that response together. One of the things I mentioned was that this really was happening, so we needed to think about when to tell the rest of the family.
I just got his reply, and he basically dropped the questioning tone, agreed that I have more than proven myself over the years to be trustworthy, and reaffirmed that he is proud of me for having the courage to follow this difficult path and that he will be there with me along the way.
So, cool.. but there's more. Over the weekend, I was visiting for a nephew's birthday party, and he and the family (my stepmother and a teenaged half-sister and brother) were there. I felt like I was getting funny looks from my sister and stepmother. I was presenting as male, but wearing women's jeans, so I was a little worried either they'd noticed that or otherwise noticed something "wrong." But that kind of faded, and we had a normal conversation. There, and at dinner after, though, my sister was talking to me much more casually and openly than she had before. I thought it was cool---we have been getting closer over the last year or two since I have been living closer by so I see her more than once a year now. But it made me a little bit sad to think that she might become uncomfortable when she learned about my being TG, and that we might lose that new rapport.
Well... my dad told me that he had actually already talked to her and my stepmother. It is all I can do to sit quietly in my chair here at work, I really want to flip out because I am so unbelievably ecstatic to think that her reaction to learning this about me was to open up in a way she never had before. I really cannot believe it. I think it might be the biggest happiest surprise since the start of my transgender journey.
Now, let's see if I can walk down the hall to the coffee machine. It might be difficult because my feet probably won't be touching the ground.
