I've mentioned before that both of my adult sons refuse to accept me. That has not changed.
My daughter and her husband accepted me but were very reluctant to allow me to interact with my grandchildren as my transition moved forward.
I went legally full time at the end of September and really haven't looked back.
This weekend I spent at the Texas Ren Fest in Magnolia, Texas. It's huge and there's always so much to see, do, and experience. Throughout the fest, there was never a moment where I was misgendered. In fact, as I began to become aware, I was frequently the object of positive male attention on multiple occasions. Two of my closest friends were with me and one of them is about 10 years younger than me, probably an inch taller than me, with almost identical builds. She's tall, thin, a 36A and wears 10-12 tall clothing. I am tall, thin, a 38A, and wear 12-14 tall clothing. We often hand off things to each other to try on. We resemble each other a bit too, to where I've been asked if we are sisters.
So the Ren Fest itself was a wonderful weekend but then Sunday afternoon, it was all I could do to not break down and cry. Initially I was unsure as we were in the far back of the Ren Fest grounds and cell phone reception is spotty back there. But I had a notification on my cell phone. It said Kathryn ***** (daughter of ...) and cut off there. My heart began to pound faster. I opened the notification and it opened my Facebook app on my cell phone, and was trying to open on the friend request tab.
But it failed. Cell phone reception was bad back there and it wasn't able to finish loading.
I stared at that partially loaded tab for a good minute before I took a deep breath, turned off my phone, and began walking with the rest of my friends.
We continued around the back of the Fest grounds, eventually reaching the Spanish food court area. We all got something to eat and sat down. One of my friends could tell I was restless. She asked why and I told her. She suggested that we see if it would load here.
I pulled out my phone and tried once again to load Facebook. It connected. And there in my Friends Requests list was a request from my eldest grandchild, Kathryn. It took me several minutes to gain my composure and not break down totally in tears and there were a few tears anyway, though I was trying to not make a scene in the middle of several thousand people. Finally, I accepted the friend request, smiled and talked to my friends about how good that felt, for my granddaughter to know and to then want to contact me.
Later that evening we were driving home and I got an audible beep. A quick glance showed a text message from my granddaughter. I didn't answer, instead waiting til we had all arrived at BJ's Restaurant, since I was driving. But once inside, I replied and thus began a wonderful text conversation with my granddaughter. I asked my friends if they would prefer me to not have that conversation (and honestly, had it been anyone else I would have ignored it and waited til we were done) but they unanimously urged me on, knowing just how important that conversation was to me.
As the end of the meal approached and we finished up our dinner table conversation, I also brought the text message conversation to a close. The final message from my granddaughter was simply "I love you".
The next day I had another message from her, explaining that she didn't normally use Facebook very often, so she gave me her cell phone number and encouraged me to message her whenever I felt like it.
So what had been a wonderful and fun weekend became a totally amazing weekend with me being out to my granddaughter and my granddaughter wanting to be involved in my life and have me in hers. It doesn't get much better than that.
