...and all have been very supportive and not terribly shocked by my decision. Here's a bit of a lovely e-mail a close college friend sent me:
QuoteI'm so proud of you for taking this step. I agree that you will
regret not figuring this out so you are doing the right thing. If you decide
to stay as you are, you will be far more comfortable with it because you are
choosing it. Does that make sense? If you learn that you want to go
through with the transition, however that will look, I'm glad you have your wife
as your initial support (no matter what happens in the end), and your friends and I will always support you.
It makes me sad to read about your family, but I remind myself that we all
have some sort of dysfunction that has an impact on who we are. Some more
than others. In the end though, I truly believe that we are what we always
would have been, and how upbringing just turns the volume up a bit perhaps.
My sisters and I are so different and we had the same upbringing so really
it's about the role our families play in the person we already are that ends
up having any kind of additional influence on which personality traits
become dominant.
So whatever you do, that is who you are, and I love you. Keep me posted.
Call when you need to. I'll try to be able to answer or get right back to
you if I'm not alone. That's my biggest problem. I am suffocated by how
rarely I am alone and therefore I never answer the phone. Unless I'm in my
car. :) Ah solitude.
Love ya.
Too bad she's 2000 miles away, huh/
That's wonderful!!! It's great to have supportive friends, I'm glad for you :)
Sometimes it's the people we least expect to be supportive who actually are the most supportive