Sunday Confessional: How I Came Out To My Mom

It's time for another Sunday Confessional! (woo! yay! get excited. ugh) Anyway I'm exhausted from my life of doing nothing so much so that I fall asleep at 9:30 every night- that should be my confession; god it's embarassing. But it is not. And now is time for the show ::curtains rising::

So this is about how I came out to my Mom. It happened about two weeks before I had planned, but looking back it definitely worked out better (and is probably more fitting with how I lived my life in college; drunken late at night with very little thought or planning.)
It all started on my Last LDOC (last day of classes) at Duke which I was involved in putting on this year. I was in charge of giving away thousands of shirts that day, as well as personally get drunk and enjoying my last day. Hubby arrived after being in Mexico for a week, the concert went amazingly and the whole day was perfect. Even though I was totally drunk that night (and told one of my friends Kiwi friend that I like my guests "well lubricated") I got to bed I guess at a reasonable hour. The next morning, the 26th, I had to present my research and paper on Drag Bingo in Durham to my Ethnographic Fieldwork class. I had done some research but I was nowhere close to having anything written for our paper, which was about 70 % percent of our grade, due the next Tuesday and for which during the course of the semester we had to turn in multiple progress drafts that of course I just didn't do, on the basis that I was a senior and I "do what I want." I got up at around 8, which had become incredibly normal for me since started taking the hormones and feeling quite sick in the morning, and screwed around on the internet per usual. I found some clips on youtube about Drag Bingo and the divas (that I wish I had discovered months earlier) that I could play in my presentation and hopefully take up some time. I then went to the L.A. Times website which I normally do to check up on whats going on in the world and saw on the main page a headline "Old Mike New Christine" a play on the name of the new Julia Louis Drefyuss sitcom (daughter of a Duke Grad)
From that title I had a few specific ideas about what the article would be about, but I've come to realize that being transgendered I tend to leap to conclusions, or see transgendered tendencies in many things and to assume. Plus I was still drunk.
Anyway I read this article and for some reason it affected me more than I had anticipated. One of the sportswriters for the times in this article came out as a transsexual and I remember just reading it and feeling so proud and happy for her; I read the article at least three times before I decided I better head to class. I guess it was the fact that I recognized the name Mike Penner from many years of reading the sports section ( and a quick aside, just seeing that name is really weird to me now I think of her as Christine Daniels, as I should) so I felt like I knew her. And secondly, and far more likely and important, everything she wrote about her depressions and feelings and longings were exactly like how I had felt for so many years that I instantly felt a greater connection and sense of kinship. And the courage that she had, to come out to like half a million people just totally blew me away.
After this I was really just happy and buzzing and that was all that I could really think about, it was a good thing my presentation was on a similar topic about gender identity and compartamentalization in society. So i made a rum and coke for class, cuz I refused to go to class during reading period sober, and made my presentation, which sucked but I had an interesting topic so everyone loved it. It was one of those days where everything was so beautiful and perfect and Duke is lovely in the Spring. As i was walking through campus and down Towerview/Morreene towards my apartment Leonard Cohen's Famous Blue Raincoat shuffled onto my iPod. To this day I don't know why the song touched me so, but on the walk back, and in my room I must have listened to it 9 times in a row. Maybe it was just the pure emotion of his voice and the meaning behind the words I don't know and I couldn't tell you. The whole time I was listening to it everything became so much more beautiful and the world seemed so alive and wonderful and I was full of such hope. It was a truly perfect moment. I got back to my computer and I read the article again while the song was still playing and for some reason I started crying hysterically. I think I was just so full of joy and happiness and the beauty in the world (not to mention estrogen) at that moment but I cried hysterically for half an hour. It was a wonderful moment that I'm failing to capture properly, but that is the nature of emotions.
Our neighbors were having a party that night so after a few hours had passed I went the 10 feet over there. One of my friends Bri who had graduated the year before was there and I was so happy to see her. She was a little drunk (as we all were- I had sucked flaming sambuca through a straw! I got mostly fire) and she asked me to give her my three moments that year that had blown my mind. I told her I wore a dress to our Senior Prom, and after a few minutes of convincing her that it wasn't gay prom or whatever she understand. When I told her it blew my mind Megan, my neighbor told me that "it blew a lot of people's minds" which I had sorta gotten (though it still weirded me out that people talked of me.) Anyway Bri, Jules and I went outside for about an hour smoking ciggies and drinking and talking about stuff and I was getting incredibly emotional. I then went into the Beirut room where I was on table and sort of drunkenly exclaimed to some of my friends that I was on hormones, yada yada, which I thought they already knew but apparently freaked out some people. The rest of the night is a bit of a blur but I remember sitting various places and talking to people and being weirdly emotional and inappropriate and open, which I tend to regret in the morning.
After awhile I went back to my place and I sent Christine this e-mail (at 3:20 in the morning):
Christine,
I'm sorry you're probably getting a lot of mail now and are probably not sure which ones are supportive/which ones to open. But I just wanted to say (even if you never read this) I am so happy for, and proud of you. I'm a transsexual as well, I've been on hormones for about 5 months now, and your article just made me so happy, like maybe there is someone else out there, but also because the courage to do that is amazing. I'm a senior in college and I've sort of been coming out to my friends...and everyone else, but I've never come out to half a million readers in one act.I don't personally know you but I feel like you're my sister and I really wanna wish you so much good luck. I have always read you off and on, but now I will feel quite honored to read anything Christine Daniels writes.

I had started crying hysterically again of course. I then drunkenly decided to forward the article to my mom, to see what her reaction would be concerning transsexuality, sort of priming the pump for me coming out. So I forwarded it to her with the personal message "I am so proud and happy for her." I thought nothing of it and went to pass out.
The next day I decided I really needed to start working on these papers. I got up that morning just sort of sick of being myself, of being the tranny kid that everyone knew so I started to freak out and wanted to get away from myself. There was a follow up article that day about Chrisitne about all the support she had gotten and that made me happy but also a bit sad I guess. I really needed to try to be normal. So I went dressed like any normal guy to Chapel Hill to study. I got a lot of reading done and as I was waiting for the shuttle to take me back to Duke my mom called at like 5 p.m. When she called I sort of freaked out that she was calling because of the email but she only asked me what I was doing and if I was planning to stay in Durham for a bit after graduation. Anyway I got back to Duke and read some more before I got to my apartment to research some more. Then I checked my e-mail.

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