Convalescence

It hurts. But I recover. It feels like a sharp pain as the knife slowly enters the wound, twists, then pulls out. The wound remains, but it slowly heals leaving its mark.

What am I talking about? It’s being called “him”, or “he”, or my old boy name. People don’t mean to do it, but nevertheless, it does happen...and it does hurt. I try not to let them see the pain as I turn my head and pretend like I didn’t hear them, but sometimes I have to correct them…grabbing their hand as the knife is within me, and pull it out letting them know that it’s not nice to stab a girl in the gut.

Most of the time, though, I know they don’t mean any harm. I try to let them slide by, especially when they know that they made a mistake. It makes me feel slightly better, though, to know that they are at least trying to correct their error.

I also have a T friend who, after going from her boy name to a girl’s name, decided to change from one female name to another, so now I am finding the hard part of calling her by her new name. I try. Every time I slip up, I try to correct myself right off the bat. I know it is hard calling people by new names, but as long as people are making a solid attempt, that’s all that one can ask for. The hard part for me with her name change is that she did not accompany it with any other changes. That was one reason I went from full on boy mode to full on girl mode, so people would see the change a little better and recognize the new name.