Almost

If I had to pick one word to represent my life, that's the word I would pick. Almost.

A little over 5 years ago, I was playing flag football against the second team my company had put together. It was 4th down and at least 10 yards to go. I ran an out pattern, but because I was well covered, I rolled up the field. The quarterback rolled right as well, and launched the ball toward me. I was hauling ass to get to where I needed to be, and had since passed up the people covering me. The ball started to fall right ahead of me, and I outstreched my hands in an attempt to catch it. As I did, I felt the ball slide right through the tips of my fingers. I missed it by about 6 inches. Almost caught it. We lost the game. A few months later, I moved to California and began a new chapter of my life. Had I caught that ball, would things still be as they are today?

Does anyone remember Gunder Hägg? Probably not. There are probably very few who know of Roger Bannister, for that matter. Gunder Hägg ran the mile in the 1940's. His personal best was 4:01.4. He never broke four minutes, but he was perhaps the first to get that close and never break it. Roger Bannister broke it nine years later when he became the first person to break the 4-minute barrier.

I was no Gunder Hägg, but in high school, I had a number of seasons in a row where I almost made it to the State competition. I was 6th in cross-country when the top 5 went, lost in sectional wrestling...the last step before State, was 5th in sectional track when the top 4 went, and was 11th in cross-country when the top 10 went. I lost in sectional wrestling one more time, and missed State again in track as a Junior.

In student council, I was vice-president. They should call it almost-president.

In college, I was the #2 runner on the cross-country team my graduate year. Yes, I ran when I was a graduate student since I had been injured as a senior. There was one race where I led the team, but it was only because our #1 guy was sick.

In track, the best I could manage in a race was 2nd place. One guy outleaned me at the line. Almost won.

In a lot of these cases, I was pretty decent, but I couldn't quite get to that plateau past 'almost'. That's been a lot of my life....almost.

To some, I'm almost a girl. There are still some items on my body which I cannot change, and those things still remind me that I was born male. My hands, my feet, my chest, my larger frame...there's not much I can do about them. And, thus, I'm reminded that I'm almost a girl. Almost.

Is 'almost' good enough? I almost have a female hairline, almost have a female body, almost have a female face, almost have female genitalia. I can get hair transplants for my hairline, could tweak the face here and there, tweak downstairs a little, surgically alter the waist/chest with lots of potential risks, etc. Where does it end?

IS almost good enough? I don't know, but sometimes one reaches a point where almost is about as good as it's going to get.

And ya know what....I'm ok with that.