October 15th, 2007

I'm down to my final week before I leave for San Francisco.  Last week was wearing me  down as I had too much time to think about it and it was too far away.  However, this week I'm fairly busy and won't have time to dwell on it, and it's now time to get things ready to pack and make sure I have everything.  I'm also trying to plan out a little bit, what things I would like to see when I get there.  Tonight I have another voice test situation where I begin tutoring students tonight.

As of now, I think I've finally come out to everyone I need to.  Every relative, friends, associate who needs a special approache to talk about it all knows by now.  Sure, there will be people in the future expecting to see something else, but they'll just get the quick, 'Oh, I changed my name, and I'm really a woman', and leave it at that.  I talked with my Grandmother yesterday, worried that she just wouldn't understand the situation, but it was evident she'd heard of such things before and was able to allow that such a thing could happen to me.  Later in the conversation she mentioned how she was a tom boy when she was young and that it must be similar to my issues of being expected to behave in certain ways.  Grandma is fairly old (99), but still able to know what's going on and lives in her own house with some assistance from nurses who come by and check in on here.  When I arrived, I said hello and stepped inside.  She promptly said she did not recognize me and wondered who I was.  I chucked knowing that she's assuming her age is getting the best of her, when I knew there was good reason for it.  I did tell her later as we got into the subject, that her eyes are just fine - it was me.  I think the only hard part she'll have with it , is remembering my new name.