There is this YouTube animated video that has been around for awhile now, of a little kiwi who nails these trees to the side of a mountain. After he has all the trees where he needs them, he jumps over the edge of the cliff and pretends to fly. You see the look of joy and pleasure or being able to “fly” on his face as he stretches out his wings before fading into the mist. The ending is left vaguely open but you do hear a soft thud, which I have always understood as the poor kiwi’s death.

This video has always made me cry, it is so raw and brings up so many feelings in me. It makes me feel so real and understood. I feel like that kiwi a bird given wings two small to support my own weight and take to the air. Knowing fully well that I’m not the only one out there but that never really helps the the cause at hand. I also understand no matter how many time people bawlk and ghawf that sometimes you need to do what you need to do.

In my live there have been several of those need to do things in my life. the biggest and most shocking has probably been transition. This is my jumping off the cliff with trees nailed to it event in my life. People don’t seem to understand why I would do something so drastic. Why do you make yourself an outcast and leper to society when you could have gone on living how you were before. Living… that’s something I didn’t start doing until that July morning when I said “as of today I am going to live as female” and I did. See like the little kiwi I had to take that chance that I might die, lose my friend, lose my family, getting beaten up, or hurt all for even a days worth of feeling “right”.

I can clearly imagine the exhilaration of knowing this is how those seagulls and sparrows feel.  Knowing that even for within this moment thins are as they should be. You see I didn’t transition because I chose to, because I wanted to. I Transition despite not wanting to and because I HAD to. My choices were very limited death(if not by my own hand the just of my soul and spirit) or transition. I chose life. To be honest I don’t regret my choice at all. It isn’t always the easiest life, but it is an interesting and adventurous life. It has taken me to place and introduced me to people I would have never known otherwise. Is it the life I would have chosen? No, but someone’s got to do it, and it might as well be me.  I’m happy and to me that’s what counts.