Making Kendra (Part 7 of 7)

So I was out at work, joy, joy. At least I no longer felt like a fraud and I no longer had to rush home to change. Life was better. It was strange, I finally looked forward to going in, looking good and being myself even IF I knew Mack would no longer want to talk to me, even if he tormented me with slurs and made fun of me; who cares I was finally me.

But…”So I am guessing you didn’t change your name to Collin?” Mack asked.

“No, I didn’t. I changed my name to Kendra Chelsea, I did it on everything, including my birth certificate.” I replied not looking directly in his direction.

“What about Kimberly?” He continued.

“She is straight, actually we both are, so we kind of opened up our relationship. It isn’t fair to her, she deserves to be loved like a woman.”

And the questions continued for most of the night.

Yes, when I say I am straight I mean I like guys, yes I know I lied to you all those years, yes I am happy, yes eventually, probably maybe I will have the surgery.

And the only thing he could say at the end of the night was, “I wish you had trusted me.”

He was right; I lied, I deceived, I was the bad girl, I was the one in the wrong and I apologized. I had spent my entire career with this man and nothing but half-truths came out of my mouth but I did follow up the confession with the statement, “But I will never lie to anyone again.”

Until the inevitable question…”Have you told your mom yet?” He asked

“No, not yet. But she is a conservative southern Baptist, it is going to be tough, I might even lose her. It is funny, my therapist told me I should give you more credit and he thought telling you would be fine but when we talk about my mother he is terrifyingly quiet on the matter. No reassurance at all.”

“You need to tell her, just go there, sit down and tell her your new name, tell her that she has a daughter, tell her you like men.” He said in an oddly serious tone.

“Yea, not going to happen.” I responded in a matter-of-fact tone and shut him off.

“You have to, it isn’t fair to either one of you.” Mack responded. “And until you do, you will still be lying and you said you would never like to anyone again.”

“Damn, fuck, son-of-a-bitch, he was right.” I thought. “Still a liar, still a fraud, still a coward.”

The worst part of it is that my mother and I were always close. Our family was close. Kimberly, Miranda, Brendan and I had always made a point to join her for dinner at least twice a month and I called her almost every day but once I began my transition all that slowed to a crawl. It was so hard to find things to talk about since I was hiding that part of my life.

So that was the moment I realized that I had to tell her. Not that day of course, not that week, heck not even that month but one day I would have to sit down and tell her everything and I fully expected I would lose her but anything else would not be fair to either one of us.

At the end of the night I got the most unexpected surprise. “Good night Kendra, have a good weekend.” Mack said as we left. I smiled, I had to. It was like every other part of my life after I began transition, I was the luckiest girl on the planet.

“Good night Mack.” I said as I waived.

And it did not end there; thinking coming out to my coworker would have been the worst decision I would ever made turned out to be the opposite.

Mack always made it a point to call me Kendra in front of everyone in my office.

And even more surprising was the night he explained to me that being transgender wasn’t a sexual thing, it was wires crossed making me believe I am female. “Bless his heart he was telling me why I am me.” I thought.

“I have some links that I could send you that I have bookmarked, that is if you are interested.”

He was reading about being transgender, he was learning, for me. He was trying to understand me on my level. “I would like that Mack.” I replied, “Before you know it you are going to know all the terms, cis, clocked… You will be an expert.”

“You are different, you made me change the way I think. I didn’t think you know, it was normal but you are different, you are a good guy, I mean girl, sorry Ken, I mean Kendra…FUCK, I am sorry.”

I could see he was genuinely upset at making gender mistakes. “Mack, listen.” I said seriously, “I get it, you have known me for over twenty years, you are trying but things like that happen, and I am okay really. I know you aren’t doing it on purpose. The only time I would get upset is if someone does it on purpose.”

“So what are you going to do this weekend?” He asked, trying to put his gender mistake behind him.

“Trans Pride in DC, Yeah!!!” I replied

God it was good to be able to be myself all the while having friends that supported me and now I knew for sure, Mack was my friend.

#Mack #Marcie #Kimberly