My Parents' Hopes Won't Come True

I was just a tiny baby when my parents started saying all these things. My dad kept telling me how proud he is of me and that he couldn’t wait for me to grow up and start my own family, just like him and mom. My mom was also telling me that I’d be a great groom in the future. Every single day, from the day that I was born, my parents have been preparing me to live a life, just like them. They wanted me to find a wife, to have kids, and be a parent just like my dad. 

I remember when I had just reached the age of 5, we had to go to a wedding, in which my parents had dressed me up as if I was the one getting married. I had a suit and a tie on and some black pants that were supposed to be in fashion. I was their little gentleman. The entire time at the wedding they kept telling me how they hope one day this could be me. 

Little did they know that I had different plans for the future. But these plans weren’t known to me, until today. I lived 15 years of my life having such a burden in my chest about my parents’ wishes. I always felt kind of bad, because I knew inside me that this was never going to happen. I wasn’t what they expected me to be. 

So ever since I was a kid, I felt a bit different from most of the world. I didn’t know why or how, but I just felt like it. My dad always referred to me as a ‘real man’, which I didn’t know what it meant at that point. I love my parents, they love me back and I just wanted to be a good boy for them. I behaved how they wanted me to behave and I had hidden my own truth from them because I felt like they would judge me for it. 

I always kind of ask myself or to the Universe, why me? Why did it make me a different boy? It’s extremely hard when you are the only one who’s different. 

When I was just 5 years old, when they were dressing me in their boy’s clothes, I just felt so bad about it. I knew it was the normal thing for them, but I just wished they didn’t dress me like that. I hated wearing suits and ties, men’s pants, and being a boy. 

I wasn’t a boy. Never in my life, but I just tried to be for their sake. I didn’t even know what that feeling was, up until the age of 15, when for the first time in my life, I wore a dress. It was only for fun at first, because I was having fun with my friends and they dared me to do this. As soon as I put it on, everyone was laughing with me, because it was, I guess, part of the joke, but to me, it wasn’t funny. I took a good glance at me in front of the mirror, and I finally realized it. I was a girl, trapped in a boy’s body. 

I started crying and rushed into the bathroom. Everyone kept asking why was I crying, but I didn’t know what to answer them, so I just lied. 

I went back home to my parents. I also had worn lipstick, for the “joke”, but I couldn’t get it off of me as much as I should, so I returned home with lipstick on. My dad was furious. He slapped me on the right cheek and had me grounded for like a month. 

Ever since I was just a baby, my parents were raising me as their little boy and expected me to be their little groom in the future, but they didn’t see that I was never a boy. They only wanted to see what they wanted, and that’s why I believed it up until my teenage years. 

Today, I just turned 18 years old. It’s finally the time for me to come out to my parents before I leave their home. I am very nervous and my whole body is shaking, but it’s just something I have to do, before I am gone from their lives. If they love me for me, then I’ll be very happy about it and will definitely see them again. If they don’t, well then, I guess we'll just have to continue our lives separately. I’m tired of pretending to be someone I’m not. I’m tired of faking it and living a life for society and my parents. It’s time right now to live my own life the way that I want it. 

My parents are here on the couch sitting. I go over to them and sit right across the couch. They both looked at me and then I blurred it out. 

“Mom, Dad…..I’m a straight trans woman.” I said.

My dad couldn’t look at me, but my mom hugged me. It was such a nice feeling. 

Five years later, when I had finished my studies and was going well with the hormone therapy, and I had done my top surgery as well, so I’d say that I was very happy about it, but it was time for me to do the bottom surgery. 

On the day of my surgery, before I went, I got a call from my dad. We hadn’t spoken in 5 years when I had left them and he couldn’t look at me in the eyes. He wanted to see me today, but I told him I had surgery, and I hung up. 

When I went for my bottom surgery I was so nervous, more than I was with everything else, because I feared for the pain and I just wished nothing would go wrong, and luckily nothing went like that. 

As soon as I opened my eyes in the hospital, feeling like I had just completed my last step to feel better about myself, my dad and my mom were right there next to me. They were both crying and holding my hand. My dad apologized for how he had reacted back then and that he still loved me very much, even if he didn’t understand what I was doing. Lastly, he said that he was proud of me, for being who I am and he hugged me. 

“I love you, Christina,” he said, and I teared up.