Rapprochement, from the French rapprocher ("to bring together)

To my friend . . . a love letter.

How do you presume to start something so important and so long overdue?

Well I suppose courage eventually does find it's season

It was at this time of year that we first met - and for the nearly twenty years since then I still have not known another person in who I've been more impressed or have loved more than you. Yet throughout that time I kept from you the secret that you deserved to know from the very beginning. I've struggled with being trans all my life. For as long as I can remember I've kept this secret from those I loved because I was terrified, terrified of being seen by them as some sort of chimera, not male or female, perhaps not even human at all but rather something in between. So I kept it to myself. I gave no indication of the war that raged within me, my spirit in conflict with the body that contained it. I was desperate to be free of that conflict, to live in the truth.

You know all this now of course, but you deserved to know it then. I lied, I failed to disclose the truth of what I knew, of whom I was and in so doing precluded you from making the informed choice of living a life with me knowing wholly who I was . . . and what I am. I was afraid that you would not or could not "see" me. I was afraid that if you did see me you would abandon me. Of course all these things came to pass - that being the cruel irony born of my deceit.

In the years we had, some were good and some were frankly not what each of us hoped for. As I drew closer to an urgent need to transition I pulled away from my best friend . . . my soul mate, this woman in whom I had had been so proud to know. You gave me two wonderful children that I adore. But they too deserved to be unencumbered by their father's status as a chimera as an "it" in the eyes of most.

You would be justified in dismissing all of this as just more self-serving and I could not blame you. This is where our attempts at rapprochement generally break down, with you accusing me of caring only about my pain and not about what I've done to the woman that I love still and the children we each adore. I wish I could take back all the pain and heartache that I've caused you. I live now within a body that I am no longer at war with yet that cost was too high. I wanted to be normal and I wanted to be loved. You deserve to be loved and you deserve to be respected with the truth as well.

When I am asked was it worth it, this transition, I respond yes, but . . . I add that whatever strength and insights, and yes Peace, that I may have gained in all this, I would gladly give back to again rest peacefully in my former partner's embrace and proudly revel in the accomplishment of our children . . . first hand.

I don't know where we go from here, but I hope it will yet be toward friendship and away from recrimination. I deserve neither your friendship nor your trust but I hope someday to earn your forgiveness.



©2010 Renee Thomas all rights reserved