Glimpses of my future

I saw her today.  I was at the hair salon getting my hair done, and I caught a quick glimpse of her in the mirror.

A few days ago I saw her toes, I looked down and there they were cute toes, in a new pair of sandals sticking out of her jeans.  I heard her giggle the other day.  K and  I were in the car and I heard her giggle at some silly thing. Just a little while ago I saw her smile.  M and I were having dinner out and I saw her smile.

Just fleeting moments, but they are there.  Moments where I'm not thinking of anything, not worried about how I look, how I'm perceived, how I'm treated, just simple moments where I'm just a woman.  Flashes of it, flashes of time where I'm a woman.   Each time I've stopped myself and smiled and cherished the moment.  I've lived for these moments my entire life.  Moments where I don't just look the part, act the part, or get treated as a woman, but feel it.  Actually feel like I'm me.

I've tried explaining it to M, and K, and my FF friends, but they just don't understand.  I don't think I have a way of explaining the sensation.  How do you describe being what you've always dreamed of to someone who has been that their entire life?  How do the colorblind describe seeing colors for the first time to someone who has seen them their entire life?

I see her now.  Not all of the time, actually hardly ever.  But she's there.  I see her in the mirror, but it's not just how she looks.  I see her toes, but it's not the shoes she's wearing.  I hear her giggle, but it's not her laugh.  I see her smile, but it's not her face.  It's me, it's my eyes, my vision of the world.  It's seeing the world from her eyes for the first time.  It looks different in ways I can't explain.  

I see all of my FF friends and smile at their kindness.  I see K and she looks so different now.  I never noticed before but she looks like me, not physically she is after all 10 inches shorter then me, but inside we could be sisters.  M makes me smile in a new and completely different way.  Rick was always proud of M's smile.  He took pride in a happy M.  It was as if it was Rick's job in life to make M smile.  But I've had glimpses of M's smile that just warmed my heart with it's love and devotion.  Smiles that were given freely from her without the pride of Rick to interrupt them as success.  Don't get me wrong, Dana will work just as hard to make M smile, harder really, but the return is different.  The love back is not a reward but a gift.

You hear how powerful E is and you think you're ready for all of the changes it forces on you.  But I wasn't ready.  How could I prepare for a world that looks different, tastes different, feels different.  And different in a way that there are no words to describe.  I mean after all words are meant to convey common thoughts between two people.  How common can these changed emotions be.  There are only a few thousand of us, and it's not like we get to make our own vocabulary just to describe the differences in how we see the world as a woman now.

It's been 7 months now.  The physical changes are more then noticeable.  But the mental changes are huge.  I've had glimpses of my destination.  Glimpses of moments I knew I wanted but had no idea what they would be like.  Not that I knew I wanted them because I knew they would be right, but moments I wanted because I knew what I had wasn't right.

I guess that's what makes the trip so scary.  I knew what I had was wrong, but I didn't know what was right, or that what I'd get would be right.

I've had glimpses of the destination and it's right.