30 Year Reunion: After

Short Version: More than I had any right to expect - doubled.

Long Version:

(before I start just a heads up - "short version" is NOT my area of strength!)

Well, start at the beginning as they say. After some emotional drama on the home-front ( of the sort I'm trying to avoid too much discussion of here) I finally arrived at the restaurant about 10 minutes ahead of time. Earlier in the day I had spent theoretical future money getting my hair done (first time ever I had had it styled rather than just trimmed) and gotten a make-over. This might seem odd given I'm terminally broke (so much so that I declined the meal last night because I couldn't pay for it - more on that in a bit). but my hairdresser will let me run an account, and the girl who booked me at Merle Norman a month ago failed to tell me that makeovers were no longer free, so we worked out an arrangement there.

[EDIT: To repeat, because I've already been chewed out once tonight over this by a concerned friend - I did NOT spend any of my non-existent money on a makeover this weekend. I was under the complete assumption that it was free. I've had one at a MAC counter a couple of years ago, and have been present for three others at this same Merle Norman and I've never seen one that had a fee before. I was humiliated to have to admit to them i couldn't possibly pay. i hope my friends realize I'm not a moron]

Anyway, when I first arrived, i approached two or three separate clusters of classmates who had already arrived and felt very much that i was getting the cold shoulder. Only one man addressed me by name (the wrong one but the expectations on that hadn't been entirely disseminated yet).

It even crossed my mind to give up and leave at one point. But there were a couple of people coming who’d been big supporters on-line and I was more interested in seeing them than in giving in to my self-doubt. Slowly over the next 10-15 minutes the tide began to turn. One of the ladies I’d been waiting for arrived and came directly over and gave me a warm hug, others began to speak, and in what was a turning point for my mood, the first of the guys in the class came up and took my hand and asked “So is it G____ or Tammy?” and when I said “Tammy, please, if at all possible” he smiled and said that works for me” and the name wasn’t an issue to any significant extent the rest of the night.

When we moved inside, any awkwardness for most people seemed to have been left outside the door. Moving about the room, with my friend seeing to it any moments when I found myself adrift didn’t last very long, I lost the feeling that most of them were uncomfortable with me and in fact, a great many, especially of the women, were very warm and kind. There were 42 people who spent the whole senior year in our class, and five of those have passed away. Of the 37 that remain, 21 were in attendance (plus three others who had spent most of our school years in our class but didn’t end up graduating with us). Twelve were males and three others were female. Not one of the ladies was in any way “too formal” with me, which was a massive relief. Of the guys, no one was impolite, although you might expect their to be some awkwardness and their was.

 Two or three held their interaction to a simple polite greeting, Two or three others (including the unofficial “host” and the guy who first greeted me) and the rest fell somewhere in between. The one thing I’d like to have changed, but perhaps that bit which was most inevitable, is that the two guys i was closest too in high school were obviously still having tremendous difficulty with the situation. I would love the opportunity to sit down with those guys for a beer or whatever and be able to answer their questions and make them comfortable if I could but I don’t expect that will ever happen.

As we waited for dinner to be served, I was invited to sit with three of my classmates who were their without spouses (my own had declined to attend from day one, though she had second thoughts at the last minute) and sure enough, one of them - to my pleasure - was bold enough to ask about that which she did not understand. Slaying the “elephant in the room” was a huge relief, even if it didn’t really get any further than our table. When the meal began the host informed me that someone among the group (I can imagine 2 or 3 suspects but it’s bet i never know) had offered to pay for my meal. On the whole, for the majority of the interactions there I felt like I had achieved some level of credibility with the group. Certainly it must be acknowledged that mature people of good will would certainly guard whatever reservations they had behind a mask of politeness. But with that said, it’s not impossible to sense when the reaction is sincere and when it’s affected and for the most part I didn’t get the sense of being simply “tolerated.”

There were a couple of other moments I must bring up. One involves the ladies who was my closest female friend in high school She’s also the most ardently Christian member of our class, then and now. One of the defining moments of the night for me was whether or not this person who had every ideological reason to reject me would do just that or not. This was more important to me than just passing the religion test, it was important because this woman had literally been my lifesaver in high school without ever being aware how important she was. In those days in the 70's where it would have been absolute disaster to come out as trans - especially in North Mississippi - to be able to be “girlfriends” (even though she was unaware) with another girl was of more value that words can describe. For the first time in my life I had a chance to share my appreciation with that friend and make her aware of how much she meant to me (and have her share with me more than I had known about the relationship from her perspective). That moment alone would have been worth a world of grief otherwise if that had been the outcome.

The other person who deserves mention I’m going to go ahead and call by name to avoid confusion and because she deserves it. Lori and i were not, we would both admit, big buddies in highschool. Her and a half dozen other girls were a very tight clique and as the nerdy introverted bookworm I was about as far in the opposite direction as was possible to be . We were never Unfriendly, in a class that small there’s not really so much room for totally not getting along anyway and neither of us were the sort to have enemies, we simply moved in different circles. When we reconnected on Facebook over a year ago, after my transition, I was blown away at the warmth of her reaction. No one, from among those people who had more than a passing acquaintance with him, has been even close to as supportive and openly so as Lori. When the reunion was in the planning stage, I expressed to the organizers some reservations about whether I should attend - at one point specifically offering to stay away rather than risk ruining it for anyone. This was an idea that was specifically shot down by both the organizers and also by Lori, and without knowing details, I am convinced that in the intervening months she kept her cell phone hot building bridges between me and some of the other girls in the class who were less “in touch” with my situation. Possibly I’m giving her too much credit but i cannot believe things would have gone so well without her. As far as i can see, she made the night what it was.

As if that wasn’t enough, she was the one person there that I could talk to about what high school was like for one in my condition. Mostly in the form of funny stories and memories, but occasionally in the form of a serious moment when I could say “you guys never knew it but...” and open up a bit about the places where there was always a wall between me and everyone else. And that without ever making me feel like I was being a bore by dwelling on my story more than hers or anyone else’s. Quite possibly, she got sick of it - but she never once let me see a hint of that opinion. This, while not really the purpose of a reunion, was still something that ended up being a highlight of the evening.

Afterwards, about half of us adjoined to an “after party” at the home of the guy who’d broken the ice for me at the beginning of the night and while “party” s a big stretch for 47, 48 year old parents and in some cases grandparents, it was still an extension of an evening that I hated to see end. In all this, some five hours from that nervous arrival to the point where I decided it best to go home and face the music, not one person was obviously rude, not one person sarcastically misused a name or a pronoun, not one person (after that initial awkwardness) gave me any sense that I should walk away and quit creeping them out they entire experience was uplifting and affirming and a huge blessing. Three or four moments rose to the level of being listed among the very best moments of my transition experience, if not in some ways my entire life (when you consider every event before 3 years ago is tainted by the inauthenticity of my mask).

Not only could I not have asked for more, I would not have dreamed it would have gone that well. This is not to suggest that i assumed my old friends would have been mostly hostile, but I do understand intimately the culture we were all raised in and the mental baggage that comes with that. Maybe it goes to show that the old world, where people like me had to cower in fear of what would happen if “they” ever found out, is indeed slowly passing away.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to the Falkner High School Class of 1981. You were a blessing to me.