Four years ago, I was driving the last stretch for my move from California to Colorado.
I cannot remember what I ate that first night I got here, staying by myself at my friends’ for whom I was going to house-/cat-sit, but I do remember that I stopped for groceries at the local King Soopers at the very end of my trip that afternoon and that the whole day I drove with the snow storm on my heels. And it was fortunate I stopped for groceries that afternoon because then I was snowed in for a few days!
I can still remember the feeling of waking up in my new “home”, surrounded by a white, quiet, snow-covered landscape the next morning… Lovely. Magical.
And then, a year later, three years ago today, I had my masculinizing mastectomy, my gender-affirming top-surgery. I was in the operating room at this time three years ago… Somehow those memories are less vivid, or vivid in a different way… maybe because of the general anesthesia? But also, and maybe especially, because somehow this years it’s the geographical anniversaries (from Europe to California, from California to Colorado) that I feel like celebrating more. I don’t know exactly why it is so but it is what it is and I’m going to respect and honor this feeling of mine. And celebrate in whatever way feels appropriate to me this year!
The Little Prince and the Fox 