But I Want Answers

She nods, almost immediately, "Very well then. But don't say that I didn't warn you."

Her hand raises, or at least the place where her hand would be rises but instead it's covered by a lacy dark sleeve until it slips back and her hand emerges, velvet covered and clenched into a fist.

"The problem you have here is that there are more questions that you have than you even know. Each one is bigger than you could imagine. I can only give you surface level details, but I can give you something.

"Do you know how many questions?"

She starts to unfurl her fingers, counting them one by one. One and then two and then three. Five and then six and seven. Ten and eleven and twenty and forty and going up and up until her fingers, all contained on one hand, are far too numerous to count and far too numerous to be comfortable with. Creeping like a horror as I sat, frozen, and watched.

"So many. So many and so many of them essential but we can whittle it down. Reduce it to a few that you need to have answered, if only so you can know where you stand."

Her hand snaps shut, then flutters out as she waves her hand, now back to a far more ordinary number though my unsettled nature was still unlikely to forget that moment.

"Where do we begin, though? It is a question, perhaps as important as the others, but we start at the simple one. The easy place to begin.

"Are you a woman?"

I breathe out, not realizing how relieved I am to hear her say that and knowing in a flash that yes, that is the place to begin. To start to find answers.

"No. Or not wholly. Or not yet. And I know that sounds like a cop out to say it, but it's the truth. The truth is that you are searching, still seeking out that answer and the truth is that while there is a truth out there, it is one that even I do not know.

"I can not define that for you, nor would I want to.

"Too often we are put into a box in this world. Wrapped up and neat and pat. We are easier that way, more simply understood. If we match a category that has strict definitions we can be approached by even a stranger with some understanding of common ground.

"But the truth is that no person is wholly one thing. Be it gender, sexuality, personality, interests, or more. People are fluid and people are ever changing and people spend their whole lives trying to define themselves only to find that they have even less understanding in the end because the broader your perspective, the less sure you are about anything.

"And it is not fair to anyone to answer that question for them. You have too many people telling you what you should be, as it stands, that I would be loathe to add to the chorus.

"Nor would it do any good."

She smiles, shaking her head slightly as if to acknowledge my regret.

"I know that's not what you want to hear, but it is the truth. As in so many things, answers are complicated. I can give you some guidance now, however.

"Since occupying the body of your feminine self, your perspective has broadened and your comfort has grown. You are happier, more content, in only a few days as Emily than you were in your whole life as a man. So what does that say?

"Perhaps it says that you were meant to be her all along. Perhaps it says that you merely needed to be open to getting closer to others to find some happiness. Perhaps it says that all you needed was a shake up in your life but still want to and ought to return.

"Perhaps it says one of those things, but undoubtedly it says one thing with certainty.

"That you are at least more open to possibilities now than you were before."

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