Violin Recital and Art.

Wednesday, May 24th was my daughter's violin recital.  She's been practicing all year and, in fact, started last year.  It was exactly as you would expect it- a bunch of third and fourth graders playing their violins as only 3rd and 4th graders can.  But as bad as it sounded, we, the parents, were all very proud of our children.

Wife was there sitting at the front row with MIL.  I arrived separately and sat in the back because I didn't want an incident to occur.

After the third graders performance, they went out in the hall to set down their instruments, and then join their parents. I went out in the hall to see my daughter, but I missed her.  When I returned to the hall, she was sitting with her mother and her grandmother.  Then she saw me at the back of the hall, and ran back to me.  She sat with me during the fourth graders performance.  This made me very happy.

There was also an art show going on at the school. My daughter wanted to show me the work she had up on the walls.  At one point, we were standing in the lobby, and she introduced me to a friend of hers.  I do not remember this friend's name, but she said to her friend "this is my daddy!"  I was wearing a black floral dress. I've shown pictures of this dress before.  It is cut low, and shows off my girls very nicely.  But when introduced as someone's Daddy and I'm standing there with my boobs hanging out, well the look on her friend's face was one of confusion, astonishment, and ultimately fear.

Black floral dress, May 2016

She did not understand.

I'm sure that today at school, this person asked my daughter about what was going on and she told her.

My daughter then took me by the hand, and guided me down the hallway so I could see one of her pieces of Art. It was a little Shamrock. I think it was made of paper mache.  After we looked at it for a moment and I took a picture, we walked back up the hallway toward the doors.  Back to the crowded Lobby.  As we walked along, she said "here I am walking with my transgender Daddy- my transgender Daddy."

Art

I was a mix of emotions at that point. I cursed myself for having inflicted this upon her, and I wish that I didn't have to, and yet she took it in stride.  It was nothing new to her at this point, and in fact was probably nothing too unusual to her classmates, despite her friend's expression.

Maybe there is hope for the world yet.

I will always be her father- that was my biological role in her creation- and despite appearance and my Womanhood. I will always be her father, and she, my daughter, will always be my little girl.

God willing, she will outlive me, and I wonder what she will think of me after I'm gone.  When I am just a memory, how will she judge me and how I've conducted my life?  How will she judge me for being Trans?  For all of the Heartbreak that has occurred in our family's life, I do not know what she will think of me should she reach my age now: 50. At that point, I will probably be long dead.

It's late at night, and I think of these things. I think of my daughter asleep in a room a little more than a mile away and I miss tucking her in at night.

I miss reading her stories until she fell asleep, but maybe now she's too old for stories.

And life is passing me by, while I live in an apartment I can barely afford a mile or so away.


Be well.