EPTIt is 17 October 2001. I am about to tell my mom about my prayer. She will "correct" me and tell me that's wrong. I will be confused.
It is 8 March 2004. I am about to say my prayer to God again, and then I will realize that it will never be granted and stop. I bury the thoughts.
It is 2 November 2012. In four hours, I will arrive in Dallas, Texas to watch my first in-person esports tournament, the MLG Fall Championship. I will see the first transgender person I know of IRL. I will try to ask her how I can be a girl too, but decide against it and suppress those thoughts.
It is 10 June 2013. I will soon confess my feelings for a classmate and have them politely rejected due to going to different colleges, but we will hook up and I will finally feel a connection with someone, at the age of 17. We both know it's queer for sure, but neither of us at the time know in what way.
It is 5 September 2013. The queer student group at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is about to have its first meeting of the year, and I will soon be with people like me. The process of self-discovery will finally happen. In one month, I will have a nervous breakdown and drop out, ending that opportunity of figuring myself out.
It is 28 December 2013. I will arrive at my best friend's get-together and meet someone who will sweep me off my feet. We will spend the next eight hours getting to know each other, talking about what we want out of life while smoking cigars in a gazebo overlooking a beach. I will bring up my confusing thoughts on my gender and for the first time, I will be affirmed, and later, we will fall asleep cuddling after watching all of Madoka Magica. I will fall in love with them and then have a complete mental breakdown over the next three months as a result of obsessively trying to be with them, and squash all gender thoughts.
It is 9 April 2015. A week has passed since my friend committed suicide. I will attend a memorial and find out the person I hooked up with is now out as a trans woman. I will be too consumed by sorrow to talk to her.
It is 17 July 2015. I am going to message a gay guy for a date, my first since the breakdown. When he wants to set one up, I will realize that this isn't right, but not know why.
It is 25 February 2016. I will arrive at a gurdwara for the first time and start becoming Sikh.
It is 19 November 2016. I will go on a date with someone and in a few days, my first relationship will officially begin when she calls me her boyfriend. I know that term is wrong, and that night, I will message my trans friend from school, where we will talk daily about gender and our lives for the next nine months. My girlfriend will quickly become abusive and I will go through hell.
It is 3 September 2017. I will drive to my trans friend's apartment to see her in person again and end up coming out to her as trans, where I will finally feel understood by someone. Tomorrow, I will try to break up with my girlfriend and when that fails, I will swallow a bottle of pills and end up in a hospital. So it goes.
It is 17 March 2019. I will come out of a dissociative episode and realize that I don't have any memories of the prior 18 months. In three years, only a few fragments will have returned. I will message my friend and be ignored. So it goes.
It is 9 July 2019. I will start HRT in a few minutes, expecting big changes. The next day, everything will feel the same.
It is 11 August 2019. I am about to tell my doctor that I'm going to detransition, and he will convince me to keep trying by increasing my dose. I will agree. One day later, I will feel happiness for the first time in my life, and it will persist for several months.
It is 5 September 2019. I am about to start writing a screenplay because I want to have trans film by trans people be shown to the world.
It is 18 October 2019. I will meet someone who makes me just as happy as the HRT.
It is 31 December 2019. I am about to watch a film. Before it, I will send a barely coherent message to my old trans friend and she will block me. So it goes.
It is 31 March 2020. In a few hours, I will host a Transgender Day of Visibility panel at my work and briefly mention the legislative actions starting to happen against us.
It is 3 November 2021. I will spend the day terrified about the GOP swing in the special elections the day before and start the process of moving my fiancé and me out of the US and soon secure a path.
It is 1 December 2021. I will finally give up Sikhi after years of not practicing due to the sangat saying me being trans is a violation of the Rehat Maryada despite it never being mentioned by the Gurus. Another community I don't belong in. I will give Judaism a shot and eventually realize that I'm not wanted there either, ending my desire to be part of any organized faith.
It is 31 July 2022. I will board a flight to Belgium to live there permanently. During the flight, it will hit me that the euphoria and joy I felt during my first few months of HRT has been extinguished with no chance of ever relighting, and I'll wonder if there's any point in continuing.
It is 18 April 2022. I will set down to write more of my newest screenplay, titled If I Can't Be Yours. I will look at how Hollywood actively refuses to hire trans writers or make trans stories, in addition to streaming services not caring about us. After two hours, I will hit page 85, look at the two dozen other screenplays I've written and started, and close my writing software. It will not be opened again.
It is 14 August 2022. I am about to return to my Airbnb after over a week of gambling everything I have on me, having been up 6000 euros at one point and now penniless after having my phone stolen. I will write out a suicide note and spend the next 24 hours with a bottle of pills in my hand. I will nearly take them six separate times. After attempt number two, I will realize that there is no higher power watching over us and lose my faith. After attempt number four, I will realize that humanity is not worth fighting for and that I am included in that, and I will give up advocacy. After attempt number six, I will give up in nearly every aspect of life.
It is 3 September 2022. I have just for the first time watched a concert by my all-time favorite musician, Ichiko Aoba, and will see her again tomorrow. I cried multiple times during her show and got to meet her afterwards. Despite everything that's happened in my life, I am so happy I transitioned and am now able to enjoy life. Life is beautiful. I'm so happy I'm alive.
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/JQwkP0m.jpg)
