So, I have had a few days to get back into work and to spend time with family. Getting everything back to relative normal. One of those normal activities is my putting on a nice little dress and my ballet slippers and going for a walk in the very early hours. I have one neighbor, and everything else is farmland or undeveloped for a few miles. So the only thing I have to be careful of is a car or two that may pass. I say be careful because I have very short hair right now and no wig (yet), so I make for some nice areas to hide? no, briefly pause while a car goes past. It's not just the idea that I will get beaten to death by a group of redneck guys wielding shotguns in a pickup truck. It's the idea that they will briefly see a girl in a short dress and slow to check her out and then realize it's a "guy" and then I will be beaten to death. So I pause while they go by, behind a nice tree or electrical access.
Anyway, back to this neighbor. I don't get on with these people, they are literally a house full of felons (confirmed by the sheriffs deputy that came out when I called them about their loose dogs that were attacking our dog that was leashed and being lead by our 12 year old daughter). Anyway, I was walking down to the road when I hear a cough from next door, which is still a good distance away. The woman next door smokes and she goes outside to do it, which makes good common sense if you have a meth lab in the house. (It's my guess from the odor)
So I am like a deer in headlights, as I see her walk off of her darkened porch. I am beside my truck at that point, so I am mostly hidden, but she could have seen me at any point between my house and the truck. She is standing there looking across the yard right at me and I panic a bit and do the "looking for something in my truck" rummaging after I turn off the dome light. I knew I couldn't walk out and go to my house, so there I am looking for nothing in my truck. I don't want to come out to this woman, of all people. She went back inside after a while and I went back into my house, slightly shaken. I was sure that she had seen the "guy" next door wearing a dress.
For a moment I was upset, then I just didn't care that much. The thought was in my head that I would stop my early morning walks for a bit. But I was back out there the next morning, and this morning. It's my only "real me" time. I just want to be the girl on the outside that I am on the inside, it's so hard to make that happen. If god doesn't make mistakes then what does that make me? It's frustrating and upsetting and I am tired of finding out people that I respected are now just bigoted jerks. I'm tired of not being who I am. I'm tired of hiding behind things when cars go by. (though at 4am any girl in a short dress should hide from cars going by on a lonely road, just saying)