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Day 15: Out of the Closet, Literally

2014 October 7
by Jen DiGiacomo

My son heads to school at zero dark thirty Monday morning, and I decide today is boy mode. No need to push it. I have all the time in the world, to paraphrase Louis Armstrong from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. As long as I’m not shot by Blofeld in the end, I should be good.

But that doesn’t mean I’m not making progress.

Now that I’ve told my son, I can literally come out of the closet. Or at least my wardrobe can.

But first things first. I need to pack up my comic book collection from the Ikea shelves in my bedroom. Yes, I am a geek. A divorced geek. And to quote Jonathan Coulton, “Ikea: selling furniture for college kids and divorced men.”

It’s a long process as I need to catalogue what goes in the short boxes (didn’t I tell you I’m a geek?), but I finally start to create some space. One shelf unit for girl t-shirts. Another for yoga pants and jeans. And a third for long skirts.

It’s a small step. But a big one at the same time. No more hiding.

Before long, my son comes home from school and we start to discuss what adjective we should use to describe this experience.

I mean, it’s crazy. And it’s nuts. And it’s insane. But we need something non-disparaging we can both use to get across the fact that this is not exactly what someone expects out of life.

Weird? Too negative.

Odd? Ditto.

Strange? Houston, we have a problem.

Funky? Hmmm… this one has potential. As in, this music is funky (hopefully not like, that cheese smells funky).

To quote Urban Dictionary: Different, but cool/nice.

Yeah, I kinda like that.

Funky.

Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have a winner.

Note: When I began transitioning in 2014, I was known by my nickname DiG, which sufficed until I learned my mom had chosen Jennifer had my birth gone differently. So for historical sake, I leave my posts and podcasts as originally conceived, but know that my name is and apparently always was Jen.
 
Day 14: Lazy Sunday in Girl Mode
Day 16: Not So Terrifying
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