A Title Can Mean the World

Today is a special day for me so I wanted to share a personal story.

When I was a kid, my little brother and I were the best of friends. Diving behind couches, crawling up stairs, avoiding bad guys. Using sticks as swords and casting spells. Being knights for a beautiful queen.

I would always play as boy characters. I had several names that I adopted at different points. Derrick. Jason. Ray.

My mom noticed and encouraged me to play as girl characters and I suddenly felt ashamed. “Pretend” was the way I got to be myself, long before I knew other people felt this way too.

My little brother never cared. He just wanted me to have fun, and if I liked being a boy character, he was happy with that. We became inseparable. We had a sense of honor and protected one another from all the scary things our imagination dreamed up. And all the scary things that we didn’t have to dream up.

Well, pretend games morphed into Legos and swimming, video games and biking. We spent every day of every free hour together, engrossed in our latest world and plot line. We grew up and changed but never grew apart.

When I came out, he accepted me immediately. He was the least surprised because he already knew who I was.

Today, I’m going to be the best man at his wedding. Our brotherhood is the strongest friendship I have, and I’m so grateful for it. We have both grown up in beautiful ways and I am incredibly proud of us. We are the kind of people we hoped to become as boys.

It’s a magnificent marking of progress for us. Plus, I get to wear a custom tailored suit for the first time, and I look handsome! (says my girlfriend, but I say it too) 😊

Time to celebrate! And probably cry a little, too.

Cheers,

Your friend at the Sideburn Saloon