The Acceptance of Change

Chapter 11: Sadie.

My name is Sadie, but it wasn't always that way. I'm actually a trans girl, I tried being a boy. Trust me, I tried, but it felt terrible. I felt wrong in my body, like I was allergic to it. The skin I wore felt like a sweaty Halloween costume ready to be ripped off when the night was over. So I tried being a girl and at first, I'll be honest, it was weird. It was very different and I was super anxious about people seeing me and judging me because I looked nothing like a girl. I really, really wish I did.

I grew up in a super religious household. Like we went to church every Sunday and Wednesday and I was forced to go to a religious elementary school where we had to memorize bible verses. At the time I didn't think anything of it, but now I believe that I could've been spending my time doing something better.

Going into middle school was weird to me. My parents wanted me to go to a religious middle school, but where we were, it was too expensive to send me to one because they were all private. So I ended up going to a place called Hamilton Middle School, home of the Hawks. And to be honest, I loved it. At the time, I was super extroverted and wanted to make new friends.

"Hey, who are you?" I said. He glanced up at me and squinted, I thought he might be blind or something, but then I realized the sun was directly behind me.

He was wearing a blue t-shirt with black shorts. The t-shirt was blank. He was sitting by himself and visibly didn't want to talk to anyone, but I wanted to change that. After he told me his name, I told him about how the swings were available and that we should call dibs on them now before they get snatched up by someone else. He jumped up and began to sprint towards the swings. With a smile, I quickly followed. We were friends throughout middle school. After the swings we would always talk in class because we ended up being in a lot of classes together. It was awesome. The more we hung out the more plans we made outside of school. I never ended up going over to his house for some reason. He just never really wanted to. So it was always my house, and I loved my house, so it was perfect for me. At the time, I had a game console we would always play on, he loved playing stuff like that. We were still in middle school so we never really went places by ourselves, but we enjoyed ourselves playing games, so it never mattered.

Towards the end of eighth grade is when I started to have feelings of doubt concerning who I was. It felt more and more nervous, and the porn comics that one of my friends would always sneak us weren't exciting to me anymore. It was strange, I felt wrong. I asked one of my friends about it. His name was Tommie and he had fluffy blond hair that always had bedhead. I have been friends with him longer than I can remember, I still hung out with him a bunch outside of my new friend, but Tommie was super busy, so the system worked. He told me that I might be gay, he said he had friends who were gay and his dad owned a place meant to be a safe haven for people going through these changes and invited me to come one week.

So I did.