The Pink Jumper: A Small Comfort on a Hard Day

Last Wednesday was a low day. The kind of day where gender dysphoria hits hard, leaving me hollow and unsettled. I don’t recall exactly what triggered it, but I do remember the walk from my workplace to the car park, feeling drained and overwhelmed, like my emotions were spiralling out of control. My tears came in waves, start, stop, start again. By the time I got in the car, the sobbing was in full swing, and it didn’t let up until I pulled into the driveway at home.

When I walked in, my wife was there, and I wanted to tell her what I was feeling. I wanted to open up, to say the words that had been sitting in my chest. But instead, I stayed quiet. I didn’t want to burden her. It was then that I noticed a package had arrived for me, some fishnet tights, the same four styles I’d ordered before my recent makeover, only this time they were red instead of black.

‘What’s in the package?’ she asked.

‘Oh, just some tights,’ I replied, trying to downplay it and the conversation ended there.

Dinner was a quiet affair, soup, nothing special. Afterwards, I retreated to the bedroom, got undressed, and crawled into bed. That’s when the crying started again, soft and silent this time, but no less painful. It went on for about half an hour, and then, all of a sudden, an image came to me. A pink jumper. I imagined myself in it, paired with black skinny jeans and chunky heeled ankle boots. I was at the Wetherspoons pub I liked, surrounded by family. I was smiling, confident, and comfortable in my own skin..

I still looked male, but my hair was long and styled the way I wanted it, my makeup minimal and unflashy, black nail polish on my nails, and no one, absolutely no one, paid me a blind bit of notice.

And just for a while as I lay there in darkness and silence I held onto that mental image until I fell asleep."

 

An AI generated image of the outfit

Thanks for reading

Lotte x