Yellow Skirt

What I picture in my mind, somewhere around 33-34 years later, is probably not exactly what I actually saw that day. Unless you have pictures or video, memories are often like that, as time passes. Even monumental memories like the one I'm about to discuss.

As a quick aside, If I were to receive a gift for the first anniversary of this blog, apparently a clock what I should receive. I did a quick search, and the one I've pasted here caught my eye. This is completely neither here nor there, but I like it anyway. The incredible passage of time.

I get asked the question a lot, as all CD and trans people do, I'm sure: how did you get started? Well, for this one year anniversary of ShannynComesAlive, I'm gonna tell the tale. At least, as best I can remember it. It's such a small, insignificant thing, but yet I view it as the catalyst for EVERYTHING that has come after.

I was in either 5th or 6th grade, in a small school in a very small town (village, to be precise). It was a normal day, nothing out of the ordinary at all. EXCEPT. This being around 1985-86, and my friends and I being preteens (don't think that term even existed then), we were often still dressed by our mothers, and therefore pretty awfully, or at least conservatively, especially in the early 1980's. And so, when one of the girls showed up one morning in a skirt that might have looked like the below, it stood out.


First of all, the color was yellow, a medium-brightness yellow in my mind's eye. My memory says it was cotton, though I had no idea of fabrics at the time and still get confused today. It was definitely at the knee or maybe slightly above. Shorter than was typically worn by the girls at my school in my town in this era. So, she stood out.

My memory is likely a composite of all the many days we all sat in our wooden desks with attached seats, shelf underneath to store books and all the other stuff we needed during the day. I'm sure many of my generation and older remember these desks. And so, in one row (really a column, but we had it backwards) myself and a few guy friends sat, and at least in this one year, three girls sat in a row, one column over. These girls were, in no particular order, our future class valedictorian, the super nice girl who was whip smart, very pretty but also liked sports, and another girl who I never knew that well, but seemed popular with some of the boys. Guess which one wore the yellow skirt.

I'm not naming names in case someone from back then ever reads this, but, many years later, I came to find out what became of this girl after we all moved on to junior high. She had a dilemma at a young age and luckily came through it okay. It was wondrous to see the story told by her on Facebook many years later. I was clueless at the time. She had just disappeared, as kids tend to do when families move. Anyway, we all have our stories. Maybe I should look her up again and explain how her innocent wardrobe choice that one day completely changed my life's trajectory. I wonder what she would think?

Back to the skirt. I really can't explain it. Surely I saw many such articles of clothing on TV, movies and maybe even on older high school girls at the time. I have no idea why this one, on this girl on this particular day, stands out. I put myself at 11 years old. As a result of seeing that skirt, or the skirt that represents a collection of memories all jumbled together. Google calls it, I think, a confabulation. But the definition isn't quite right. There's no attempt to deceive on my part. It's just what out minds do. We put pieces of actual memories together into something CLOSE to reality. I have chosen to have this event represent the genesis of who has become Shannyn.

The thing that now, finally, after a few decades, makes better sense, is why I did what I eventually did, as described below. Why wasn't I attracted in that innocent, unknowing, pre-puberty way to think, "gosh, I want to be with this girl, she looks great"? I think I know the answer now, but for a long time, I wondered. Anyone in this community must wonder why. Eventually, the why doesn't matter. It is what it is. Embrace it.

I don't have any solid memories beyond the moment I saw that skirt on that girl. The next thing I remember, I got it in my head that I NEEDED a skirt of my own. Maybe not need, but a strong enough want that I got on my bicycle one day, and using money I probably made from my paper route, biked to the nearest mall, went into a department store that is still there today, entered the ladies or girls section, and found a denim miniskirt. Somehow I got the size correct, because there is no way I tried it on. I imagine I quickly paid for it and got the hell out of there.

This is what it looked like, again, as far as I remember. Straight with that perfect horizontal line that runs across the thighs. Button up and zip front. Back pockets. Can't remember, but I'm thinking there were no front pockets. It was perfect.



My first ever act of hiding my dressing came when I got home. My dad had an old dishwasher in the baby barn in the backyard. I stored the skirt in there until I could get it to my grandmother's house, where I often stayed. And the rest is history. I wore that skirt every time I could, even going so far as to bleach it white after I must have gotten bored with 80's blue. It eventually unraveled one day after I used bleach one too many times, and that was it.

I have no memories of any other "dressing" until I was probably 16 or 17, and old enough to drive. Maybe that's a story for another day.

And there you have it. Perhaps an exact year later than you'd expect, but that's the story of how it alllllll started. I enjoy building new memories, and don't have many lately, but that's okay. I'm chugging along, dealing with my dealings. Trying to have friends, and more importantly, keeping on learning how to be a friend.

In closing, as always, I would love to hear the stories of anyone who reads this, though at this point, I expect no comments. People don't like to leave comments, I don't know why. That's okay, too. So I will just say thank you to every single person who has even pretended to read my little piece of the internet over the past 12 months. Blogging has been so amazingly therapeutic and fun. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have. Hard to believe it's been a year already.

Seriously...I thought the anniversary was July. Just realized it was 6/13 a few days ago. Almost missed my own darn anniversary! Guess I need a new clock.