Excellent story in a story about a story. When I began to write not so long ago, I knew I could only ever write my own story. That has provided personal conflict, nay, anguish, as I don’t want to call anyone out, and create conflict — or tell their story. But, in less than a year, I have found a whirlwind hub I call “intersection.” More appropriately, “the eye of the storm!” And I can’t tell my story without telling part of someone else’s. Many someone elses. Indeed, entire institutions, ostensibly built around love, acceptance, and generosity.

I have found people whom I could have frank conversation with, and I have deeply indulged my child-like curiosity. For those who answered my endless questions, undying gratitude. For the equally endless mistakes of ignorance that I will make as I speak, I ask forgiveness. I have pure intentions, and I hope that shines first and foremost.

For now, let me just thank you for writing this piece.

Earlier today, I read a short article about a mother gorilla in a zoo in Frankfurt who has had two babies die. I read about her grief, her unwillingness to accept the deaths, her attempts to bring her babies back to life…and I cried real tears of empathy, grief and loss. Not because I know what the death of a child feels like, not because I know what it is to be a gorilla. Because I intersect with that story around motherhood; around sadness and loss; the understanding that sometimes, melancholy just makes a lot of sense.

My new understanding of gender identity is not about a bell curve; it is more about a circle in a dream. Keep moving one direction or the other, and you move through an endless cycle of people-ness —snowflakes, every one of us different, yet I just couldn’t see that before.