Navigating Uncertainty in the Flow of Transition
Every morning, after I adequately dry myself off from the shower, I put on eyeliner. Most days I daub on some lipstick, too, although sometimes I skip the shading — my girlfriend says my lips are softer without the purples and deep reds.
I used to be afraid of getting made up. Halloween was a good excuse — “What? I want to be a werewolf.” — but, in the early days of my transition, I feared that even a dark, thin line above my eyelashes would practically scream what I wasn’t ready to reveal to the world yet.
At home, I’d stick to basics. It was mostly a matter of seeing if I could color within the lines. I sent photos to my girlfriend, who loved the look, but I didn’t go out like that for a while. When I finally did, made-up and in a black dress that hugged my hips, I bustled from apartment to car to therapist’s office before doing a test run at a hipster bar that was mercifully dead. Nothing like a quiet Tuesday night to try something terrifying.
More than a year after that night, a few strokes with eyeliner pencil and lip paint are just another step in a morning routine that’s grown a little more complicated as my hair’s grown out and I scan my face for any persistent hairs that need to be pulled up by the roots. But almost every time I stand in front of the mirror, I hear a friend’s question in my head.
