I don't really know how to start this, so I'll just start from the beginning. My name is Jamie. I was born in a two bedroom apartment above a laundromat in a city that smells like rust and fast food grease. We were poor not tight budget poor, but sometimes the lights go off poor. And from the time I was maybe five years old, I knew I was not a boy. Not in the way I was supposed to be. My mom knew first because moms always know. She never made a big deal out of it. She'd quietly let me sit next to her while she got ready, hand me her lipstick like it was the most normal thing in the world. On my seventh birthday she bought me a purple skirt from a thrift store and hid it in a shoebox. For when you need it, she said. My dad found it once. He didn't yell he just went very quiet, which was somehow worse and threw it in the dumpster. My mom bought me another one the next week. She was the whole sky, I think you understand what I mean. She died when I was thirteen, ovarian c...
Me and my wife were both foster kids. We bounced around a lot, and we both struggled to plant our feet firmly on the ground when adulthood started. I think that may be the reason we were drawn to each other. We understood each other’s struggle. I met her at a fast food joint I worked at, and it was honestly like a fairy tale. I noticed that she would only come in when she knew I was working, and eventually I worked up the courage to offer more conversation than, “How may I take your order?” We began flirting, and over the course of a few weeks, I think we sort of just… fell for each other. I saw something in her that I’m pretty sure she saw in me too. We were like matching puzzle pieces. Her coming into that restaurant was the best thing that could’ve ever happened to me. She worked at a bowling alley across town, but when we began dating, we both kind of accelerated. It was like the thrill of finding each other drove us to strive to do better, not only for one another, but for oursel...