There is probably nothing more embarrassing than gender identity mix-ups.  It sort of hits right at the heart of who you are as a person.  I’ve only been mistaken for a man once in my life.  But let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, once is enough.  In her defense, the situation was entirely circumstantial.  This little old lady could not have stood more than 5’3” and was hunched over at the checkout counter of the department store when I came up behind her to stand in line.  There was some sort of complication with her purchase and it was taking longer than normal.  I guess she must have seen my silhouette in her peripheral vision and knew someone was in line behind her, because after a few minutes of delay she turned approximately 30 degrees to her right, and said to me over her shoulder without even looking at me “I’m sorry that this is taking so long, sir.”  Then she turned back and hunched over the counter again.  Even I concede that this was an honest mistake.  Fine, I’m tall, I admit it.  But mistake or not, it doesn’t change the fact that the words were out there, and I had to take them.  The clerk behind the counter just stared at me in a sort of mute apology.  She could obviously tell that I was a woman.  I just stared at the old lady, stunned.  I didn’t even bother to correct her.  I didn’t want to take the time to go through a conversation where she would say “I’m sorry I thought you were a man.”  But I definitely felt the dent that it put in my womanhood, although it has long since been repaired.  

But even the one small incident stung, and it makes me feel for people who have their gender come into question on a daily basis.  Can you imagine?  I knew someone like this in high school.   When I was in 10^th grade I went to regional band clinic and I noticed a girl there from another city who also played the clarinet.  Or I assumed she was a girl because she had long hair.  But when I first got a good look at her face I decided that she must be a guy who just had long hair, or else she was a really ugly girl.  Over the next two days of the clinic, every time I looked at this person I changed my opinion on what their gender was – because I just couldn’t tell!  I never did decide, and for the next two years of high school I continued this debate with myself every year when I saw this person at the regional band clinic.  Finally in my senior year I decided that it must be a girl because she showed up in a skirt for our regional performance.  I felt bad for the train of my thoughts, even though I knew that honestly it couldn’t be helped.  And I wondered if that was an issue that she often had to deal with.      

It’s amazing how many places we can find to count our blessings.

He left quietly, like a star blinking out in the sky
and no one else noticed.

But I did.

My tribute will be to honor him
which is proper and good,

A substitute for affection I would show if I could.

I will pretend that he hears my inner cry
because I would give anything if he could know

That he was a man I loved.

I said it and I did it.  Yesterday was my last day of work at a public accounting firm.  I woke up at 5:30 yesterday morning in anticipation....I was like a kid on Christmas morning.  The day was good and passed very quickly.  It seemed very surreal to me though, especially as I was saying goodbye to all my coworkers (whom I enjoyed dearly) and started to realize that I would never be sitting in that cube or chatting with those people again.  I started to get anxious about the new life I'd chosen for myself - a life without this place that I'd been a part of for the past three years.  Not that I loved it here, but it was secure.  Not that it was fulfilling, but it was comfortable.  It had become who I was for these years, and I realized that I was actually leaving my identity behind.  An identity that I never embraced, true, but nevertheless it had become the biggest single component of my life.  I identified myself through my job and spent most of my time at that office and with those people.  As I walked to my car yesterday afternoon with the office at my back and looking out through my mind's eye with my future stretching before me fresh and clean, I felt like I was being reborn. 

Not to say that it was all a bad experience.  I did know deep-down that public accounting was ill-suited for me even when I chose to accept the job.  However, I feel that these 3 years have been a productive experience for me.  I certainly squeezed every benefit out of my job that I could.  I have come away with a resume boasting three years of public accounting experience and a promotion to the next level as well as my CPA (paid for by the firm) which ensures that I will get in to almost any accounting job I want.  And I do have the skills to go along with the resume; my time at this firm definitely honed those.  In addition, I did a lot of growing up as a person.  Being out in the "real world" and the "working world" opened my eyes to the way some of the world is, things I had never seen in my relatively sheltered experience.  I encountered so many different people, personalities, situations; all a wealth of information for me to sift through, keeping the wheat and throwing out the chaff. 

And now, I am looking forward.