I am working for a rge corporation and colborating with a department that I have not previously interacted with. One of the members of that department seems strangely familiar. I realize that he is an old friend that I was once quite close with but drifted apart from over time from life taking us in different directions. It has been so long I almost didn’t recognize him.

  He doesn’t recognize me either. To be fair, he knew me before I transitioned and I’m not sure he ever found out about it. I take some time to enjoy pying with his impression of previously having me before I finally spell it out for him.

  He is excited once the revetion hits, happy to cross paths with me again after all these years. He congratutes me on my coming out and transitioning and how well that seems to have gone for me. In retrospect, I had a number of conversations with him a decade before I accepted myself that should have been big clues for us both.

  It’s a joyful reunion.

  And then — utterly without malice — he begins repeatedly falling back on referring to me as he did back then and my heart breaks a little.