On this night, Chris is in my house sleeping in his old room down the hall. It's the room he shared for many years with his sister, Courtney, however, tonight, only he is here.
Chris and Courtney no longer live in our home. They have their own home that they share with another room-mate in Austin. Over time, their room in our home has changed and become sort of a catch-all room that I eventually would like to clear and clean out completely and make into a nice guest bedroom. I really don't know what has taken me so long to repaint that room, clear out all the miscellaneous furniture, pack away all of Chris and Courtney's belongs left behind, to be stored in the attic or sent off to live with them. I really don't know what it is, other than some part of me that has not been ready to completely change that part of my life. The room is not the same, at all, as when they lived there, but in some ways it is still very much their room. I guess a part of me always wants it to be "their room".
When I use to blog on my first blog (called On the Upside), I remember writing a post one day about all the shoes in our house and how it would aggravate me to constantly to find sets of shoes lying around everywhere - from six different people - so many shoes - so many shoes never put away - so many shoes that never made it to their closets - so many shoes left by the front door or under a couch - so many shoes. I ended that post by realizing that, while I was often aggravated by all the misplaced shoes ... that there would come a day when I would miss all the shoes. And, it's true. I miss Courtney and Chris's shoes in my house. I miss when Courtney and Chris are not in my house.
Chris is in my house sleeping in his old room tonight down the hall. I know he's there asleep, but even more than that, I can feel him here. My husband and I have had several discussions over the past year about Chris being transgender. We've discussed how it would feel when he began to appear more male than female. We've discussed how we would feel if/when he grew facial hair, underarm hair, leg hair. We've discussed how we would feel when his voice deepened and his shoulders grew wider. These discussions took place many, many months ago and since those discussions, all of these things have happened and ... we don't discuss any of those things anymore. Mostly what we discuss is ... "When are they coming home? When is Chris coming home to visit?"
Chris is in my house sleeping in his old room tonight down the hall. His shoes are near the front door ...
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