I spent today with a friend I’ve not seen in nearly three years. He lives in Bristol, so seeing him isn’t completely trivial, and my life got considerably more complicated during that period!

Before meeting him, I popped into a running shop to buy some shoes. I’ve been going there for twenty years to buy my shoes; “that’s probably a sizeable chunk of your life,” I said to the assistant. He replied “that’s longer than I’ve been alive.”

You can go off people, you know!

In the end, I didn’t buy anything because they just didn’t have the kind of running shoes that I needed. Besides, they were asking about 50% more than I was prepared to pay especially for something that wasn’t quite right.

He took me to brunch at a hotel near to his flat … and over lunch, in a very meandering fashion, I brain-dumped everything that has happened to me in the intervening period.

He was a little confused and asked questions throughout, he apologised for many of them, but they all came from a kind and curious place and I had no trouble answering them.

He was surprised by everything. I be think he has some understanding of why my husband has found this difficult: I never shared any of my gender dysphoria and the discomfort I felt in my body and mind with anyone: I couldn’t go there myself.

I never felt judged by him at any time – indeed, I felt completely accepted by him.

Since he is a friend to both my husband and me, there were a couple of questions that might possibly have crossed boundaries of what my husband would be happy to share; for example, I think I successfully steered away from answering anything directly about our sex life, although I did answer the question on what my spunk is like now! On a low dose of testosterone, it’s much like it was before! Only not lumpy.

I was more than a little hyper, being a bit nervous and not having slept so well, and having had to get up in order to drive to Bristol. Five fully caffeinated coffees also had me bouncing off the ceiling!

After brunch, we walked around the harbourside, going into the upside down house to see what it was like. It made me feel very ill!

The sun was shining on the water and it seemed as though the whole city was out enjoying the sunshine.

We walked and talked, but I also feel comfortable in silence with him.

I shared about my understanding of my neuro-divergence, which he listened to, again without judgement and questioned a bit about it. He was then more sensitive to things like background noise, which I appreciated, although the last place we went into for drinks was unpleasantly noisy.

At the end of the day, we hugged and it was as though I’d said nothing of great significance: his attitude towards me felt completely unchanged.

I am very tired after talking for so long! But what a wonderfully affirming day!