it is doubtful that Ned will ever stumble across this blog nor ever find this post. How will he feel to know I consider his my first crush. Time has a way of changing people and I simply do not know how it might regard this post. So as I have done for virtually every person mentioned in this blog, excluding my family, I am not using his real name.. It is the nature of childhood, or at least I feel it is true for me, that it is easier to remember our past in terms of my school career — more so than our age. Ned was a classmate of mine in the fourth and fifth grade. My birthday is in June, so my birthday neatly align with my grade school level. I was nine years old colwhen on the first day of my fourth grade class i meet Ned, one of three new classmates I had that year.
When I given Ned the distinction of being my first crush, I do so reflecting back on my past. I cannot recall ever thinking of Ned as a ‘crush’ during the time I knew him. We became friends rather quickly and by friends I mean good friends. I did not make friends easily as a child, not good friends anyway. When I started the fourth grade I had been living with Grandma over three years, During this time, Grandma had been allowing me to explore my feminine side. However, this was largely something she allowed only within our home and our the occasional outing. It would not be inaccurate to say that during these three years wearing dresses was more like a game than a lifestye.
However when I was eight years old, this had begun to change. I mentioned the age as memory versus grade level as memory earlier because if not for Ned — and the fourth grade memory — this change may not have been significant to me. Grandma had been observing me for three years and had grown aware that –as she suspected — I was a much happier child as my girl self. She felt this happiness was confirmation of her firmly held belief that I was a transgender child.
One aspect of my upbringing in Grandma’s home is that I was taught the importance of self-acceptance. My grandmother wanted me to fully accept myself as much as Glen as I did as Veronica. Neither side of my identity was wrong or worthy of shame. While she did limit when I could wear my girly clothes, she never allowed me to view dressing as a girl to be something I should be the cause for shame.
This began to change when I was in the third grade. I am going to shift my focus a bit and speculate. After three years of raising me, I feel that my grandmother had found more pleasure in raising me as a girl than as a boy. I want to stress this is mostly my speculation. However, she became increasingly more willing to take me out in public as Veronica. She seemed to have a different level of pride when introducing me as her granddaughter Veronica over what I felt when she was introducing her grandson Glenn.
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Whenever we were about to go out shopping or to see a movie or have a meal out, she would ask me if I wanted to do so as Veronica or Glenn. Veronica was always my choice and this being my choice seemed to bring her more happiness, more joy. I never felt like she expected me to choice going out as Veronica over Glenn. Nor did I ever feel forced to be Veronica as any time. She simply seem to take more pleasure in spending her time with Veronica as I always felt more pleasure spending my time as Veronica.
During the summer break before my fourth grade school year, there were time I spend several days in a row as Veronica. It was this time I spent as Veronica that limited my willingness to make friends with my classmates. There was a clear dividing line between my time as Veronica at home and my time as school as Glenn. It is possible that I built a wall between me and my class mates because I place more value on spending time as Veronica than i did on spending time with friends.
It should be noted that this does not mean I did not play with other children as Veronica.. There were playgrounds at local parks, shopping malls and even McDonalds. There would be children my age when we went to a municipal swimming pool or to a lake.
So my friendship with Ned felt different. I wanted to spend more time with him, not just time at school. Within a matter of a few weeks, I found myself really wanting to share with him my life as Veronica. Grandma had taught me that there was no shame in enjoying and exploring my life as a girl. On/ce day Ned came over to visit and we were playing. At one point we went to my room and the closet door was open. He saw my dresses, or at least some of them. This puzzled him. When he asked why I had girl clothes in my closet, I told him the truth. “Sometimes I like to dress up as a girl. When I do my name is Veronica.”
There are several ways a friend might have responded to such candor. Ned responded with curiosity. He took my honesty as a serious response. He did not ridicule me. He asked questions and i answered then in a way that would have made my grandmother proud. After he had satisfied much of his curiosity he asked if he could see me in one of my dresses. I considered his request and replied “Not today, but maybe some other day.”
Over the next few months, Ned made several visit to our home to spend time with Veronica. The video I have created may lead one to believe that our relationship began almost instantly. In truth, this is a condensed version of a relationship that evolved over several weeks. At some point or another everything said by Ned in this video was said in some form.
I share in the opening lines of this post that Ned was not my first crush in the sense that I ever thought about him as a ‘crush.’ I was at a point in my life where all I really know is that I wanted to be a girl. Ned made me feel like a girl. Our relationship was less about how I felt about Ned than how I felt about myself.
Our relationship was physical in so much as we hugged, dance and kissed. But it also included touching and what i would later come to know as handjobs. Ned wanted me to do other sutff and by other stuff i think he meant handjobs. It is possible that our phsycal relationship could have gone farther but something happened and Ned quit coming over to my place. I never really found out what happened as we rarely spoke after his visits stopped.
I am not real sure what Ned got out of the friendship we explored once he knew about Veronica. Without question, Ned wanted me girly and enjoyed my company as his ‘girlfriend.” His family moved away after my fifth grade year and I never saw him again. We hardly spoke at all as fifth grade classmates.
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