by Cindi Jones
“What are you going to do once you get out of here?” he asked.
“I’m going to do exactly what we discussed in our first interview. I’m going to get a new job, grow my hair back, and repair the links with my family. The best I can anyway,” I replied.
“You realize that you may not find work here Cindi,” Dr Wynn advised.
“I know,” I replied. “I’ll just have to see what happens and work things out. I think I still have a job but who knows how long that will last.”
“You’ll do fine,” he said. “You’ll have a wonderful life Cindi. In many ways I’m jealous. I’ve never met anyone who has lived life on both sides. I’d love to read your memoirs some day. So let’s wrap this up and get you going.”
“What?” I asked, astonished “I’m leaving?”
“You are fine Cindi; I’ve felt guilty for letting you stay these several days. But I do feel that having time alone with our strangers would do you good,” he replied. “Now if that is okay with you, I’ll call your folks to come and pick you up”. He opened his door and motioned me back into the common.
“Wow!” I said shocking myself as the words left my mouth. “This is very sudden. I need to say good bye to everyone,”
I quickly realized that my private conference with Dr Wynn had overlapped the beginning of the group session. So I burst in and sat down. The moderator said. “I’m going to interrupt here because Cindi has something to tell you” and then she looked at me as I sat down. “I’ve graduated,” I said as I grinned. “I’m leaving shortly and I’m going to start my life over.”
Everyone was very nice to me and wished me luck. No tears this time but everyone was perfectly nice. I slipped out the door to go collect my things. I finished packing and ready to leave my room I turned to see Andrea standing in the doorway.
“I’m sorry Cindi, but I just couldn’t see you leave without saying goodbye personally and in private. The moderator let me out so I could. Cindi… give me a hug.” She wrapped her arms around me and gave me a tender squeeze. She whispered in my ear “Cindi, I still have issues understanding your problem but please know that I will always be your friend. I love you Cindi. May you have happiness in your life.”
“Promise me you’ll be good Andrea, okay?” I asked.
She released me and stood back “I will be very good Cindi,” she said.
“I too wish you the best Andrea. I will always remember you and I wish you the very best,” I said to her as I choked up. She blew me a kiss as she wandered the long way back to group session.
Mom and Dad appeared through the double doors. Dad came over and picked up one of my luggage pieces, a stuffed paper sack. I carried the other. I gave Mom a hug and I told her that I loved her. “And you too Dad,” I added. We checked out and left the hospital.
The late October day was chilly, the sky was clear and the sun shown brightly. The smell of late autumn filled my senses.
“I’m back,” sang Squirrel.
“Where have you been Squirrel? I’m so glad that you are back
I would be starting again. But it would not be from the beginning. I loved my family and I loved my life. I knew the steps to take. This was going to be a great day to start the rest of my life
Thou shalt not steal
I value honesty. I believe it to be the most pure of all virtues. I live my life striving to be honest in all that I do. I will not lie to my family. I do not lie to my customers. I refuse to create marketing hype for my products. I will not ever lie to my lifelong companion. But this has not always been true. For many years even after my change, deception, lying, and stealing were not only necessary but sometimes required for my very survival. And, even now, those that I do truly trust, only get part of the truth. My life is full of holes that I manage to not talk about.
It is a very hard thing to look back on your life and admit your most serious faults. They are signs of weakness. It is an admission of guilt. It is embarrassing. It is reliving the years of hiding the deep dark secret. But it is an integral part of my story. And while I will not delve into the detail which could consume volumes, I do want to share these things. I’ll think of this as a final confession, a way to help clear my conscience.
We were at the local drug store. Mom was a stay at home mother, wife, and homemaker. When she went out during the day, my brother and I were in tow. I was 5 years old. While she was checking out with the items she had selected, I stood facing the “stand of last resistance” filled with candy bars and gum. I casually picked up a package of Life Savers and put it in my pocket. And we went home. I was thrilled that I had a pack of Life Savers. I didn’t even have to beg.
So, I wandered around the house eating my Life Savers. I was feeling fairly smug. And then mother blocked my path.
“What have you got in your hands?” she asked sternly.
“I dunno.”
“Where did you get those?” she demanded.
“I dunno.”
“Did you get them at the store?” she demanded.
“I dunno.”
“Well did you pay for them? I know full well that I didn’t pay for them” she said.
“I dunno”.
I was in trouble, real trouble. And I felt terrible. “Why did I take the Life Savers?” I asked myself.
“Why did you take those Life Savers from the store?” she demanded. “I dunno,” was my response.
She grabbed me by the hand and shook the Life Savers from my grasp. She went into her bedroom to collect her purse and keys. She returned and wrangled my wrist, dragging me through the door and to the car. She opened the car door and pushed me in. “We are going back to the store and you are going to explain to the man there why you took those Life Savers.
Do you understand?” she asked sternly.
“I dunno.”
Why did she continue to ask? Didn’t she realize that she was going to get the same answer, whatever she asked? “I dunno” was a great answer!
Sure enough, she pulled me by the arm right into the drug store and to the cashier who had helped her only one hour earlier. “I’m very sorry she said to the fellow but may I have a moment of your time?” she asked him.
“Yes ma’am,” he responded, “what can I do for you?” “My son has something to tell you,” she said straining. And then she stared at me, expecting a response.
“What do you have to say?” she demanded.
“I dunno,” I replied.
“You tell this young man or you will deal with your father,” she said sternly.
I knew that dad was going to deal with me whatever happened. But finally I relinquished and said, “I took the Life Savers. I’m sorry”.
“You had better be sorry young man,” stated my mother. She apologized profusely to the cashier, paid him the price for the candy, and pulled me out the door throwing the remaining Life Savers in the trash as we left.
I learned something very important that day. Stealing was very very bad. I should never steal. But if I were to ever steal in the future, I should not get caught. This train of thought was very logical to me at the time. I was not devious. For the most part I was a well behaved child. But I knew that I would steal again. I knew what I would steal. And I knew that I could never get caught. I’d planned a heist for some time.
What does stealing have to do with this story you ask? More than you can imagine. I knew that I wanted to be a girl and I knew that the only way I could be a girl was to get girl clothes. I didn’t have any. I remember that I had dressed up in my mother’s things twice and both times I had been caught. I reasoned that if I had my own clothes, I wouldn’t have to put them back and I wouldn’t get caught.
Mom, you don’t remember that you caught me with your things? I’m sure you don’t. You were very kind to me both times. The first time you told me that boys don’t wear girl clothes when I was only three years old. That’s when I learned the difference between boys and girls. Girls got to wear dresses and have long hair. At age four, the second tim
e, you found me under my bed wearing your nylons. You playfully said that I must be playing house and that I was pretending to be the mommy. You told me that boys should play the daddy. That’s when I learned that boys would become daddies.
Dad didn't help much with a story he used to tell within our family. He used to tell people "My wife used to be a Mann before I married her." My mother's maiden name was Mann. Everyone who knew the family thought this was great fun. I thought he meant what I had heard. It only served to confuse the issues I was already having with my own gender identity. If mommy could become a girl, then why couldn’t I?
I didn’t want to be a boy. I wanted to be a girl. And that would be the deep dark secret holding its place in the back of my mind for the next 20 years. “I want to be a girl.” I would secretly pray and ask for it. I would go to sleep wishing it. I would wake up regretting that God did not change me. I would think about it all day long.
It was a lousy television commercial running non-stop through my mind every minute of every hour of every day… the “Squirrel” complete with a spinning wheel in its cage as I came to think of it. Squirrel was a devious muse pushing dangerous thoughts, craving knowledge, and pulling me into the pit. I learned to think of two things at once and sometimes three. I learned to read and watch TV at the same time as well as minding the Squirrel running and turning its cage.
Squirrel was real to me. It was a real Squirrel that told me things. I talked to the Squirrel and it talked to me.
There are a number of crazy things that I’ve done in my life but nothing so blatantly wrong as my stealing. And there was nothing that made me feel so guilty about my deep dark secret. But the Squirrel had to be fed. Squirrel had an endless appetite.
Squirrel helped me know that I first I had to find a hiding place. Stolen things must be kept hidden. This was very hard for a five year old to sort through. Where could I hide my new clothes? Mom would find them anywhere I put them. But after months of looking and evaluating the risk of discovery, I did find one place that seemed safe enough. The toy box was seldom moved. It was filled with toys and was very heavy. So I took some of the heavier toys out and tried to move it. It was very hard but I could do it. This place was good because the floor of the toy box was a few inches off the floor and was surrounded by a piece of trim.
This looked good. And this, my first secret place would protect me as a girl.
The girl next door, “Lace,” as I called her, was my age. She was very pretty. She always had nice tanned skin, a pretty smile, and beautiful blonde hair. I had a fixation for Lace. I wanted to be her. I should have been like her.
The Squirrel runs in the cage and never stops. Squirrel can eat as it runs and it never stops. It doesn’t need to go to the bathroom because this Squirrel only does those things when I’m asleep and I’m not dreaming. Run, Run, Run, “Okay, STOP it, STOP it!” No, you can’t stop the Squirrel. “I want to be a girl! I want to be a girl,” I could scream and Squirrel would not stop.
Run, run, Squirrel. See Squirrel run. See Jane run. Stop! Rewind! See Jane run. See Squirrel run. See Jane. See Jane. See Lace. Be Lace. “You can’t be Lace.” “Then I can be like Lace.” “No.” See Squirrel run.
Lace wore white socks and I stole a pair. She took them off while she was outside. We were running through the sprinklers and she didn’t want them to get wet. Well, she couldn’t remember where her socks went and she got in trouble from her mother. I felt terrible. But I had some socks. They were the first articles to go in to the hiding place. Every chance I got, I would pull toys out of the toy box, move the box and collect my treasures and put them on.
The Squirrel’s attention followed everything that moved. It watched every girl in view and observed every article of clothing. Every opportunity for collecting something new was assimilated, processed, and assessed for risk.
I was looking for boy socks in my boy sock drawer one day. It was the bottom drawer in the dresser. I noticed that I could pull it all the way out. And there was space underneath. This was a whole lot easier to get to than under the toy box. Besides, my collection of things had grown. I had many girl cousins in my family and they kept losing things. … Okay, I stole them. I had some hair bows, some earrings, three pair of ankle socks and some underwear. I really needed somewhere to hide some real cloths like a dress and this space looked like it might work.
Sometimes the Rusty would come in my dreams and expose my secret to my family. I had the nightmare frequently. I was a child of only three years old when the Rusty first came. The Rusty had power over the Squirrel. And it had magic. The Rusty looked like a wolf but was rust colored. The Rusty lived under the access to the foundation in my bedroom closet in our first home. I feared the closet. I would make my Mom check everywhere in the room to make sure the Rusty was not there. I knew however that the Rusty would only come at night. He would only come in my dreams.
When we moved to Ogden (I was 4 years old at the time), the Rusty learned to hide in my hiding places. When the Rusty would come in my dreams, he would chase Squirrel away. I would run with the rest of my family and we would sit on the table to be safe. The Rusty would look at me. He would ask “who will you give to me?” and my family always surrendered me. They always picked me. Always. And then the Rusty would put me out on the back step in the cold wearing my girl clothes. He would put me where everyone could see me, where I was most vulnerable, and the most terrified.
I knew that this new hiding place had to be good for the Rusty. He had to be kept a secret. Also, I had to keep him happy or else I feared he would come in the day and tell everyone about me and my girl clothes… and I would be caught with stolen things… and everyone would know that I wanted to be a girl.
I did not hear voices, they were my thoughts. They seemed logical. They did not tell me what to do. But my Squirrel and my scheming pushed me to do things that were not normal… things that were inconceivable in every new circumstance. My childhood dreams and ambitions were very complex. They were an exercise in stealth and cleverness. I learned to solve puzzles, look at every nuance, and out trick the trickster.
I figured out who Santa was as a result. I could tell that his Rusty had betrayed him. He must not have had a Squirrel to help him solve the problem of passing as Santa. I even knew that he was the Bishop at our church. Bad Santa. Bad Santa. Bad Cindi. “Cindi?” I liked that name. It was similar to a girl I knew who I adored. Thanks Santa and Squirrel. I can be called Cindi and the bishop can be called Santa. His is okay because… why is it okay? Why did he lie to me? Why can Cindi not do the same?
“Cindi, you know that you can never be caught,” Squirrel told me. “Santa can show himself but Cindi must never be found out”. I knew that the Squirrel had wisdom, that I must never show myself. These were very complex thoughts for a child of only five years old.
My collection soon outgrew the place in the chest of drawers. I had to look for something bigger. I had shoes and a Barbie doll now and I knew they must never be found. I tried burying them in a plastic bucket in the back yard. But that didn’t work for long. I had to keep the lid tight on the bucket or dirt and moisture would get in there and ruin my precious shoes. And then the perfect place revealed itself. Dad had “finished the basement” soon after we moved in. This included actually finishing one room, covering a wall down the middle of the basement with pine wood, and plastering and paint on the walls. I know that dad spent a lot of time on it and the cost was significant to him. But it wasn’t really finished. Under the stairs, I had access to space between the studs of the finished wall and the sheetrock of the stairway that descended into the basement. There was a lot of room up in there. I could hide my precious things in those unknown spaces.
My stealing did not stop. I felt terribly guilty with each acquisition. But I could not stop myself. This was the only thing that made me happy, truly happy, or so I thought. In reality, I was becoming frustrated and empty. Dichotomy pitched evil against righteousness. It pulled me apart. I continuou
sly felt guilty. I was desperate and as I grew older, the desperation evolved into utter hopelessness.
I found other hiding places. I used other chests of drawers. I actually hid a couple things in my mothers’ chest of drawers. Right among her own things in a drawer that I knew she didn’t open much. Talk about the perfect place. What would she say if she ever found these things? Who would she blame? Oh, this spot was perfect. But everything had to be Mom neat in the drawer and it was.
I had a friend who had some sisters. His family would leave the back door unlocked if they weren’t home. I would knock on the door and if no one answered, I would walk in. I got caught once but I just asked if my friend was home.
“No, he’s not here.” I calmly left. “Oh you are a clever Squirrel.” The sisters lost some undergarments and several pairs of hose. One of them lost some very cool foam breast forms. I knew her secret. It was the perfect heist. Who was she going to tell? How did I know what these forms were? Why did the Squirrel help me learn the tricks of stealing and hiding but not show me how to really be a girl?
A year after I learned to read, I discovered the physical differences between boys and girls. My mother kept her tampons in the bathroom and I always wondered what they were for. She caught me several times extracting the telescoping tubes from the trash and playing with them. They were very cool. You could make them short and you could make them long.
“Get that filthy thing out of your hand! You are not to play with those!” she would tell me sternly.
“But what is it Mommy?” “You do not need to know what those are.”
Here was a challenge for the Squirrel. “What are these things?”
“Look there is some icky stuff on this one. It looks kinda like blood.”
“Look in the box Cindi,” the Squirrel prodded. There were clean ones in there. I stole one from the box. “After you open this, you must destroy the evidence.”
I tore the package apart and saw that new ones had a soap on a string thing. “Hmm, what is this for?”
