An original sketch I did for the incredibly talented (but not quite as visible over the internet as she was about a decade earlier) dj bridget, for her birthday this past Thursday.

The toughest part, other than going for a realistic interpretation of one of her photos, was choosing which photo out of hundreds to base the sketch off of.

I stumbled across her Flickr (It’s gone now ;_; ) in June of 2009, and, that was the “tipping point” that made me realize I was lying to myself by continuing to deny an important part of myself… That I am transgender, and twenty-seven years of hiding was essentially only a partial existence, and essentially “living death” for me.

I’ve come out to a few, I’m getting out in public, either with other girls, close friends, or on my own, and I’ve made quite a bit of progress in about 18 months.

But, if things didn’t happen, or I didn’t get curious back in the summer of 2009, I’d probably still be in hiding.

Who knows what my life would be like if I came to my senses a decade earlier.

This is only a small way I know of of saying “thanks” to someone who played a small, yet significant part in my ongoing rebirth. ^_^