What’s the best advice you’d give to someone younger than you?
There are so many directions to go with “the best advice“ I’d give to someone younger, and that direction depends on the person receiving my advice.
This prompt kept making me think of the advice I’d give to my younger self.
If only I could meet young me in Fall 1995. 1995 me would be at a cafe in Ann Arbor with a backpack full of books drinking a latte out of large bowl-shaped mug. He’d be surprised and curious when approached by a tall, broad-shouldered woman in her late forties who seemed familiar.
This mystery woman would tell 1995 me to dig deeper into the article he’d read about transgender people and to go to his university’s massive library to learn more. She’d tell him all about the magically affirming wonders of hormones. She’d tell him that hormones and the changes they bring can combat depression in a round about way that can feel more effective than an antidepressant. She’d tell him where she found women’s shoes in a size 13. She’d tell him his sizes in women’s clothes. She’d give him a bag from Hudson’s department store filled with all the basic cosmetics he’d need for his first makeover. She’d tell him the places to go in Detroit and Chicago to experience his feminine side amongst accepting peers. She’d tell him to ask his mom what he would’ve been named had he been born a girl. And when his mom told him that she would’ve named him Kimberly, he’d finally know why that older woman at the cafe named Kimberly seemed so familiar.
