I wanted to be like my mother....

         For months straight, I prayed every night, "Dear God, turn me into a girl."  Following that line, while praying to God, I detailed all the things in my life that would have to be changed.  I was not yet thirteen years old.  Truth be said, I didn't know much about the realities of living life as a girl.  All I really knew for sure was that I steadily  dreamed of having a husband (a man of my dreams to whom I could be faithful) and that I was a sissy boy.  I also knew that I didn't want to become a girl's boyfriend, bride's groom, a wife's husband, a family's man of the house, a father, a daddy, a sports player, a mechanic, a carpenter.... In my prayers, I even set a date and I remember waking up hoping that God had fulfilled my request.  Did I mention that I was not yet thirteen years old?

     Some time after that, as I can remember, a Dear Abby column got my attention.  In a letter to her, some man had expressed his never ending desire to become a woman to which she replied with an address where he could get more information about sex reassignment.  By that time, I didn't want to be a girl anymore, but I could relate myself so much to what the man said in his letter.   I was enjoying life in my own body, but there were things I just didn't want to become, roles I never aspired to play.  Instead there other things I wanted to become, roles I wanted to play in real life.

     No matter how highly I esteemed any of the men in my life, I didn't want to become like any of them (although the man of my dreams was like them).  But, there were women (who were married to the men of their dreams) who I wanted to be like in some way or another.  I wanted to be like that pastor's wife I admired so much in Atlanta.  I wanted to play a Hammond organ as much like her as I could and have a minister for a husband (the man of my dreams) by whose side I could always be.  I loved going to church in those days.  I wanted to be a good cook and a good housekeeper like my mother and my grandmothers (faithfully living with the man of my dreams).  I learned how to play church music on a Hammond organ and on the piano.  I learned how to sew, cook, and keep house.  I still think, as my grandmothers used to say of me, I could make a pretty good wife for someone someday.