The Anniversaries We Carry

Five years ago today, I was sliding down Big Red sand dune beside my girls.

The sun was warm. The sand seemed endless. We laughed as we stumbled down the steep face of the dune, collecting handfuls of red earth in our shoes and our clothes. At the time, it was simply a family adventure. A memory.

I had no idea how much my life was about to change.

Twelve months later, my world, and theirs, shifted dramatically. I had started hormone replacement therapy.

Looking back now, that year marks the dividing line in my life. There is the woman I was desperately trying to hide, and there is the woman I have spent the years since learning to become.

Three years ago, I found myself in Thailand, waiting for what I hoped would be my final surgery.

I remember believing that once I reached that point everything would finally settle. I imagined that surgery would be the finish line, that afterwards I would simply get on with life.

It turns out there isn’t a finish line.

Transition isn’t a destination.

It is an unfolding.

Today, I sit quietly in bed, reflecting on that journey.

The physical milestones are easy to measure. The dates are clear. Hormones. Surgeries. Documents changed. Photos that show a face slowly becoming familiar.

The emotional milestones are far harder to describe.

Some days they feel invisible.

Some days they feel overwhelming.

This time of year has become one of those emotional landmarks for me. Every anniversary invites me to look backwards while I’m trying so hard to keep moving forwards.

My mind asks questions that don’t have simple answers.

Why me?

Was transitioning worth it?

Am I enough to justify existing?

These aren’t questions born from regret alone. They come from exhaustion.

Transition is often spoken about as though it is a story of courage and celebration. Sometimes it is.

But it is also grief.

It is saying goodbye to versions of yourself that once kept you alive.

It is mourning relationships that changed.

It is accepting that authenticity comes with a cost.

The little girl in the pink dress, the one who waited quietly inside me for decades, finally stepped into the light.

There are days I wish she had stayed hidden.

Not because she isn’t real.

Not because I don’t love her.

But because life would have been easier if she had never needed to exist.

Or perhaps, more truthfully, if the world had made it safe for her to exist all along.

Then there is the dragon.

For much of my writing, the dragon has become the symbol of my protector. It learned vigilance because vigilance kept me alive. It carried fear because fear was often the safest response.

Sometimes I wish the dragon had never raised its head.

Sometimes I wish it had remained asleep forever.

Yet if I am honest, neither the little girl nor the dragon are the problem.

The little girl carried hope.

The dragon carried survival.

Neither asked for the roles they were given.

They simply adapted to the world they found themselves in.

Today I realise something I couldn’t have understood years ago.

Healing isn’t about making either of them disappear.

It is about allowing them both to rest.

The little girl no longer has to hide.

The dragon no longer has to stand guard every waking moment.

And somewhere between them sits the woman I continue to become.

She isn’t fearless.

She still wakes some mornings questioning whether she belongs.

She still carries imposter syndrome.

She still wonders whether she has caused too much pain to justify finding her own peace.

But she also knows something the others didn’t.

Survival was never meant to be the whole story.

Living is.

When I think back to Big Red, I don’t only remember the sand or the laughter.

I remember movement.

Stepping forward.

Sliding into uncertainty with people I loved beside me.

Perhaps that is what this anniversary is really reminding me.

Life has always moved beneath my feet.

I have never been standing still.

Five years have passed.

They have held extraordinary joy and unimaginable grief.

They have contained surgeries, tears, healing, pride, doubt, belonging, rejection, love, and rediscovering my culture as a Wiradjuri Sistergirl.

They have taught me that becoming yourself is not a single decision but thousands of small ones made every day.

Some days I make those decisions confidently.

Some days I barely make them at all.

Both count.

If there is one thing these anniversaries have taught me, it is this:

The questions may never disappear.

There may always be mornings when I ask, Was it worth it? Am I enough?

But I no longer believe that I need perfect answers before I can keep living.

I simply need to do what I have learned to do.

Soften.

Stabilise.

Step forward.

Just one step.

Then another.

Because even on the days when the little girl cries, and the dragon stirs, there is another voice now.

Quiet.

Gentle.

Steady.

The voice of the woman they protected all along.

She whispers the same words every time I begin to doubt myself.

“You have already survived. Now keep living.”