The Last Time; What's Next?

Today I had lunch with Bruce. It is most likely the last time I will see him before my surgery. One might see it as a "good-bye" of a sort, though we've made plans to meet again as soon as I'm well enough. I feel sure that this meeting will take place, and many more will follow; after all, we've known each other for nearly thirty years and we even were interested in the same woman once. I've seen him through the deaths of his father and brother, through various jobs and relationships. And, not long after he and I pursued the same woman and she decided, "None of the above," he met Carolyn. They've been together ever since.

And he's seen me through drunkenness and sobriety, and through all sorts of depression and despair and anger. Now this: Now his male friend Nick turns into a woman named Justine. Or, to be more accurate, he finds out that his male friend Nick is a woman named Justine. Then again, he always knew that his male friend Nick wasn't quite that or just that.

Still, I can't help but to wonder what the future will bring. Of course, I don't think the surgery is going to radically alter my personality. I think that the hormones and therapy probably have changed me about as much as I can be changed. Bruce says that in the six years since I've "come out" to him, he's seen me more joyous than in all of the years that preceded it. Better yet, the anger that governed almost everything I did in the old days is gone. I still experience frustration and, at times, grief. But who doesn't?

The thing that Bruce has always understood about me is just how emotionally vulnerable I am. He also knew that a lot of the things I did in order to make myself into a man--You see how well it worked!--were ways of running from what I perceived, and believed that other people perceived, to be a weakness. What amazes me now is that he put up with that for all of those years.

Now we are more emotionally available and sincere toward each other. What next?

I guess that's always the question, isn't it?