Project Ember

Hello. My name is Halley. This is my story.

I’ve been sitting with this for a while trying to work out when the right time to write it would be. I kept telling myself that shoulf wait until something official has happened but that’s not how this works, is it.

I’ve known something was off for a long time. I didn’t have the language for it at first but anyone going through this will recognise the persistent, low-level wrongness to being perceived as something I wasn’t. The words came slowly, over years, in pieces.

I’m non-binary. I use they/them pronouns. I’ve known this for a while now with real confidence, and most people in my life know me by my preferred name. Not everyone, I haven’t found the words yet for some of the people who matter most.

Recently I sat in a room and told someone things I haven’t told most of the people in my life. It felt strange hearing my own story beibg read back to me as something with shape and weight. I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

That’s what this blog is for.

I’m calling it Ember because something has been quietly glowing for a long time through the suppression and the waiting and the telling myself it doesn’t matter and it hasn’t gone out. I want to stop pretending it isn’t there.

I thought I was at a crossroads and I believed it when I said it.

But I’ve been thinking about it since And I don’t think that’s quite right.

A crossroads means you don’t know which way you’re going. But I think I know now and really I’ve known for a while, if I’m being honest with myself. I know my name. I know my pronouns. I know what I want. What I’ve been waiting for isn’t clarity it’s courage.

So this is me finding some.

I’m beginning my gender transition. I’m writing it down here, in public, because saying it out loud even to a screen, even to nobody yet makes it real.

The ember has been there a long time. I’m done pretending it isn’t.