How is it the end of another year already? I swear I blinked and 2025 was gone. So here I am reflecting on another trip around the sun and asking myself the annual question. Did I do justice to my word of the year?
The word I chose for 2025 was truth. By this I was referring to a deep resonant truth – one that you feel in your very soul. And how did this go? I would say I crushed it.
For the first time in my entire life I feel like I am truly expressing my authentic self. It has taken me too many decades to mention to uncover what this looks like. It’s little wonder, given the fact that when I was a child I had no vocabulary for anything other than being a girl or a boy who was attracted to the opposite sex. In my world the repeated message was that princesses wore frilly dresses and married princes.
It is thanks to people like Alok Vaid-Menon and Rowan Jetté Knox that I have finally been able to express myself in the world the way I really wish. They have shown me that being gender nonconforming is beautiful and liberating. It is through them that I have learned that I can only offer my best to this world when I am wholeheartedly embracing who I am. This year I have started living my true identity as a proud gender queer person who uses they/them pronouns. Now that is a big deal considering where I came from.
One of the first steps in expressing my new-found identity was to look through my wardrobe and get rid of anything in which I did not feel completely comfortable. When I found myself without much left in there I realized I needed to do some shopping. Egads. Do you have any idea how hard this is? You look in the women’s clothing section for the least feminine-looking items, but there is always some feature to each piece that just doesn’t work. It might be a cut that emphasizes the hips too much, a frilly bit somewhere, bling where you don’t want it, or (gasp!) a cropped cut. All right then, what about the men’s section? As a very small person, this is totally out of the question. Besides, the clothes just aren’t the right shape.
In the past when I had searched the internet for gender neutral clothing available in Canada, I had come up empty, but not this time. I found a company based in B.C. whose web site is full of people who actually look like me! Whaaat?? I loved the look of the clothing, but would it actually fit? As a small person this is often a big problem. Ordering clothes online when you don’t know the brand is chancy.
I decided to roll the dice and ordered some shirts and a blazer. I have always wanted a blazer but have consistently found women’s jackets to emphasize the hips too much. When the clothes arrived I held my breath and opened the package. Okay, looks good but how will it FEEL?
When I slipped on one of the shirts and then the blazer I nearly cried. I looked in the mirror and saw ME. The REAL me. The one I had always wanted to be, but just couldn’t for so many reasons. For a moment it seemed ridiculous that clothes could make me feel this way, but then I realized that clothing is yet another tool used to force people into one of two camps. Finally we are seeing companies making clothing that flips that concept the bird. This makes me inordinately happy and I plan to give this company lots of my money.
The next big step in living my truth was to change my pronouns. As a small business owner in the health care industry (where you actually touch people), this made me a little nervous. Would I lose business doing this? Would displaying this on my web site make me a target? Probably, and potentially. Should I hope that no one notices or should I hope they DO notice and acknowledge it? Overthink things? No, not me. I did it anyway, and now that it’s out there I feel at peace.
The last thing to do was to tell my kids. Somehow this felt really difficult. After all, I feel that they are already burdened with having separated parents and two moms to boot. I didn’t want to heap something else on them to make them feel even more different from everyone else. I put it off until I couldn’t anymore. When I finally told them one day at the dinner table, my daughter said, “Oh, does this mean you’re a they/them?”
Um, I guess so. “Oh, okay. Cool,” she said. Then my son said, “Well, could you just please remind me? Because I’m going to forget.” Ah, sure buddy. And that was that. No drama. No questions. Please pass the potatoes.
I did make sure to tell them that they didn’t have to make some big announcement to their friends, or correct them if they used the wrong pronouns if they didn’t want to. I also told them I love being called “mommy” and that I will always be their mom. We moved on without blinking. Given their nonchalance, I even circled back a few weeks later with them, but they were still in the all-is-cool camp. I guess I’ve done something right in teaching them to respect everyone for who they are.
My friends and family have all been loving and accepting, and I am so grateful for that. My small businesses acquaintances have not batted an eyelash either. Wow, maybe things are actually progressing despite what we see in the headlines.
So finally, after nearly six decades, I am have come home to my true identity. I am moving through the world expressing myself authentically and not caring what strangers think. Does that embody truth? Damn straight it does.
Now moving into 2026 I have been contemplating a new word of the year. I have chosen fire. This is the year of the fire horse. Fire horses are about intensity, momentum, and transformation. Fire horse years can represent major turning points, optimism, and opportunity. And I am, in fact, a fire horse. So now you know how old I am.
It’s time to shake things up around here. I plan to push myself outside of my comfort zone more often, take chances, and try things I’ve never done before. This fire might seem to contradict one of my core values, which is peace, but I think the two can coexist. I don’t mean to set my whole world on fire, maybe just singe the edges a bit. I think this is going to be exhilarating and I am looking forward to the adventure.
So if you invite me somewhere and I immediately say no, please remind me of the fire I would like to pursue. I might just need a little kick in the pants to get me started. I don’t know where this will lead, but I’m willing to explore the path. Saddle up the fire horse for 2026!
