A Pride Letter From the Past

A Child Writing Her Truth

A young boy sat in a dusty attic. His eyes were already watering from a rough day, only made worse by the thick dust and stale air. An old school notebook lay in front of him on a box. His hands trembled as he wrote.

As he wrote about the words he-no, she-had thought a million times over. She wrote of the ache she felt about being trapped in the wrong body. Her yearning to be free and be herself. She wrote of her fear of rejection. She wrote about what her classmates said behind her back, what her own family whispered.

She wrote of her dreams.

With the last stroke of her pen, she wrote her name. Not ‘his’ name, but ‘hers’. A name that felt foreign, but right at the same time: “Emma“.

With her letter penned and her hopes written down, she closed the notebook. She shuffled it into a metal blue box and shoved it deep inside the attic where no one would ever find it.

Dreams Buried, Truth Silenced

Years passed, and the blue box remained hidden. She had moved out, grown up, and grown into herself. Not the Emma written about in the notebook. Her mother had set her straight.

She had told him that there were rules. Boys didn’t cry like that. Boys didn’t dress like that. She had never found the box. It would be in the attic until someone demolished the house. It would never see the light of day.

Emile, the pushover pencil pusher. He had gotten hired as a newspaper reporter for the local paper. He sat there and he did his job. Often, certain events would cross his desk, and he’d have to write an article about them. Like an article about the local roads. One time, something as exciting as a new diner happened in this small town.

It was a boring job.

He wasn’t happy. But who was at a soul-sucking 9-to-5? He got along well with his coworkers and engaged in polite conversation. He even watched sports and cheered on the hometown team.

The Letter Resurfaces

Then something exciting and tragic passed over his desk. A house fire. At his old house. His parents had moved to Florida a few years ago, selling his childhood home to some amateur realtor. Even with housing demands as they were, it never sold. Nobody ever moved to the small suburbs of Vision Town.

Mindy brought it to his attention. She was the newspaper’s gossip, and they dated a few years back. “You’ve got to read this letter,” Mindy flashed him a smile as she walked by his desk. It showed signs of being in the fire, but he recognized it nonetheless.

Some black soot ran along the edges. But it was the box he had used. It had the same familiar dent in one corner from where he had dropped it.

“W-what do you have there?” Emile asked.

“Some letter a girl wrote. It’s… actually kind of heartbreaking.” Mindy chomped her gum, then held up the scorched metal box like a trophy. “Maybe we run it for Pride Month?”

He tried to clear his throat, but the lump wouldn’t leave. Mindy handed the letter over to him. It uncurled in his hands, a bit of soot staining his fingertips. Emma felt herself come to life once more. The dam had broken. Her heart remained unchanged. She was Emma.

“What are you crying for?” asked Mindy as she smacked her gum once more.

“I, um, I knew the kid who lived in that house,” Emma tried to hide. “She told me about feeling this way once. She said her parents told her it was just a phase.”

“It is never just a phase.”

“Y-yeah, I suppose, it isn’t.”

Caught Between Two Worlds

The next day, they published the letter, anonymously, of course. The town was ablaze with discussion. It resonated with thousands. It had shaken up the small town, had. All by the ghost of a girl who had never been. No one was more shaken up than the girl herself.

Emma read it over and over again. The feelings were still there. The handwriting may have changed, gotten more distinguished, but the feelings were there. The pain was now fresh once more.

Lying awake at night, she had to wonder. Could she go through it? She had chickened out all these years ago. Her mother had shut her down, quieting her urges. But now? Her parents were in Florida. They only talked on the phone. She hadn’t visited them in years, nor had they visited her.

Would her colleagues look at her differently? Would the whispers behind her back begin again?

The story, her story, was now out there. She had even been the one to publish it in the paper and on their digital counterpart. They were a small-town newspaper, but she could see the views climbing. People related to her.

A Letter to Her Younger Self

Emma knew she had a choice to make. She could keep living this lie. Keep feeling these feelings. Be Emile, that the town knew her as, or she could be the Emma she knew herself to be. Her younger self knew who she was. Why was she struggling now?

The letter and article were what started this. So it only felt fitting that Emma ended it the same way. She sat down at her computer. Her mind was ablaze with the same feelings as she had had back then. She typed:

To the author of the ‘Blue Notebook Letter’, sorry, I’ve let you down. I’ve convinced myself that the fear was greater than any joy that I could ever feel. That your dreams and wants were childish. In a way, I suppose we always were childish. Perhaps it is time I stop being so.

It is children who fear the boogeyman.

This article opened to quiet applause. It didn’t gain the same traction as the first, but this wasn’t a letter that had to be seen. It was a letter that had to be written.

Its audience was never intended to be for one person.

Becoming Emma

Her heart raced as she walked into work the next day. She wore the best dress she could find on such short notice. She had done her face up in make-up that was a bit too rushed and uneven. Her heels didn’t fit. The outfit wasn’t what was in ‘fashion’.

When she walked into the newsroom, heads turned.

Mindy blinked.

Emma smiled. “Morning.”

The little girl who wrote that letter so many years ago had finally grown up.

To the woman she was always meant to be.