The things a timeline cannot hold.

Today has been an exceptional day, and I think what made it so powerful was not that something enormous suddenly changed, but that after months of pushing, searching, writing, waiting, and trying to create opportunities for myself, I finally received a response that felt genuinely human.

I have been publicly documenting my journey for a couple of months now, but in reality this process began much earlier. For roughly fourteen months I have been trying to work out how to access the medical care I need while also trying to build a life that can support the cost of that care. I have been incredibly fortunate to find a physician who has helped me properly begin my transition, and I am deeply grateful for that, but transition is not one appointment or one prescription. There are ongoing medical expenses, further care that I know I will need, and ultimately the possibility of surgery later on. Those are realities I have to plan for, and at the moment I simply do not have the financial means to cover everything myself.

That has become one of the reasons I am working so hard on my business and the projects I am building. I want to create a sustainable income that gives me independence and allows me to take responsibility for my own future. I want to know that the work I am putting in now can eventually give me the means to meet my medical needs without constantly wondering how I am going to afford the next step. At the same time, I have also had to accept that there are parts of this journey I cannot fund alone right now, which is why I started the fundraising campaigns.

The fundraising side has been far harder than I expected. Starting a campaign is one thing; getting people to actually see it is something else entirely. I do not have a huge audience, a powerful network, or the kind of contacts that can instantly amplify my story, so I have been doing the outreach myself. I have spent countless hours researching organisations, finding contact details, writing emails, sending follow-ups, and trying to explain my situation clearly and respectfully to people who do not know me. Some days it feels productive, but on others the silence can be difficult. When message after message goes unanswered, it becomes very easy to wonder whether anyone is listening or whether all that effort is simply disappearing into the void.

Then today, something shifted.

I received a response from the director of a nonprofit organisation. It was not an automated acknowledgement or a polite brush-off. They sent me a link to schedule a virtual meeting, and I have done exactly that. I know it is only one meeting. I do not know what will come from it, and I do not want to place unrealistic expectations on one conversation. Even so, the emotional impact of that message was enormous.

For me, it felt like a light at the end of the tunnel.

After all the searching, all the outreach, and all the moments of wondering whether anybody really cared, someone responded. Someone was willing to give me their time. Someone was prepared to listen. That alone reminded me that there are still people in this world who care enough to stop, read, and respond, and I cannot fully explain how much that meant to me today.

It also brought me back to one of the reasons I want to build PrideLink KZN. I know what it feels like to need help and not know where to turn. I know what it is like to search for medical support, financial assistance, community, information, or simply a person who will take you seriously. I know how isolating it can feel to navigate something deeply personal while also trying to solve every practical problem that comes with it. If I can eventually build something that makes that journey even slightly easier for someone else, then perhaps some of the difficulty I have experienced can be turned into something useful.

I want PrideLink KZN to become the kind of organisation that responds. The kind that listens. The kind that helps people find a next step when everything feels overwhelming. The kind that reminds someone that they are not invisible and that their situation matters. Today I experienced, in a very small but powerful way, what it feels like when someone does exactly that for you.

There is still a long road ahead. My medical needs have not disappeared. The financial pressure is still real. My business and projects still need to grow, and the fundraising work still has to continue. None of that changed today. What changed was my sense that perhaps the effort is not entirely falling into silence.

Sometimes hope does not arrive as one dramatic breakthrough that suddenly fixes everything. Sometimes it arrives quietly, in a simple message from someone who is willing to say, “Let’s talk.”

Today, that was enough to make me feel seen, hopeful, and deeply grateful.

The past few days have felt genuinely good.

I cannot really put my finger on one particular reason for it. There has not been some huge event or dramatic change that suddenly explains the way I am feeling. I just seem to have this sense of positivity around me at the moment, and I like it.

Sometimes I think we spend so much time trying to understand why we feel a certain way that we forget to simply experience it. When things are difficult, we naturally look for the cause. We analyze, question and try to fix whatever is wrong. Perhaps when things feel good, we do not always need to do the same thing.

Maybe it is okay to simply say, life feels good right now, and enjoy that for what it is.

I have also been keeping myself busy with several projects, and I think that sense of purpose plays a part in how I am feeling. There is something satisfying about having ideas that move beyond being thoughts in my head and gradually become something real.

Some projects are already underway, while others are sitting in the pipeline waiting for their turn over the next few weeks. I enjoy that process — thinking through an idea, working out how it should function, building it, improving it and eventually seeing something take shape that did not exist before.

There is always more to do, of course.

Anyone who knows me probably knows that one project has a habit of becoming three, and three somehow become five. But right now that does not feel overwhelming. It feels exciting.

I feel motivated.

I feel creative.

I feel as though I am moving forward.

And perhaps that is part of the positivity too.

When I look at my life at the moment, there are many things still being worked out. My personal journey continues. My transition continues. My businesses and projects continue developing. There are uncertainties about what lies ahead, and I certainly do not have everything figured out.

But I am beginning to realize that happiness does not require everything to be resolved first.

You can still be a work in progress and be happy.

You can still have unanswered questions and feel positive.

You can still have goals you have not reached and appreciate how far you have already come.

That is where I feel I am at the moment.

I am working.

I am building.

I am changing.

I am planning what comes next.

But I am also enjoying where I am today.

There is something very freeing about that.

I do not know exactly what the coming weeks will bring, but I am excited about the possibilities. There are projects I want to develop, ideas I want to explore and opportunities I hope will grow from the work I am putting in now.

For once, I do not feel the need to overanalyze the positivity.

I am simply grateful for it.

Life feels good.

I feel good.

And right now, that is more than enough.

For anyone interested in following the projects I am currently working on, I keep them updated here:

https://www.brinbit.com/current-projects.php

And for anyone who would like to support, promote or become involved with our projects through the BRINBIT Partners Programme:

https://partners.brinbit.com/

Yesterday I started feeling a little under the weather. Nothing too serious, just that familiar scratchy throat and stuffy feeling that makes you wonder whether a cold is on its way. I dosed myself with some medication and decided that an early night was probably the sensible thing to do.

The unexpected result was waking up very early this morning. I made myself a cup of coffee, sat quietly and watched the sun come up while listening to the birds beginning their day. There was something incredibly peaceful about it, and in that quiet I found myself thinking about how much my life has changed.

This transition has become about far more than physical changes. It is changing the way I experience my own life. I am becoming more comfortable introducing myself as Gillian, being seen as Gillian, and simply allowing myself to exist without constantly questioning whether I have the right to be who I know myself to be.

There are still moments when it all feels enormous. Then there are mornings like this one, when it simply feels natural. I am here, living my life, drinking my coffee and watching the sunrise, and I am doing it more honestly than I ever have before.

Thankfully, I am feeling a little better than I did last night. I have taken some more medication because I certainly do not want this developing into anything worse. There is plenty of work waiting for me and several projects that need my attention, so being out of action is definitely not on my agenda.

Still, slowing down gave me time to think about the people who are becoming part of this chapter of my life.

I have met some new friends here in the complex recently, and they really are wonderful people. What has meant the most to me is how completely normal they have been about my transition. There has been no awkwardness and no sense that I need to explain or justify myself. I am simply Gillian to them.

That may sound like a small thing, but it is not.

There is something deeply affirming about being around people who do not make my transition the condition of the friendship. They see me, accept me and get on with life. I also realise how fortunate I have been with the people closest to me here. I have not experienced the level of rejection that I know many transgender people face, and I do not take that acceptance for granted.

Of course, not every friendship has survived.

I have lost a few people since coming out as trans, and that did hurt. These were people I believed I could trust with something deeply personal. When those relationships changed, I found myself questioning what I had done wrong. The truth is, choosing to live honestly is not something I should have to apologise for.
I am still the same person they knew. I still have the same memories, humour, interests, flaws, loyalty and heart. What has changed is that I am finally allowing the outside of my life to move closer to what I have carried inside for so long.

If someone cannot accept that, then perhaps the friendship was not what I believed it to be.

That realisation is painful, but freeing. I do not want to carry bitterness towards the people who have stepped away. They have their own beliefs and understanding of the world. I can wish them well and continue with my own life.

What matters more is appreciating the people who remain.

I want to keep close the people who allow me to be Gillian without making me feel that I need to earn their acceptance. People who understand that transition is not me erasing who I was, but finally allowing myself to live more fully as who I am.

My thoughts still turn to my mom every day. I miss her tremendously. There are moments when I wish I could sit with her and tell her everything that has happened. I wonder what conversations we would have had about my transition and what she would make of the woman I am becoming.
I remain in contact with Maureen, Mom's partner in New Zealand, and we often share memories of her. There is something comforting about remembering Mom together. Grief changes with time, but love does not disappear with it.

Perhaps transition has made me more aware of how much of life is about change.

Some friendships grow stronger because people finally know the real me. Others fall away. My body is changing. The way I see myself is changing. The way I allow the world to see me is changing.

Even the name I answer to now reflects a part of myself that I spent many years keeping quiet. Through all of that, I am learning that I do not need everyone to understand. I only need to be honest.

There is also one part of myself that transition has not weakened.

My faith.

If anything, this journey has made me lean on it more.

I know there are people who may struggle to reconcile who I am with what they believe. Some may even question my relationship with God because I am transgender. But that relationship is not theirs to define.

My faith in Jesus Christ has carried me through joy, grief, uncertainty, loss and change. It remains part of who I am, and it is not something I will surrender because my life now looks different from what other people expected.

This morning, sitting quietly with my coffee while the sun rose and the birds sang around me, I realised that I am not simply transitioning.

I am learning how to live as myself.

I am learning who belongs beside me.

I am learning what I can let go of.

And through all of it, I am still trusting in Jesus.

Lately I have found myself thinking about the people around me and how different relationships begin to look when you start sharing something deeply personal about yourself. For the most part, the response to my story has been positive. Many people have listened, accepted what I have shared and seemed genuinely happy that I have reached a place where I can finally live more honestly. That kindness means more to me than I probably manage to express, because every person who responds with understanding makes this journey feel a little less lonely.

There have, however, been a few people who have not responded in the same way. What makes that difficult is not simply that they disagree or struggle to understand. It is that some of them were people I believed were close friends, people I thought I could trust, confide in and count on. Discovering that a friendship may not have been quite what I believed it to be is painful, and I think that is something I still need time to work through.

At the same time, I am beginning to realize that I cannot measure the value of my journey by who chooses to stay and who chooses to step away. I cannot force anyone to understand me, nor can I build my life around continually trying to earn somebody else's acceptance. What I can do is keep close the people who accept me for who I am, who support me without asking me to become smaller for their comfort, and who value the friendship enough to walk beside me while I continue changing and growing.

Those are the friendships worth cherishing. They are not built only during the easy seasons of life, when nothing challenges anyone's expectations. Real friendship reveals itself when something changes and the person on the other side is still able to say, in one way or another, "You are still you, and I am still here." I have a much deeper appreciation now for the people who have shown me that kind of acceptance, and I want to make sure I never take them for granted.

I have watched and read stories from other people who have traveled similar roads, and sometimes the way they have been treated has been incredibly sad. Relationships can change. Friends can disappear. Families can struggle. People who once seemed dependable can suddenly become distant. Knowing that others have experienced those things does not necessarily make them easier, but it does remind me that these experiences are part of a much larger human story about being accepted for who we really are.

There is still a lot for me to digest. There are feelings I am working through, and I suspect there will be more as I continue sharing my story and becoming more open about who I am. I do not expect every part of this journey to be comfortable. Some things will hurt, and some things will require me to let go of relationships or expectations that I once believed would always be there.

But despite all of that, I am happy.

That is the part I keep returning to.

I am in a happy place in my life. I am doing what, deep inside myself, I believe is right. I am becoming increasingly comfortable with who I am, and I do not want the disappointment of a few relationships to overshadow the many good people who have responded with kindness and support.

So I will continue sharing my journey.

I will continue being honest about what I am experiencing.

I will continue appreciating the people who stand beside me, respecting them, valuing them and cherishing the friendships that prove themselves genuine over time.

And for those who cannot walk this road with me, I wish them well.

But I am still walking.

I am still happy.

And I am still moving forward.

Today is a new day.

More than that, it is the beginning of a new week.

Outside, the weather is dreary. The sky is grey, and it would be very easy to allow the mood of the day to become my own.

But strangely, I do not feel grey at all.

I feel good.

I feel positive.

And I am looking forward to this coming week.

There is something quite powerful about recognising that the circumstances around me do not always have to determine what is happening inside me.

A beautiful sunny morning can certainly lift the spirit, but perhaps there is an even deeper kind of happiness when you can look at a dull, overcast day and still feel that life is good.

That is where I find myself today.

I do not know exactly what this week will bring.

There will be things I need to deal with, responsibilities that need my attention, moments of frustration, and probably a few unexpected challenges along the way.

That is simply life.

But I am beginning this week from a different place.

Not with dread.

Not wondering what might go wrong.

Not carrying the weight of next Friday before Monday has even properly begun.

Instead, I am simply allowing myself to be here.

Today.

At the beginning of another seven days in which something good might happen.

Another week in which I can learn something.

Another week in which I can make progress.

Another week in which I can continue becoming more comfortable with myself and with the life I am now choosing to live.

I am discovering that positivity does not necessarily mean pretending that everything is perfect.

It simply means refusing to allow everything that is imperfect to overshadow everything that is good.

And right now, there is a great deal in my life that I am grateful for.

I feel increasingly comfortable within myself.

I feel hopeful about where I am going.

Most importantly, I feel as though I am actually participating in my own life rather than simply moving through it.

So the clouds can stay for today.

They do not bother me.

Because despite the dreary weather outside, there is sunshine somewhere inside me.

It is a new day.

It is a new week.

And I am ready to see what it brings.

Today I feel like a million dollars.

There really is no better way to describe it.

Today marks week four on HRT, and while I know that four weeks is only the very beginning of what will be a much longer journey, something about reaching this point feels significant.

I feel good.

Not just physically.

I feel good within myself.

There is an excitement in waking up and knowing that I am actively moving forward. For so long, so much of this existed as thoughts, questions, hopes and possibilities.

Now it is real.

I am living it.

Week by week, I am allowing myself to experience this journey rather than constantly looking ahead and wondering when I will reach some imagined destination.

Of course I am excited about the changes still to come.

I would be lying if I said I was not watching closely, wondering what will change next and occasionally wishing everything could happen a little faster.

But I am also beginning to understand that there is something beautiful about the process itself.

This is not a race.

There is no finish line I need to reach by a particular date.

There is simply today.

And today, I am happy.

I am enjoying discovering myself in ways I never allowed myself to before.

I am enjoying the small changes.

I am enjoying the anticipation.

I am enjoying the freedom of knowing that I have finally stopped standing at the edge of this life wondering whether I should step into it.

I stepped.

And now I am here.

There will undoubtedly be difficult days as this journey continues. I know every week will not necessarily feel like this one.

That makes days like today worth remembering.

Because today I do not want to analyse everything.

I do not want to worry about what comes next.

I do not want to measure myself against where I think I should be.

I simply want to acknowledge how I feel.

Happy. Alive. Excited. Grateful.

Four weeks may not sound like much when measured against an entire lifetime.

But to me, these four weeks represent movement.

They represent choosing myself.

They represent the beginning of something I once wondered whether I would ever have the courage to pursue.

And right now?

I am loving the journey.

Today I feel like a million dollars.

And I think I am going to allow myself to enjoy every cent of it.

Something has changed in me lately.

I cannot point to one particular moment when it happened, but I can feel the difference.

I have been sleeping well, and almost every morning I find myself waking somewhere between five and half past five. Instead of wanting to roll over and disappear back beneath the blankets, I wake feeling rested.

More than rested.

I feel alive.

There is an energy in me that I have not felt for a very long time. I wake up thinking about the day ahead rather than worrying about everything that might go wrong.

And I think I am beginning to understand why.

For so much of my life, there has always been this background concern about what other people might think.

What will they say?

How will they react?

Will they understand?

Will they judge me?

Will they talk about me when I am not there?

Those questions can become an enormous weight when you carry them for long enough. You begin making decisions based not on what brings you peace, but on what might make everyone else comfortable.

And somewhere along the way, something in me seems to have finally said:

Enough.

I genuinely do not care anymore.

That does not mean I have stopped caring about people. It does not mean I want to hurt anyone or deliberately make life difficult for those around me.

It simply means that I am no longer willing to build my life around somebody else's opinion of who I should be.

For once in my life, I am living my truth.

I am allowing myself to be who I am.

And I love it.

There is an extraordinary freedom in being able to say that.

I know there may still be difficult days ahead. There will probably be criticism, misunderstanding and people who have opinions about choices that were never theirs to make.

But something feels different now.

Their voices do not seem as loud as they once did.

My own voice is becoming louder.

This morning is Monday.

The beginning of another week.

The sun is coming up, it is a beautiful day, and instead of looking at the week ahead with anxiety, I feel ready for it.

Ready to work.

Ready to grow.

Ready to discover what comes next.

Ready simply to live.

And beneath all of this is something that has remained constant throughout my life: my faith.

Whatever changes around me, and whatever changes within me, I know where my gratitude belongs.

For the strength to get here.

For another morning.

For another week.

For the freedom I am beginning to experience.

And for the opportunity to finally live the life before me with honesty rather than fear.

All praise and glory to my God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Today I am awake.

Not only because morning has arrived.

But because, in so many ways, I feel as though I am finally waking up to my own life.

I find myself caught between two very different emotions at the moment.

I am excited.

Genuinely excited about where my life is going and about the changes I am finally allowing myself to make.

But underneath that excitement there is also fear.

Sometimes I cannot help wondering what my life might have looked like if I had understood all of this decades ago, or if I had simply had the courage and circumstances to act on what I already knew somewhere inside myself.

There is a temptation to look backwards and think, I should have done this sooner.

Perhaps I should have.

But I also know that the person I was twenty, thirty or forty years ago did not have the understanding I have today. The world was different. My circumstances were different. And I was different.

So I am trying not to turn hindsight into regret.

Still, beginning something this significant later in life carries its own uncertainties.

We often say that you are never too old to change, and I believe that.

But believing it does not make society suddenly kinder.

People can be remarkably judgmental when someone steps outside the role they have been expected to occupy. Age adds another layer to that. There will undoubtedly be people who cannot understand why someone would make such a profound change at this stage of life.

I cannot control that.

What I can control is whether their discomfort becomes more important than my own truth.

That is something I am still learning.

There are moments when I feel incredibly brave, and others when I wonder whether I am strong enough for everything that may come with this journey.

Perhaps courage is not the absence of that fear.

Perhaps courage is simply continuing despite it.

And I am continuing.

I also have to remind myself that I cannot rush this.

There are changes I desperately want to see. There are parts of myself I am eager to discover. Sometimes I wish I could fast-forward through the awkward stages and arrive at some future point where everything feels settled and familiar.

But this is not something that happens overnight.

My body needs time.

My confidence needs time.

The people around me may need time.

And perhaps most importantly, I need time to grow into this new way of living.

So when the excitement becomes impatience, or the fear becomes louder than I would like, I am trying to remind myself of something very simple:
Patience will prevail.

I may be beginning later than I once imagined.

But later is not the same as too late.

I am here now.

I am finally moving forward.

And for today, that is enough.

There is a strange assumption that beginning again belongs to the young.

We are taught to imagine new beginnings in our twenties or thirties — new careers, new relationships, new identities, new dreams. By the time we grow older, the expectation seems to change. We are supposed to have settled into ourselves, to know who we are, and to quietly continue along the path already chosen.

But life does not always work that way.

Sometimes the most important beginning comes much later.

Growing older has made me more aware of time, but it has also made me less willing to spend that time living according to expectations that no longer belong to me.

There are things I understand about myself now that I could not have understood when I was younger. There are questions I finally have the courage to answer, and parts of myself I am learning to meet without apology.

Beginning again at this stage of life is frightening in ways I did not expect. There is no illusion that time is endless.

Perhaps that is exactly what makes it so precious.

I cannot go back and rewrite the years that have already passed. I can only decide what I will do with the years that remain.

And increasingly, I find myself believing that growing older does not have to mean becoming less.

It can mean becoming clearer.

More deliberate.

More honest.

More willing to let go of what was expected and make room for what is true.

Maybe beginning again is not about becoming someone new at all.

Maybe it is finally allowing yourself to become the person who had been waiting underneath everything else.

And perhaps there is no age at which it is too late to begin.

There is no single checklist for womanhood. This is about discovering the expression, softness, strength and presence that feel authentic to me.

For a long time, I thought femininity was something you could recognize from the outside.

The clothes someone wore. The way they styled their hair. The softness of their voice. The shape of their body. The small details that society quietly teaches us to associate with being a woman.

Those things still matter to me. They are part of how I am learning to express myself, and there is real joy in discovering them.

But femininity has started to mean something much deeper.

To me, femininity is not about performing a role or trying to imitate an idea of what a woman should be.

It is about allowing myself to soften where I once felt I had to be hard.

It is about becoming more comfortable with tenderness, vulnerability, compassion and emotion without seeing those things as weaknesses.

It is about learning that strength does not always have to be loud.

There is strength in gentleness.

There is strength in patience.

There is strength in being able to feel deeply and still continue forward.

Femininity, for me, is also freedom.

The freedom to enjoy beauty without embarrassment.

The freedom to care about how I look.

The freedom to grow my hair, shape my nails, change my voice, choose clothes that make me feel more like myself, and appreciate the changes happening in my body.

None of those things alone define femininity.

But together they have become part of a language through which I am finally able to express something that has existed inside me for far longer than I understood.

I am also discovering that there is no single correct way to be feminine.

Some women are soft. Some are bold. Some are elegant. Some are practical. Some love dresses and makeup, while others have no interest in either.

Femininity does not require a uniform.

That understanding has been important for me because I do not want to exchange one set of expectations for another.

I spent too many years believing I had to fit a particular idea of masculinity.

I do not want to spend the next chapter of my life trying to satisfy someone else's definition of femininity.

I want to discover my own.

Perhaps that is what femininity means to me most of all:

Not becoming an idealized version of a woman.

Not proving anything to anyone.

Simply giving myself permission to live, express, feel and grow in ways that finally feel natural.

And with every small discovery, I understand myself a little better.

For many years, looking in the mirror was less about seeing myself and more about measuring myself.

I noticed what I thought was wrong.

The shape of my body. My face. My weight. My hair. The features that did not fit the image I believed I was supposed to present to the world.

Without realising it, I had learned to look at myself through the eyes of expectation rather than through my own.

That is a difficult habit to unlearn.

Even now, there are days when I look in the mirror and immediately notice everything I would like to change.

I can see the years on my face. I can see a body that has lived through six decades. I can see features that will not transform overnight simply because I have finally begun to understand myself differently.

But something else is beginning to happen.

I am starting to look for myself.

Instead of only noticing what has not changed, I am learning to recognise what is changing.

Sometimes it is something physical — the way my hair is growing, the softness appearing in my features, or another small change in my body.

Sometimes it is something much less visible.

A different expression in my eyes.

A smile that feels less guarded.

A moment when I catch my reflection unexpectedly and, instead of immediately criticising what I see, simply think:

There you are.

Those moments are still small, but they matter.

Changing my self-image is not simply about trying to become more attractive or more feminine. It is about changing the relationship I have with the person looking back at me.

For much of my life, my body felt like something that needed to be managed, corrected or forced into a particular shape.

Now I am trying to approach it differently.

With patience.

With curiosity.

And perhaps most importantly, with kindness.

There are things I would still like to change. I do not think accepting myself means pretending otherwise.

But I am learning that wanting change and rejecting yourself are not the same thing.

I can work towards becoming the woman I want to see in the mirror while still respecting the person who is standing there today.

That may be one of the hardest parts of this journey.

Not waiting until some future version of myself appears before deciding that I am worthy of being seen.

Because this is not only about changing how the world sees me.

It is about changing the way I see myself.

And slowly, reflection by reflection, I think I am beginning to.

Choosing a new name seems, from the outside, like a very simple thing.

You decide what you want to be called, tell people, change a few records, and eventually everyone becomes accustomed to it.

But I am discovering that there is a much deeper question hidden inside that process.

When does a name you have chosen actually begin to feel like your name?

For most of my life, I answered automatically when I heard my old name.

It was attached to school records, employment, friendships, family, achievements, mistakes and almost every memory I had accumulated.

A name becomes deeply woven into your identity simply through repetition.

Then one day, I chose another.

Gillian.

I chose it deliberately. It represents who I am becoming, but perhaps more importantly, who I am finally allowing myself to acknowledge.

And yet choosing a name and inhabiting it are not quite the same thing.

At first, hearing someone call me Gillian could almost feel as though they were speaking to somebody standing beside me.

There would be that tiny moment of recognition:

Oh. That's me.

Then slowly something changes.

You see the name written on a screen.

Someone sends you a message beginning with it.

A friend uses it naturally in conversation.

You introduce yourself and, instead of consciously remembering which name to give, the word simply comes out.

Each time, another small connection is made.

The name stops feeling like something you selected and starts becoming something you recognise.

I have also realised that changing a name involves a peculiar kind of letting go.

My old name belongs to a very large part of my story. I do not need to hate it or erase the person who carried it.

That person lived my life.

He survived difficult things.

He worked, loved, failed, succeeded, raised questions, made decisions and eventually brought me to this point.

But a name can belong to a chapter without needing to remain the title of the entire book.

Gillian represents another chapter.

Perhaps that is why I do not think there is one specific moment when a new name becomes your name.

It happens gradually.

It happens every time someone says it and you instinctively turn your head.

Every time you write it without hesitation.

Every time you introduce yourself without rehearsing the words beforehand.

And perhaps most importantly, it happens when you hear the name inside your own thoughts and no longer have to remind yourself who it belongs to.

One day, almost without noticing, the name that once felt new simply feels familiar.

Not a name I am trying on.

Not a name I am becoming accustomed to.

Just my name.

Gillian.