Personal Narrative: Three Words

Three words. There may only be three simple words that distinguish who I am, but they’re frequently the hardest to speak. These words were unknown to me for years, though I always had the impression that I didn’t quite fit the typical label that was thrust upon me at birth. It may appear that it took only about seven and a half months to finally understand and speak these three words, though my lifelong friends know it took far longer; 15 years, to be precise. The uncertainty began when I was young - a confused query was directed to my grandmother when I received a Hannah Montana doll on one of the early Christmases of my memory, identical to the three my cousins received that same day. An outright refusal to wear a dress on Easter wasn’t uncommon, and the passion I held for Pokemon and adventure far outweighed society’s pressure to play with the dolls I had
I began learning about new terms I had never heard of before outside of the simple “gay” and “lesbian”. I began experimenting with my sexuality and gender, wondering exactly where I fit in. Finally, after all this time, I had something to call this foreign feeling I had felt since I was young. Not so foreign anymore, I spoke these three words to my friends, and eventually my family. Contrary to what I believed to be true, these words were never easy to speak aloud, even after the first ten, twenty, thirty times I spoke them. When I encounter strangers, or friends of friends, I worry about which version of me they see in front of them - is it Kristina, the one who passed into memory three years ago, or is it Kristopher, the one who finally knows who he is? I often over-think about how they’ll react when I tell them these three words I could once barely utter to even my closest circle. The three words that encompass me as a person could very well be the falling out of a friendship, or even the final words I say to a family