I've already written about becoming more wistful, misty-eyed since beginning HRT in June, but I had not experienced the torrent of uncontrollable tears that I have heard others describe. That changed today.
This morning I had a beautiful waking dream. It must have been 1970 or 1971, and in my dream I woke in the basement family room of my oldest sister's house in Oxon Hill, MD. I was on one of her orange couches, where I always slept when we came to visit. My nephew, then scarcely ten years old came bouncing into the room, and I thought he looked so funny in his plastic frame glasses. (That's the pot calling the kettle black, as I also wore large plastic frame glasses back then.) Then my brother-in-law breezed in, running to grab something from the back, followed by my sister. I felt so wonderful that I both laughed and cried to think what wonderful times those were even if I was not able to talk to anyone about my deepest troubles.
I woke fully to find myself in my bed here in Bucharest, happily sobbing uncontrollably and not able to stop. I would just get the tears to slow, and then I would think of my nephew again as he was in those days and as the fine man he has become. Again I was reaching for the Kleenex.
My nephew is a full army colonel today with his own family and young children. He has not said so to me directly, but I don't think he fully approves of these changes in his uncle. That's OK. I remember how he cried at my wedding in 1982, and my own tears start again.
By the time the floodgates closed, I had a large pile of Kleenex on the floor. I got up, dressed, and went for an easy early morning bike ride around the Bucharest Sea.
Now, as I write these words, my eyes again become misty. This is for you, nephew, tears for a colonel.
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