Queer as me – Part 14: Cold wintry north

• Posted on 1 September 2016
• By Rachael
• Posted in Personal Stories, Queer as me, Trans
• 0

This post is PART 14 in a guest blogger series following author Rachael's transition from an A.M.A.B (Assigned Male at Birth) individual to that of a self-identified trans woman.

If you are just discovering Queer as me, start the story from the beginning here.

As I crossed the border to Canada, I felt a hope that I could someday come back and see those that I still loved. Delusional? Perhaps, but when you feel like you just lost everything, you can believe almost anything, just on the hope of one more day. It was Oct 22 2012 and the weather was getting colder. Although there wasn’t a lot of snow, you could taste it in the air, it was coming. Driving through BC was beautiful, but the daze I was still in made looking at the scenery dismal at best. The graying weather equaled the darkness of my thoughts, and I seem to drive on autopilot. It was about an hour shy of the Crowsnest Pass that reality came crashing down on me with frightening speed. A snow storm was brewing and not only that but it was to be a huge one. I now understand the saying “white-knuckle driving”, as this was something I was about to learn in a harrowing fashion.

The wind howled around my car, I was lucky it was crammed full of my life, because I’m sure I would have been blown clear off the highway if it weighed a pound less, as it were I had to hold on to the steering for all I was worth. I fought against the blinding and bellowing snow, it made seeing the road almost impossible. I was crawling at less than five miles an hour and wondering if I was going to get stuck out in the middle of nowhere BC, when it seems just for a moment that the wind was dying down. Yet I still couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of my car, and I could no longer see the cars behind me, if there was any there anymore. It felt surreal like I was lost, all alone, and starting to worry that I would ever make it to Calgary. Then it happened, just as quickly as it seemed to have started the snow stopped.

It was like waking up from a terrible nightmare, and as my heart and anxiety finally start to calm themselves, I started to pick up speed, the road while covered in snow had patches of asphalt showing more and more, and then it was clear. I gave my little ford escort its head and let it run all out. It looked like the worst was over, and as I was still running on adrenaline, my mind was clear of everything but getting to my mom’s house. As I got nearer to the pass, it started to snow again, but I was sure that I could handle a little snow after what I just drove through. Little snow, ha-ha, the storm was back. The higher I climbed the heavier the snow got, the deeper I drove into the pass the more the wind blew, until I could no longer see the road, or worse still the edge of the road, and I knew that if I was wrong, just a little in my driving I would be over the edge of the mountain and lost forever. I was so tired, but I didn’t know where I could stop, I had to keep going, and what happened if I did stop? Where? I couldn’t see anything, and who knows, someone could come up behind me and push me off the road. So, I had to go on, I had no choice. It was forward or death.

Rachael

Editor’s Note: To read Queer as me – Part 15: Second Chances, click here. Or click here to read the previous blog post Queer as me – Part 13: Threats and fleeing for my life, For the latest LSOP blog posts and so much more, make sure to add us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.