A Journey To Find Yourself

• Jade Casey, Grade 12, Gordonvale State High School
• Short Story
• 2016

Excellence Award in the 'Top Secret 2016' competition

Nothing can compare to the confusion, fear and elated happiness that comes from finding yourself, it’s a long and tedious process that tests you and the people around you. Especially when the journey starts in your teenage years but it’s a natural thing for everyone and this is what I had to go through, my own journey; because everyone’s is different.
Jade Casey is a young teenage girl in grade 9, she isn’t the most outgoing and is being juggled around groups for weeks lost in trying to find understanding friends. She wasn’t the most feminine girl, since she was able to walk and talk; she had been classified under tomboy, where those who hated dresses, makeup, gossip and so much more, would be. It wasn’t until early grade ten that she found those friends, the ones that let her be herself, soon she was getting comfortable, cracking jokes and being as rowdy as she wanted which made her feel the most happiest and alive she could be.
However the journey just starts; more specifically it starts on the internet, where a lot of other people are also finding themselves, a place where everyone is free to their own opinions and privy to an abundance of information. Jade explored many diverse communities, learning and connecting, one such expression she found at the time was a word for a unique group called ‘trans-gender’. That word, it stuck around for months as she tried to deny it. Eventually the small thought became bigger and even greater; so much that she couldn’t hold it in anymore.
She came out, it was quite a ridiculous moment too, in a McDonald’s drive thru on their way to get a haircut, and the thought of shorter hair was a desire too big by then. Her mother covered her eyes with sunglasses and accepted it for now, therefore ridding Jade of the gripping fear of rejection. The risk-taking haircut was confirmation to go forward and get the opposite gender’s clothes.
It was University open day, thinking about a plan for the future was important especially when she was in grade 11 now but the thought of transitioning in University raised Jade’s concerns.
“Hey Mum, do you reckon' I should defer for my transition?” an innocent question that unfortunately sparked a fire on the car ride home, it was the most lengthy and heart-shattering argument she had ever had.
“I feel like you’re making a mistake” Mum would say and Jade would argue that she is the most happy she had ever been. She had found herself and her own mother rejected it. Jade wasn’t going to stop fighting for herself though, instantly she talked to her aunties and her therapist, crying all the way. As the saying goes time heals; she and her mother haven’t talked much after and Dad was hopeless from the start with his stereotypical beliefs.
I have my own dreams and a journey that’s still going but instead as Jason Casey.