Two Women on Valentine's Day

Sometimes transformation looks like a trip to Target

A young Lana stands with a smile, wearing a plain dress.

Yesterday was epic.

Last year I organized Valentine’s Day and it was our first one together. Yes, yes, we’ve been married for 13 years but we were that couple that said “it’s commercial, we shouldn’t observe Valentines’s Day…” But then I transitioned and things changed. Underneath my resistance to celebrating this day was something deeper. That something was that I didn’t like the idea of me doing the “manly” thing of buying Kim dinner for Valentine’s Day. So it felt apt, as a woman, to buy Kim a fancy Valentine’s dinner last year.

This year, Kim organized our date. The premise was simple: we all go to Target and pick out five items for the other person. My kids were part of it too and were charged with doing it for one another. Part of the fun was trying to avoid each other in the store and checking out separately. The list was as follows:

1. Drink

2. Snack

3. Treat

4. Dinner

5. Something Fun

I bought Kim Lime Topochico, Reese’s Cereal, Sour Patch Strips, Soup Dumplings (because I call Kim my potsticker), and a charcuterie board made out of mini squishmallows. Kim got me a peach iced tea, macadamia nuts, Tony Chocolonely, Saag Paneer, and a black crop top. I’m going to call this the most fun Valentine’s Day ever, for many reasons.

My whole life I’ve been expected to fulfill male roles. Play with boys, wear boy clothes, be loud, be a player, you name it. Every time I fulfilled those roles, something in me died. So after forty years of being a man, you may be able to imagine that I was basically on life support. Looking back at my pictures and remembering my past self, I can attest to how dead I felt inside.

Every time I didn’t have to fulfill a male role, I was handed a glimpse of my future. When my grandma allowed me to wear a dress. In elementary school, I spent every day with my friend Daphne. When I lived in foster homes, the girls in the group home did my makeup. And later, in my twenties, my best friend Anne treated me like one of the girls.

For those who are not religious, today is Transfiguration Sunday. It’s the last Sunday before we enter the Lenten season. One story often read on this Sunday is when Jesus is going camping with his buddies Peter, James, and John. When they wake up they see Jesus in his divine form, essentially made out of light. Our Associate Rector, Blake, shared that this was kinda like a sneak peek into the future. But to reach Pentecost, or the Ascension, Jesus and his buddies first had to go through a period of suffering.

I couldn’t help but tear up a little bit. These are a few of those moments that I’m reminded that Jesus actually does know what I’m going through. Here he is, a divine being in human form (it doesn’t get more closeted transgender than that), then we see his transfigured body (it doesn’t get more transgender than that), and in order to get to that point, Jesus has to go through immense suffering (an apt description of my childhood). It would be quite accurate to say that Michel died so that Lana could be resurrected.

And this resurrected Lana loves being pursued as a woman.