I was nominated for this challenge by a blogger who I love to read because she has a definite knack for getting to the heart of issues and writes with a heartfelt passion about her subjects: FeministAspie.

The rules of the challenge are as follows:

• Thank the blogger who nominated you.
• Publish a quote on 3 consecutive days on your blog. The quote can be one of your own, from a book, movie, or from anyone who inspires you.
• Nominate 3 more bloggers each day to carry on this endeavor.

So, without further ado, here is my first quote.

“Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 6: Fables and Reflections

It’s something I read last month (I’ve recently read the whole Sandman series of graphic novels) and it struck a chord with me. You see, recently I left my job, accepting the offer they had made me (I can’t discuss details: that’s part of the contract). After eight and a half years it felt rather like stepping off a cliff: here I am, not knowing where I’ll end up, walking away from what had been a comfortable existence.

But the thing is, I wasn’t happy with where I was and it took such as drastic step for me to realize it. I’d stepped off the cliff and suddenly there I was, falling. It’s funny, but I made this image a couple of years ago (just before I transitioned):

I’d been visiting friends in West Bay (where much of Broadchurch was filmed: this is the iconic cliff seen from the opposite angle), and I was in a really bad place, mentally. But I guess the caption I added was appropriate to my optimistic nature, “Sometimes when you jump off the cliff you find you can fly.”

So that’s why I felt the connection to Neil Gaiman’s words in Sandman. I don’t know if I ever woke up but I can tell you that I have learned to fly.

I’m here, now, as the person I always felt myself to be inside. So many things have happened recently. I lost my mother 6 years ago today. I found out from my brother today that my father is in a care home with terminal cancer. And yet I am in a good place mentally. I feel good about myself, and isn’t that the finest tribute I could make for my parents? That they raised someone who has found the strength to be true to herself.

I’m going to visit my father next week (thanks to those of you who commented a few weeks ago when I wrote about him being taken into hospital and my subsequent feelings). My daughter is accompanying me, which is a help: he doesn’t know yet about my transition and it will be a comfort to me to have someone with me.All these negatives might have brought me down, but the truth is that after so many years of hiding and denying my true self nothing can overcome my new-found confidence and feeling of self-worth. These days I face the world as the person I see inside, and the way that people accept me as myself makes me feel so happy. I truly have learned to fly.