His father's face in the mirror

Talking to my mother about my transition still feels like baby steps. It can be frustrating, this far on, because I pass for a man in my daily life with ease. I came out to my parents three or four years ago, before I started testosterone and when the realization was still pretty fresh even for me. Because I had talked it over with my then-girlfriend/now-wife and started to come out to a few select friends, my mother felt that I came out to them absolute last (not true at all) and was apparently hurt by that idea. I think I may have discussed it with my boss, before them, partly because I was unsure how my transitioning would affect my job (not at all, as it turns out, but we live in an at-will employment state so it could have gone another way). Maybe I could have come out to my parents sooner, but it felt like something that needed to be done in person and I was counting down the months to them visiting in person, at the time. Also it was hard, harder than any other interaction I have ever had regarding my transition.

I feel like my parents don't understand that sometimes. I am cautious approaching them with things not because I don't care about their opinion, but because their opinion holds more weight than that of other people. This is true even now that I'm an adult who's lived across the country from them for close to two decades. My wife's opinion holds even more weight, but I am also more sure of it in advance. What my parents will think of something is as much a mystery to me as what I think seems to be to them. Obviously there's a communication problem there, and I'm not sure how to solve it. I talk about my mother's comments on things more often than my father's because most of the time my dad just doesn't say anything at all. I'm not sure if he feels that her words carry for them both, or if he has no opinion at all, or just doesn't want or know how to communicate it.

In some ways, maybe I'm more like my father. I'm cautious extending my opinions on things, laid back and patient, sometimes to the point where it's a flaw more than a blessing. I let life and people run over me sometimes, because I don't want to be confrontational.

Anyway, I'm not sure where I'm going with all this, but on Halloween night my mother and I were chatting over text, and she mentioned that the way my hair is now makes me look a lot like my father. My father now looks a little like Santa Claus, but she sent me a photo I'd seen before of the two of them when they were younger. It's a picture I'd seen before, but not in a long time and I'd never realized such a strong comparison.

I hear my father's voice all the time, now. I think I had a lot of his vocal habits before, but now that my voice itself sounds more like his, half the time when I talk I'm startled by just how much I sound like him. I don't know what he'd think of that. Maybe I never will. I don't know how I feel about possibly looking like Santa someday, either.