Counting blessings, I think.

Personal Background Time. For six years, I worked in fairly close quarters with a friend, who was also my supervisor. (It was a small store, and I did love the job. But I don't recommend friendships between authority levels at work, for the record.) He never quite understood that I didn't mind having an ambiguous gender identity - in fact, our gender identity discussions usually ended badly both in and out of work. To that end, for the full six years that I knew him, he would comment, frequently, on my appearance, and how I could better feminize it. Sometimes it was teasing jokes about how my clothes/hair made me look like a boy, and if I would just try, I could probably look so much more like a girl! How if I would wear my hair long, or wear earrings, or wear makeup, and honestly could I really blame customers for getting it wrong? (No, I didn't mind so much, since my gender was quite ambiguous intentionally. But that was hard to communicate.)

After a while, it actually got to kind of hurt. I'd wear eyeliner because I had a meeting, or for whatever reason, and get SHOCK, or wear earrings and get teased, or wear feminine clothes and get backhanded compliments on how that was cool, if only I did it more often, and it just... hurt. When I got my hair cut, there would often be several minutes of teasing about how nice it looked, Young Man, and sometimes a "No, but it really does look good. More feminine."

So, in the grand scheme of things, it's not a big deal that the response to the haircut I got last Friday was positive. And there's no way to non-awkwardly thank people, sincerely and completely, for their words... because I don't think I can adequately say how grateful I am to be around people whose comment is "I do like your haircut. It's very... you." Or that, despite the teasing, my individual style, without makeup or fashion-directional things, is cool, is mine, works for me.

When you've had your identity constantly under barrages of snide comments for much of your life, it is incredibly awesome to have people who not only don't take potshots at your gender identity and appearance, but genuinely affirm it. I guess that's just not something I ever thought of as being part of life, but my God, I am accepted for who I am here, not only in the workplace but at church. Which is something I never expected at all.

I am so utterly blessed in this life.