For years the Guardian’s friends would take him out for what I would called “test” nights. I guess because he didn’t have a girlfriend every so many months they would take him to a place like Hooters or similar to gauge his reactions. Don’t ask me, I do not fully understand how the “normals” think. The strange thing was that what my Guardian’s friends did not know was that I was there and that the confidence and self-realization of who I was inside was progressing and filling in the missing holes. In short I was becoming a full person. I stop and I think about those days and wonder was it because I was changing that my friends went all out to take me to these places. Who knows, but back to this figurine.

We ended up that night at …the place etc, etc…hot wings.. “giggle” but there was a long waiting line to get in. So we stood there for about 20 minutes talking about this and that. I can remember the moment as if a meteor had crashed through the skylight of HarborPlace Mall. It was then that I looked in the window that one of my friends happened to be leaning on and there it was. The store was one of those that specialized in African American art and collectibles. The store was still open, because it was late in the night most of the malls stores had already closed or were in the process of closing. There were still a few people in the store though looking at other items. It was then that I noticed that I was having one of those new Karen Marie moments. It was in the early days and I didn’t have a full understanding of who I was. The mask of the Guardian, I had been attempting to portray to the world was beginning to show how much it did not fit. After finding out that there were others like me and that I was not diseased or mentally ill but that I was different in a much better way than the “normals”. … but with such power there has to be…giggle… control. My break down in control that night was while standing in line for the hot wings restaurant, I saw something that reminded me that I was something different. At the first moment I saw this figurine my mind took me to a different path. The path that some of us TGs feel we should have gone down but sadly did not go down. The path of a girl that should have been. The path of a little eight year old girl, who maybe earlier that day was walking through the mall with her mother or maybe grandmother. The path of the girl that gazed through the same window as I was at that time looking at a figurine that spoke to her, that she could see herself in.

At first I shed a silent inner tear at the loss of something I could not experience. Even as the line moved more towards the entrance of the restaurant my eyes continued to look back towards the collectibles store. It was then that I first began to realize that while the “normals” who were in line with me had thoughts more on what was going to be serving the hot wings inside of the restaurant, mine were first of depression of a missed girlhood…… then they turned to anger, then to the formulating the steps I would need to take to return the next day to get “MY” figurine. So there I was sitting there in the restaurant with my friends and the only things going through my mind was, how much I wanted that figurine. Then how I could attempt to fake mindless interest in the waitresses enough to hide from my friends that my mind was really still back at the store window.

The figurine remained in my thoughts the entire night. It was in my early days of accepting my TG self so I was still under the fear that some one, a friend of the family, a co-worker, whatever would find me buying something female and then my entire life would unravel. I look back now days and I want to laugh more about it but I can remember the fear. This was going to be my first “non-EBAY” for Karen Marie purchase that I was going to make. I made the 40-minute drive back up to Baltimore and started my steps towards the HarborPlace Mall. I look back at it as the most covert movements that I have made in my life. I think the only ones that approach malls and stores in such detailed and suspicious ways are those that feel that society would think them taboo to purchase certain things within them and those that are probably there to rob the place.

The rest of the story is pretty simple. I went into the store and the sales lady was already helping another person so I stood and waited. I do remember standing next to the most manly thing I could find in the store. I think it was a display of paintings of men in a barbershop or something…. When the lady asked if she could help me I can remember almost hearing the “play” button in my head activate my pre-made and thought out lie to why I wanted it. I think it was the “for my wife’s sister’s Birthday party” one. That was/is one of my favorite ones. Add in for spice and security, “..and my wife doesn’t trust me to buy the right gift. Do you think that I made the right choice to purchase this figurine of a little girl in a blue dress looking at a rose” I have found that for myself as either truth or delusion that this story works great.

So there I was standing there watching as the sales lady moved to the window and brought down the figurine that I had first gazed on the night before. Chances are she probably was going through thoughts in her head “sure…. wife's sister’s” … After ringing the figurine up she placed it in the appropriate box and placed it in a store bag. After that I can’t really remember too much. Chances are, I probably walked confidently out the store head held high…. Chances are that would probably be further from the truth. I probably ran out of the store with the grace of Harrison Ford in The Fugitive and Walter Payton running for a touch down.