Empathy. That is one of the things I noticed when I first discovered good writers describing the trans experience. I felt like they were writing about me. I so much identified with what they were sharing about themselves. They were confirming what I was realizing about myself and giving me new insights into the person I always was and was becoming. It created both comfort and longing. Comfort because I knew I was not losing my mind, longing because they were expressing deep-seated needs that I had never been allowed to express and had buried. So was I empathizing with them or were they with me? Yes. I understood what they were describing and felt it, they knew what I was feeling without even knowing me and made me part of their stories. They anticipated my life and experiences. It often brought me to tears, tears I proudly and openly shed. I had nothing to be ashamed of. I was being authentic, no longer the imposter. The imposter had been the character I had played for so long in my life, the persona other people had come to expect and lean on. I was worn out. I couldn’t do it any longer. That is when I knew I finally had been freed, and with freedom came energy and hope.