Being a trans man that didn't come out until early adulthood, there are many "ifs, ands, or buts" I'm left to wonder about my childhood. This is for the little Noah that never quite was.

For newborn Noah, who came into the world on July 22, 1997, somewhere just outside of Columbus, Ohio. Perhaps if you had known that the doctors were about to irreversibly place on your birth certificate a gender solely based on what was between your kicking legs, you would have said something. Perhaps if you had known that the string of letters that formed your original name would be one of many things causing you to be read as "feminine" until you got rid of it, you would have said something. But you were only minutes old, snuggled up in a little pink blanket, and blissfully unaware of the life-changing decisions going on around you without your knowledge or permission. We will never know for sure what would have happened, and how different life would have been if those few moments could be rewound and redone.

For baby Noah, who was always dressed in varying shades of pink and greeted as your mother's "beautiful baby girl." I don't remember much of you, only what survives in mom's stories and various pictures. Sure, you were cute, but whenever I go through those old photo albums, I can't help but think how much better you might have looked in blue.

For little kid Noah, who would always be stuck playing house, or with Barbies, instead of wrestling or playing a little rougher. I might not have changed this, really -- playing pretend is still a favorite of mine, I just do it on a stage for theatre now -- but whether I genuinely liked it back then, or if I made myself warm up to it because I thought it was the only option I had as a "girl," I don't know. Maybe rolling around in the mud a little more could have given you thicker skin to deal with being called every dirty word under the sun later in life, or maybe it could have let you dodge those experiences altogether.

For preteen Noah, who thought being a butch lesbian was the only way to be able to be masculine. You didn't usually like girls that much, not as much as boys anyway, but you went with it because you thought it was the only way you could be a "boy." You didn't know there was any other option.

For 13-year-old Noah, who picked up a dictionary and found the word "transsexual," but because the dictionary was from 1996, it made it sound like it was interchangeable with "intersex". Maybe if the dictionary hadn't misdefined it as "a person with both male and female genitalia," you would have found yourself sooner instead of thinking it was another community that didn't quite fit.

For 14-year-old Noah, who now knows the actual definition of transgender but has been fed such a negative image of it that you don't want to identify with it. It's now that you've also found out what "nonbinary" means, and have started identifying as genderfluid, but you didn't know that you could request that people call you a different name or pronouns. You didn't think you were "trans enough" for that. You didn't know about gender-neutral pronouns. You found some of your answers, but not all of them.

For 17-year-old Noah who knows now that he's a boy, or at least, heavily leans towards the masculine side of the gender spectrum, who binds with ace bandage (tip for anyone reading: don't do this) but knows he still can't pass. You're scared to come out because you know there's a reason the average life expectancy of a trans person is 30, you know there's a reason many trans people's stories don't end with "died of old age" or "died surrounded by family and loved ones." You know they often end in "died by suicide" or "body found discarded and decomposing" or "beaten and shot to death" or "skeletal remains found dismembered and burned" or "stoned to death in a public park" or "found in a crude grave" and so many other terrible ways. You are scared. Your adolescence has been robbed from you by dysphoria and depression and lacking a term or community to identify with. Your young adulthood will be robbed by fear.

For Noah, who will be 19 on July 22, who is currently sitting in bed, wearing a legitimate, safe chest binder, writing an article on scrambled nostalgia and trying to make up for lost time. You are out to your friends and family and thus far all has gone well. You can't be out at work, but you're handling it with as much grace as you can, under the circumstances. You started testosterone a month and a half ago and your body is starting to truly become yours for the first time. You are still scared, but you have prepared as best you can, and you will not go down without a fight. You are alive, you are "trans enough," you are wonderful. Though you didn't get to enjoy your boyhood, you are coping well with springboarding straight into manhood.

For little Noah, for grown-up me, for all those coping with missing their boyhood and time that can't be bought back while their families grieve the "loss" of their "daughters," and vice versa for trans girls -- you are enough.