A year ago today, I started taking testosterone. While the journey has been all but easy, this has no doubt been the best 360 days of my life. If for no other reason at all then it being my own 360 days. No one else’s.

Before coming out, every breath that I took was excruciation, every word that I spoke came straight from a book that I had already read hundreds of times. It was all just lies. I had given everything that I had, all of my strength and energy to a life that was not mine, and by the end of the 16 years of lies, I was just a shadow of a person, gliding around unseen by the rest. At the end, I was left Exhausted, miserable, and yearning for a life and body that I could call my own.

16 years of living, but not being alive.

Then I cut my long hair and started dressing masculinity, and for the first time in my life, I felt like I was alive. I could feel the air fill my lungs and the sweat accumulates in my palms as I walked uncertainly.

So alive.

So utterly full of life.

The first day I passed as a male, was the first day of my life. There are no words that can express the way that I felt that day, as I walked through the hallways of my high school unrecognizable.

I looked as though I was a 10-year-old boy, but none of that mattered that day because I was finally seen as male.

That day was one in its own, though.

And as the rush of being seen as a male by society had ended, simply being seen as the person I was, wasn’t enough anymore.

I wanted more.

I wanted what was mine.

Even though I was already out as a trans man, before I started T I felt that I had spent my days trying to convince everyone else that I was the person that I felt on the inside. Everyone knew that I had changed my appearance by then, and I was no longer unrecognizable. I was not longer a new student, but that trans kid. People didn’t see me as an average male anymore, but as that kid that did a complete appearance overhall.

However, that all ended on February 28^th of 2016, as I got a shot in the stomach of a substance that would forever change my life.

Looking back at my life before my medical transition, I can see memories that never really belonged to me. It is like looking back on someone else’s life, and although they were technically my memories. They meant absolutely nothing to me.

With every slight change that I felt from the testosterone, came a more complete me. More recognizable by myself and society.

There is no feeling like the one when you look in the mirror and see yourself. Your real self.

And through this journey of voice cracks and random soreness, I have found myself. I am no longer afraid of going through the drive thru and having employees ask me if I am old enough to be driving or telling people what my age is and seeing the look of astonishment as they thought I was numerous years younger.

I am no longer afraid.

Actually, after these 360 days of change, I am the complete opposite.

I love when people see and hear me. I love showing the world my changes.

So, cheers to that priceless bottle of testosterone and support that I have received over the past year. As of today, I have officially been alive, really alive for a whole year.