I'm now in my Junior year of college. And holy hell, a lot has changed in the past two years.

Turns out transitioning from a small-minded private high school to one of the largest universities in the country has opened up a lot for me.

I've changed my entire life plan and career goals. I've recovered from a decade-long battle with mental illness. I've discovered a lot about myself that I don't think anyone expected, including the fact that I am not, and I never have been, a girl.

That last one has been the biggest doozy for obvious reasons.

I feel like a completely different person from when I started college, and I think I am a completely different person. My wardrobe is new, my ambitions are new, even my NAME is new. I've had to reintroduce myself to a lot of people I've known for a long time.

It's the reintroductions that terrify me. I've overcome an indescribable self-hatred, and I never know what or how people think of me now. I don't know if their past impressions of me affect their current impressions of me.

Then, there's always the nightmare scenario: they don't recognize the new, happier me at all and only see who I was in the past when they first met me.

Which is why moving away to a new town with new faces as a clean; white slate is so exciting to me.

In a completely new place, nobody knows who you are. There aren't any past expectations of you. There's only you and what you say you are. I introduce myself as "Milo" and they introduce themselves and that's that.

It's a breath of fresh air that I'm extremely desperate for.

Nobody would know who I was when I was going through a rough time. Nobody would know how I thought I was dead set on a goal, only to change it and become dead set on a completely different goal. Nobody would know how I struggled with a very, very difficult depression spell. Nobody would know I use to identify as a lesbian because the term "gay" fit so well, I just didn't know I've been a dude this whole time.

Bottom line, I have this whole "identity" thing pretty solidified now. If I move to a new town, what they see is what they're going to get. Nobody is going to see those rocky and confusing in-between stages of figuring it all out ever again.

The only ones who have seen those stages are the people around me right now.

I associate my hometown with who I was in the past. I never, ever want to go back to who I was. So, staying in that place sounds utterly dreadful.

Of course, nowhere is a complete utopia. I don't expect everyone to automatically look at me in my transition and be tolerant of my existence (it's not fair that I have to be prepared for that, but that's a topic for another day). But, that's what I signed up for when I decided I didn't want to live in an indescribable self-hatred anymore. I don't expect or, frankly, even want a utopia.

I only want a place where reintroductions don't exist. There's only the first, true introduction.

"Hello, my name is Milo. Nice to meet ya!"

And we go from there.