It was December 23 2013. I had been out drinking with some friends in Radford VA.
I was going through a very difficult period in my life. I had been working as a software engineer in Harrisonburg for the last few years. I was not a very good employee. I just couldn't concentrate on work. To get over my professional difficulties I used to indulge in binge drinking every other night while dressed in lingerie. I had had a few relationships with men in college but there was something missing. It wasn't a problem with them. It was a problem with me. I wanted to be with a man as a woman but there were a lot of reasons - fear of transitioning, the daunting feeling of embarking on such a long and expensive journey and family issues (I was paying for my family's health insurance and home repairs etc.) - for which I felt like I couldn't go through with it.
It was a cold night in Radford. There were three of us. We met up and reminisced about college days over beers. Except for me, drinking at this point had become a game of chicken in which I was trying to get as much alcohol in my body as possible.
Earlier that year, the movie 'The World's End' had come out. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. It's about a bunch of old friends who meet up one day and want to do a 'pub crawl' - it's a Britishism for barhopping. They wanted to have 12 beers in one night. Ever since I saw it, I wanted to emulate it. It roughly worked out to 11 oz of undiluted alcohol and every time I drank I wanted to get close to it. After that night in Radford, I calculated how close I got - it was 9.5oz.
We didn't go to barhopping like in the movie. We stayed in one bar - Riley's Main Street Lounge - and over the next 4 hours we drank the night away. I want to be more descriptive about what happened that night but the truth is I barely remember anything beyond the first hour. After the first hour, at one point I went to the toilet to throw up but that's all I remember.
We left the bar around 11pm - I know this because of the location history on my phone. To this day, I don't know what happened after that. I just know that somehow I ended up in the New River - that's the river that runs through Radford. I recall struggling against the river's current and the desperation with which I tried not to drown. I don't know how I survived or who, if anyone dragged me out of the river. The next thing I remember is waking up completely drenched in the back of my car. I don't even know how I got there.
This event changed my perspective on life. Almost dying, tends to do that. I didn't want to be unhappy for the rest of my life and I didn't want to lead an unfulfilling life. So, I decided to transition. I had some decent savings and I could use that to fund my journey. I also wanted to get out of tech and I decided to go nursing school next year in an accelerated program.
Life is short. If you don't make the most of it, you will regret it at the end.