Reunion

So, I'm on this email list for current and former airborne Spanish linguists. Waldo mentioned it a couple of months ago on her blog.

The group has a reunion every year in different places with significance to that community and this year it will be in Omaha. I've never really considered going to one of these, but this year they're dedicating a memorial to a friend who was killed in action just over 6 years ago. Between the memorial dedication, getting to see my old workplace (it's not just a place you can walk into and visit), seeing the inside of one of the planes I used to fly on, and seeing some old friends, I'm seriously considering going this year.

Anyhow, the complication, as always, is my transition. I've seen a few of the people I was in the military with since I've transitioned but haven't seen the majority of the people who would be attending the reunion. The people I've met don't seem to have issues with it but I'm not sure I can say the same thing about the wider group.

I'm pretty sure most of the people I knew back then already know my story, so it won't really be much of a surprise. It's just a really tight-knit group (and somewhat small) so it will be hard to fade into the background if I'm not feeling all that comfortable. I've been surprised by the generally good reaction I've gotten from the people I've told or the stories I've heard through the grapevine about other people finding out. But this is a group of retired and active duty conservative military types.

I'm not really sure what I'm going to do yet. A big part of me wants to just go and deal with whatever BS I happen to encounter, if any. There have been a number of similar situations in the past couple of years (see my post about Thanksgiving with my mom's side of the family) that I thought would go much worse than they did, so I'm not sure I need to psyche myself out of this one just for fear of what may happen. For whatever reason though, this one seems scarier.