Jessica went on to begin studying towards a Bachelor of Science degree with a double major in both Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Her first year at college went by seemingly well, having fallen in with a very supportive and close-knit group of friends. On her 19th birthday, her father finally asked her mother for a divorce. Being the supportive girl that she always was, she tried as hard as she could to be the pillar of support that her mom needed to pull through that rough patch. What she didn’t realize was that over the years, she had been spiralling down into a depression of her own. A year later, by the end of her second year at college, things finally got out of control and she very nearly took her own life, but realized just in time that she desperately needed help.

She booked herself into a local mental health institute for 3 months of gruelling, intensive community-based therapy. With her being so focused on her family relationships, which she felt at the time was the primary reason for her depression, a less significant issue that she did not have time to explorer during that time would only later become of major significance: during her 3 months in the institute, she had befriended only girls within the community, and only the younger ones at that. For some reason, here was this 20-year old “boy” who seemed to have what might have appeared to be a rather unhealthy interest in 13- and 14-year old girls. On her last day at the institute, her individual therapist had drawn up a short list of things that she felt still needed to be looked into more over time. “Look closely into your reasons for being so interested in younger girls,” she said. At the time, Jessica just laughed and brushed it off as though her therapist’s concern was more to protect the safety of those young girls. Jessica couldn’t really pinpoint why she knew that wasn’t going to be an issue. She just knew that her motivation for befriending young girls was definitely not in any way ill-willed. If only she hadn’t brushed those remarks off so quickly, she might have finally come to a startling discovery much earlier in her life; but that was not to be.

Jessica emerged a new person, though, having made one of the most important discoveries of her life—that she had been living her life entirely according to how other people (especially her mother) wanted her to live it. So, early in 1995, she finally moved out of her mother’s house, and for the first time, she started to feel that she was her own person, and was able to start really exploring her inner self more. Shortly thereafter, in order to maintain a good standard of living as a student, she upgraded her part-time student employment (at a local photocopy shop) to doing night operations for a large commercial Internet Service Provider in South Africa. It was at this new job that she learned more in just the first few months than she ever was ever able to learn at college, as she never did pick up the knack for book-learning. Her immense problem solving skills were finally being put to good use, and she had found the real challenge that she had been searching for. In mid-1996, she finally gave in to her inability to concentrate on her studies. Ironically, even though her strongest subject at high school had always been Mathematics, it was Mathematics that ultimately got the better of her, forcing her to drop out of college halfway through her third attempt at some major second year Math courses.

This was not the bad news that everyone thought that it would be. Jessica had always been a bit of an optimist, and instead of feeling down about dropping out, she embraced it, and started working full time at the same company she had been working for, very quickly earning respect amongst her peers and earning multiple promotions in just a few years. With this newfound respect, which she had always struggled to achieve, she thought that she would finally be able to live up to being the man that at this point she still thought was the only realistic outcome for her life. She was off to a great start in her career, and it was in October 1998 that she met a charming young lady by the name of Charmaine. Both of them knew right from the start that they had found “the one”; They were so certain, in fact, that they were engaged just 10 days after first meeting in person, and they were married just a few months later in May 1999.

A few months went by, and through her skills and a series of fortunate events, she found herself invited to represent her company at a global conference in Paris, France, where she caught the attention of a group of managers from their US office. They showed a lot of interest in the possibility of having her transferred, and soon thereafter, having been interviewed and offered 3 separate positions, she got to pick the one that she felt she would be able to excel in most. And so, she found herself moving to the US with her wife in February 2000. After battling through the first few months after the big move (and having spent all her life savings in order to do so, and were not reimbursed until many months later), they had started to make a new life for themselves in Reston, Virginia.

Life seemed perfect... mostly... well, sort of...

Jessica (then still Jason) thought that life was just great. She was earning well, and got promoted to manager within months of starting to work in the US. And her married life was also taking shape nicely. They had brought up a few cats from infancy, and the new McKinnon “family” was appearing to many as being the model relationship that everyone hopes for and dreams about having.

Early in 2001, Jessica’s father was diagnosed with cancer in South Africa. They paid a brief visit to South Africa, and while there, Jessica, along with her sister, was able to be there for her dad’s first radiotherapy treatment. They couldn’t stay very long, so once she got back to the US, her contact with her family was limited to the telephone for the next while. By the end of that same year, after extensive treatment, her dad’s doctors had told him that if they were to continue treating him, that the treatment would almost certainly kill him faster, and more uncomfortably, than the cancer would itself. The doctors were aware that his children lived overseas, and also that he desperately wished to visit them, but his health was deteriorating rapidly, and they told him that if he was planning to travel, that he would need to be grounded by mid February at the very latest. So, in January, 2002, he visited Jessica in the USA and her sister in Spain (10 days with each). While her dad was in a lot of pain, Jessica’s fondest memories of her dad are of those precious 10 days. One of the nicest moments that they shared was when her dad got to see snow for the very first time. They became very close, and finally got to know each other as friends for the first time. It was heartbreaking that those 10 days would be the last time that Jessica would get to see her dad ever again. Her dad was a fighter, and he lived a whole year after that visit. They spent an hour almost every weekend talking on the phone, until the day that he died in Febrary 2003. The truly magical moment for Jessica happened at the very moment that her dad died in South Africa; there had been no prediction of snow for that day, but yet it began snowing at that very moment in Ashburn, Virginia, where Jessica had recently moved into her new house. After a brief 10 minutes of snow, the skies cleared and the sun shone through brilliantly. It was a beautiful moment that Jessica will always remember clearly. The only regret that Jessica has is that her dad never got to know or meet her as his little girl.

Meanwhile, over time, Charmaine had noticed little things about Jessica that were different from other guys that she knew, and they would often joke with friends about the role reversal in their relationship as Charmaine was the one that did all of the handywork around the house, and was also the master of the barbecue, while “Jason” would spend far too much time in the bathroom for a guy and “he” preferred to make the salads when they had guests over for a barbecue. And thus the fun title of “Charmaine’s kitchen bitch” came into existence. Of course, many of their friends were a little surprised that “Jason” would put up with being made the subject of that kind of joke as the “man” in the house, and could not understand why “he” wouldn’t be offended by the seemingly inappropriate role portrayal. To Jessica, though, it wasn’t demeaning at all - it was all fun, and just seemed normal. She was doing things that she enjoyed, and the joke was always made in good humor.

As time went on, with their relationship being as open and honest as it was, Jessica was able to think and talk more freely with Charmaine about those confusing, feminine feelings. Over time, though, Jessica got more and more frustrated with her state of being, and she started to fall into a lonely, downward spiral of depression, until one of Jessica’s most memorable days of her life...