3 years ago i came out as nonbinary to my closest friends who i lived with at the time. being able to come home and have my existance respected, understood, and validated meant the world to me, even if i was slow and nervous to come out to others in my life. to my family, to my professors, and my colleuges, i still went by my old name and pronouns. its hard to say what i was so afraid of. i felt like my entire self-concept had been slowly shifting over the course of years but to the external eye, the change might have seemed sudden and overwhealming. it took another year and a half to come out to others in my life and officially start introducing myself soley as Star. but one person remained. i met Lexine in my freshman year of high school when i joined a community competitive robotics team. she and i connected pretty quick with both of us having a history of being homeschooled, being classically trained musicians, and loving electronic music. on the team we were a dynamic duo, sometimes working hours into the night 6 nights a week to get our presentations, designs, and content competition ready. all of this time spent together led to us getting pretty close so when i graduated high school i still went to competitions to see her and support her work. to this day, she is longest lasting friendship, every time she came back to atlanta from her undergrad in boston, she came to see me. during the last visit, she met some of my friends from undergrad who knew me as Star and referred to me with they/them pronouns. the prospect of introducing these friends scared me. i was worried about things changing between Lexine and i if she didn't take this change well. and i was scared of nothing changing at all if she chose to ignore the change altogether. i just didn't want to lose her friendship. that night i walked her back to the train as we said our goodbyes. "the next time i see you, i'll be visiting you from nyc," i said as we parted ways. later on she text me that she got home safe and then asked the dreaded question, "do you go by star now?" after my tentative affirmation, she sent the following text, communicating to me that she not only accepted and respected my identiy, but fully embraced it. i felt relief, i felt excitement, i felt belonging. i felt lik now, everyone in my world knew who i was.