I am walking through a parking lot, toward the supermarket in my suburb. I pass numerous people, but one of them is different. He’s someone I know – someone I knew for 15 years. We’re heading toward each other, and I have this brief moment of surprise at seeing him – his is a face I hadn’t seen in the better part of a decade. We used to have sleepovers as a kid. We dated the same girl once. (Not at the same time, and, uh… it caused tension. To put it mildly.)

He walks toward me, and in a second he obviously realises I am looking at him. Not too directly, but I am clearly looking in his direction. He stares at my face. He eyes me, looking me up and down. For a moment, I think he’s recognises me, then I realise he’s just staring at my tits.

So I guess he hadn’t changed much.

In the past I’ve described some of my life now as being a bit like someone gave me the wrong memories. I remember being [deadname]. I remember how people reacted to him – strangers, friends. It’s totally different to how I am treated now. It’s a bit sci-fi, really. But I think I’ve found another way to describe this strange experience:

I feel like I am haunting my past life.

I remember it. I lived it. I know all those same people, but it’s like they don’t see me. Or if they do, they see someone totally different. Being perved at by someone I used to have sleepovers with isn’t a specifically trans experience, I know, but it’s not the first time this has happened.

It’s strange enough, seeing places and people once-familiar to me, that I increasingly fantasise about moving city. This place feels strange to me now. I avoid suburbs I used to frequent. I feel weird seeing places I used to know. I run into people, like this tit-staring pervy ex-friend, who make me feel like either I’m being haunted, or I’m haunting them.

I think of the underrated and touching show I used to love, Dead Like Me.

Georgia Lass is an 18 year old girl who dies, and is brought back as a reaper. She walks around the world, performing tasks, but people see her as someone else. So she sometimes runs into her family – and they do not recognise her.

It’s yet another instance of the feeling that, post-transition, conventional dramas or novels are less relatable to me now than fantasy or science-fiction. My life is often more surreal than real.