My Story Part 37 – The Cottage

Since this is summer and I have been going up to the cottage a lot lately, I thought that I would write about it this week. My parents first bought it shortly after my father retired, they had been traveling around the world on tours and decided that they wanted a place where they could spend the summers. Therefore, in 1981, they went looking for a cottage in southern New Hampshire to buy. When I was little we use to spend a week on Lake Winnisquam in New Hampshire and before that at a cottage that my mother’s Aunt Mabel owned (I was too young to remember it now), so New Hampshire and lakes are in our blood.

They settled on a cottage about three hours from home in southern NH and they spent most of their summers there. Then they would rent a condo down in Florida for the winter months. I was living at their house at the time and I was able to be Diana most of the year, except for November and December, and April and May. When my brother and his family or I went up to the cottage, they came home. Most of the time I invited friends up to the cottage, but some times I went up by myself. It was during those times alone, that I crossdressed, and on one of the occasions I heard noise outside the dinning room window (Even though the dinner room window had curtains, they were kind of like crochet drapes and you could see through them.). I was laying on the couch reading dressed as Diana when I heard a noise. I went to one of the bedroom windows, and with the lights off, I looked out. I saw three kids running away from the window. One of them I recognized, he was the kid from across the street. I ran to my bedroom and changed back to my male clothes and I cried. The next day, I went home early and I cried all the way back home. The guilty that I carried with crossdressing brought me into a depression for a long time after that incident.

A year or two latter at a holiday family gathering, my cousin, who knew someone whose family had a cottage on the lake, mentioned that there was a crossdresser at one of the cottages on the lake… my depression came back. I did know if her comment was just a general comment or the comment was aimed at me. (Now, I know it was just a general comment and she didn’t know that it was me.)

After incident with the kids, I tried to talk my mother into getting new drapes from the window, but I could never tell her my real reason for my concern and to this day, the drapes are still there. The window is now on the second floor because we raised the cottage up to add a walk in basement.

I have not let that incident spoil my enjoyment of the cottage. I have had many good times that far out weigh that one incident. However, that trauma of that night lives on, the feeling of being violated is still very strong. My brother just recently had the kid (now a man) do some work around the cottage (I have never really explained to my brother my feeling about the kid, so he didn’t know how I felt when he asked the kid to do the work). I left before the kid came over with his backhoe because I couldn’t stand to be around when he was there