Back in my Mama's Underwear Drawer

Hows that for a title?

The reason I pulled it out of the archives here in "Cyrsti's Condo", is I sent away to the Ohio BMV for the ":Declaration of Gender Change Form."  Just having it "in the mail" was a huge move as I began to consider the ramifications of it all.

The path to transgender self discovery and self fulfillment indeed is a marathon -and a rocky one.  Once you are fairly comfortable "existing" in your chosen gender, then it's time to legally begin a sex change.  I'm fortunate in that (although he doesn't know it yet), I will be knocking on the door of my trans man friend for guidance.  By the way, he is less than a week away from his long awaited "top surgery" and I wish him the best.  In many ways, we started down out gender transition paths about the same time but he has changed all his gender markers already.

As it turns out, the latest family person I have come out to is actually my former sister in law.  Meaning, she is the sister of my deceased wife.  Occupying that lofty position (she believes) gives her more input into my MTF transition.  Like my daughter, they sort of recoil at my name.  In my true form though, I tell them, I really don't care what they think, plus I'm changing it again for my gender markers anyway. Freedom, right? Let me point out, both have been exceedingly supportive of me.

How does Mom's underwear drawer fit into all of this you may ask?

I believe if you live long enough, life becomes a series of interlocking circles which hook up to your basic birth to death circle.  If you are going to be born-at some point you are going to die.  We could compare it too, to a charm bracelet which the circle is simply around your wrist. I guess you could say my first "charm" was Mom's undie drawer.

Then, I thought back to the days when I "found" the drawer of Mom's undies and what was really going on in my noggin. Before you jump off the bridge and want to toss me into the fetish cross dresser niche, this phase for me was all too short and unfulfilling. Surely, I felt some of the "fetish" pull but deep down inside, but a predetermined switch was surely thrown. Unfortunately, I spent 50+ years of my life trying to turn it back off- to no avail.

For any number of reasons, my Mom chose to turn a blind eye to my excursions and of course never talked to me about it.  She probably hoped it was all a phase and would disappear-which it did, for her.  I began to save my paper route money, combined it with my allowance and found ways to build my own "stash" of clothes, make up, etc.

After I finished my phone call to the BMV, for the briefest second, I was that little boy fascinated with my Mom's undies. I realized this part of my circle had closed.  The mystery is gone and reality is here.  At that point I realized how far that I have come and how far I still have to go.