Romanticizing Hell

 It is rare I don't sleep and I used to sleep with the television on as a crutch of sorts.  Recently though I have made a deal with Liz to try sleeping with the television off.  Regardless of all the warnings I received over the years of how harmful it could be to my psyche, I persisted until last week. After a terse discussion with Liz, I gave in to trying not to wake her up with a television being on. 

Overall, the process has proven to be a success. Even though I can't say I sleep any better, I can say when I am up in the middle of the night like last night, I have a tendency to think of blog posts to write. Of course the problem is remembering all the ideas flowing through my head. Last night, I was up for an extended length of time and came up with several good experiences I have had in my past as I crossed the gender frontier. As I thought about them though I knew I had written about most of them previously.

Then I thought about the flip side of all the pleasant experiences I had. 

With me at least, time doesn't heal all wounds but time does tend to emphasize the positive over the negative. For example, here is one I thought about last night. The whole excursion happened one night when I was making yet another trip to a local mall to go shopping. I truthfully don't remember much about what I was wearing except the outfit did involve a dress, heels and hose. 

By this time in my transgender transition, I had settled in to the idea store sales clerks didn't care much about my gender. They cared so much more about the color of my money. In fact, my daughter worked for Victoria's Secrets years ago and she told me the story of the extra money she made when her fellow clerks wouldn't wait on an obvious cross dresser. The extra commission she made came in handy.

Photo NOT of me

Photo by rylan krupp on Unsplash

By now, you are probably thinking what does any of that have to do about romanticizing hell. On the night in question, everything got off to a terrible start when I entered the mall. As I did, a woman and her two teenaged daughters were coming out. To make a long story short, I could hear them loudly laugh and say something about a man in a dress. Just about the worse thing which could happen and my confidence was shattered. 

Instead of just turning around and leaving the mall, I decided to keep going and hope the experience would get better. Well, it didn't. As I tried to do my shopping in the usual stores I frequented, I picked up an unwanted escort service from a bored mall security cop. 

By this time I finally had enough and I calmly (as much as I could) walked my way out of the mall and back to my car. Fighting back tears all the way. 

When I arrived back at home and was  taking my makeup and clothes off before my wife arrived, I wondered why I did this cross dressing activity at all. Still in tears, with mascara running down my face I chose the more difficult path. I chose to dedicate myself to perfecting my outward appearance and to be a better judge of my own look. In other words, quit believing everything the mirror told me. 

As I began to dress to blend with the other women around me, my femininized life began to improve and I wouldn't have to romanticize hell much anymore.