The Second Half

 

Image from Nik
on UnSplash

Relax, this is not another sports post...As I approached the age of sixty, my gender feeling of something not being right grew ever stronger. 

I knew then, if I didn't immediately make a move to correct my issues, I never would. Even though I was in a fairly comfortable position to keep living as a man, there was still time to get out while I still could. It would mean the possibility of sacrificing the remaining family, friends and job security. I had to do it and I still needed to move forward into a life as a transgender woman.

Once I decided to begin hormone replacement therapy and my external appearance began to change fairly quickly to an androgynous looking person there could be no turning back. The whole process took me by surprise when it happened so fast. I adjusted to the progress and moved on. I found living fulltime was more of a challenge than I thought it would be. When I threw out all my male clothes and was responsible for dressing feminine every day, the whole process changed dramatically. I needed to be able to plan long term for my appearance and not just rely on short term bursts of wardrobe creativity to get me by. Like it or not, looking at myself in the mirror every morning when I got up became a gender dysphoric process. Some days I thought I looked feminine and others I looked terrible. The same old guy.

It turned out too I had several other main issues. One of which was I going to consider any major or minor surgeries. I decided no to all because I felt I could barely present well enough to get by and I didn't need any painful major gender surgery to allow me to feel any better as a transgender woman. Plus, at my age any major surgeries such as gender realignment surgery could be a health risk to recover from. My motto became "don't pay anyone to hurt me." So I stuck with my HRT and hoped for the best and for me it worked and I didn't have the money anyhow.

The second major issue I needed to face rather quickly was how was I going to explore my sexuality once I transitioned into a transgender woman. During my life as a man, being with another man never appealed to me so would it change now? Even though I dated and kissed several men following my gender transition, I found nothing had really changed.  Being with a man most certainly validated myself as a woman in public but it didn't lead to much else. I did interact with a couple men I thought I could be friends with too but it turned out my sexuality in the future would firmly remain with women.

I became entrenched with a very kind and giving small group of cis women who I was able to learn so much from about being a woman in todays' society. When I did, my sexuality never did have to change from what I had felt my entire life. 

Other issues were more mundane yet still very important. I wasn't independently wealthy so I needed to figure out how I was going to live and support myself. I was fortunate when I grew close to early Social Security retirement age. I took it and supplemented my income by selling vintage collectables my second wife and I had collected. I remember vividly my last day at a job I disliked as I walked across the parking lot into a new world. A world where I was free enough to re-create myself as a brand new person. 

I was pleasantly surprised when I learned that new person had been there all along just waiting for her chance to emerge. She was good people which made interacting with the outside world much easier. I found very few people are ever given a second chance at life so I needed to make the most of it. 

I did and found myself moving and marrying my current wife Liz following her finding me on line over eleven years ago now. I would have never dreamed the second half of my life would take me this far.