Staying in the Present

 

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Image from Ekka Wessman
on UnSplash. 

As I progressed in my cross-dressing life to a novice transgender woman, it proved to be difficult for me in several different areas.

Just one of those areas was the amount of time I needed to stay in the present for the first time in my life. My problem was compounded by the fact I had trained myself to daydream my life away as I wanted nothing more than to be a girl. Then, when I took my feminine image out of the mirror and put it into motion, I needed to constantly stay in the present to remind myself where I was and what I was doing. If I did not, I would be in danger of slipping back to my old ingrained male self. The problem was particularly intense when I was trying my best to mimic the magical way ciswomen moved.

Sadly, I found if I relaxed at all, no matter how attractive I thought I looked as a trans woman, all would be lost if I looked like a linebacker in drag as I walked. And to make matters worse, I needed to quickly learn to change the old stay away masculine scowl I had perfected and replace it with a more welcoming feminine look. As I shopped and interacted with ciswomen in public, they wanted to smile at me, so I needed to be pleasant and smile back. Especially if they suspected all was not as it seemed gender wise with me. I did not want to appear as any sort of a threat.

Staying in the present brought about other pleasant rewards also, such as when I communicated with other women, I needed to look them in the eye and listen to what they were saying, not jumping ahead and anticipating what I thought they were going to say. My communication game with women had really changed.

After a lifetime of hiding in the future, the present started to be a very pleasant place for me to be. I could take the time to feel the different clothes and talk to different people from a whole new viewpoint. I could take and give compliments from others regardless of their hidden motives. I found just the most innocent mention of my earrings from another woman was not about my choice of jewelry at all, she was gently starting a conversation to find out more about me. It all carried into the learning curve I experienced when I began to take lessons in passive aggressive aggression, from other women. I never had needed much knowledge of passive anything with the alpha macho men I hung out with. They were upfront with me for the most part. Ciswomen, on the other hand, could smile at you while they clawed your back for whatever reason they had. For a while, I thought I was going to have to carry band aids in my purse for any surprise attacks such as one night when a woman was coming back from the restroom and caught me talking to her man and took a dim view of the situation.

The more time I spent in the present, the better my life had become, and I got to the point where I missed out on all the time, I spent daydreaming of my life away. As I wondered how it would be if I could shed all my male existence and redo it as a transfeminine person which made me unapproachable to family and friends as well as making me totally miserable. Also, all the jealousy I felt towards ciswomen would have been swept away if I had had the chance to live and compete with them in their own world. To be sure, it was a different world but a life I discovered I enjoyed immensely as I found my new life to be all I thought it would be and more.

To arrive at the point I wanted to be, I first had to be confident in how I arrived at my own womanhood and if someone did not like me, it was their problem not mine. Then and only then could I fully live in the present and most importantly, try to forget most of my past. The future is still a problem for me as I wonder what will become of me if I have to encounter an assisted living situation where my gender issues are not addressed. The difference now is that I don’t spend the time dwelling on it as I used to. The present is just more important for me, which was a hard lesson to learn.

 

 

Gender Masks

 

Image from John Noonan
on UnSplash. 

In life, both genders learn early on what masks mean to their existence.

Think of it, at the earliest age, babies have only very limited ways to show their pleasure or anger by smiling or crying. Of course, as we advance through life all of it changes. I could be biased, but I think women in life have an advantage by using masks. 

While boys are squaring off on the playgrounds at school, girls are learning the basics of makeup, if their moms allow it. In many ways, makeup for women provides them with their ultimate masks. Anything from false eyelashes to skin foundations to wigs are permissible. It is not unheard of for a man to wake up to a totally different looking woman after a night out on the town. 

Makeup is not the only way women use masks effectively. I learned it the hard way several times when I was first out in the world as a transgender woman that a smiling face does not necessarily equal acceptance in the world. There were many times I relaxed too early in a situation with another smiling woman and ended up getting stabbed in the back. I fell for her friendly mask and paid the price. The whole process with women with me went back to feminine passive aggression versus the old direct aggression I was used to with men. Eventually, I came to consider the process as just another rite of passage into the world of women and I quickly became much better in being able to see what was going on behind another woman's mask. 

As my relationship with other women grew, the better I became at perfecting my own mask. I started at an early age attempting to perfect my art of makeup. It was all I could do to stop looking like a clown in drag. I stumbled along at my mask efforts before I made it into asking for and accepting professional makeup help. I happened into it during a cross dresser, transvestite mixer I was attending. Part of the mixer was given over to several professional makeup artists who offered free makeovers to anyone who wanted them. I gathered my courage, hitched up my big girl panties and stepped up for help. When the help I received was complete, I could not believe the change. The guy doing my mask had totally removed my old mask and designed a new one. The changes were so dramatic, I even received an invitation to go with the so called "A" list transgender women when they went out to bars after the mixer. To make matters even more dramatic, I was the only one approached by a man in a bar to stay for a drink. For many reasons, I did not stay and drink with him, (another story) but the point was made my mask could compete for a change with the "A" girls who the man ignored. 

The best part of finding my new mask was being able to keep it. The professional makeup guy managed to explain everything he was doing to my face and wig, so I understood it and could replicate it over and over. Once I had my mask, I was able to take advantage of it the same as any other woman would. In fact, more so, because I felt to succeed in the world as a transgender woman, I would need to be better than the average cisgender woman who had been born with a built-in mask advantage. 

Fortunately, I was able to step back and look at my new gender mask from a positive perspective and what it meant from view of a novice transgender woman. When I did, my life radically improved for the better and I understood how masks really worked in the world.