Living in the Moment

 How many times have you heard the advice "Live life in the moment?" I know my Mom always said it. She probably meant it but forgot to add, do it only if it didn't reflect badly on the family or her. After all, how would her friends and fellow teachers react if they discovered her oldest son wanted to be a girl, I actually came out to her once after I was discharged from the Army after serving my three years. She offered psychiatric care which was a normal response back in those days (1970's).

Photo Courtesy
J,J. Hart 

Regardless, I think transgender people have added pressure to try to live it the moment. Our problem is tomorrow looks so inviting. Not unlike the grass is always greener on the other side of the gender border. 

Take hormone replacement therapy for example. Just a couple more months and my breasts will be bigger and my overall feminine appearance will improve and free me from the guy staring at me in the morning every day.

With so many gender trigger objects in the world, it is no wonder living in the moment is so difficult. In addition to our own gender issues we have chosen to take on the specific issues of the gender we are seeking to live as our authentic selves. A prime example is involving ourselves as transgender women in the beauty industry. We have directly chosen to join  the overwhelmingly obsessive drive to find the newest  beauty trend guaranteed to help us achieve impossible levels of beauty.

I know all of this is true for me at least as I use a moisturizer every night after cleansing my skin to ward off the inevitable wrinkles which I know will happen at my age of 72. Then, let us not forget the all important eyeshadow and special new mascara . Guaranteed to send my eye lashes to new sexy lengths. 

Tomorrow, it's always been tomorrow for me. You would think all my experience with death in my life, I would have learned to take my time to enjoy life in the moment. Now the inevitable is happening, I am running out of time. 

Living in the moment is becoming so rare. Then again just realizing it is a step in the right direction.

Attending the Summit

 Well, I am paid up, signed up and ready to attend the Aging Summit to be held next week. 

I was pleasantly surprised to see one of the transgender women of color I know is going to take on the duties of keynote speaker on day one of the three day event. I also signed up for two of the seminars I saw on issues senior LGBT individual face as they are forced into senior living situations. 

On day one, the session I am signed up for is called "LGBT Aging" and the session will address how aging as an LGBTQ older adult is different than aging as a heterosexual, cisgender older adult, and how we can reflect and honor these differences. 

On day two, the session is called "Resilience Planning for the LGBT Community. " It really zero's in on some of my paranoias. Such as the barriers older individuals experience to health, social support and community resources.

This is a virtual summit and there are several other seminars I still may attend. If you by chance are interested in attending, drop me an email to Jessiehart751@yahoo,com and I will send you a link. It costs fifty dollars.