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.

 

 

Building Gender Bridges

 

Image from Alexander Rotker 
on UnSplash.

I have always been one to build too many bridges to jump off of in my life. 

In fact, if I don't have anything to worry about, I will create something. Looking back, I was especially bad at building huge, tall bridges when I was at the height of my trip to transgender womanhood. I felt I was partially justified in doing so because of all the problems I experienced when I was coming out of my gender closet. 

Before I began my trip, I was a fairly freewheeling person. If something happened for me to take care of, I would and at the same time, not spend much time worrying about my future. Even though I still faced major problems in my life, I could still conquer them, or escape back behind my skirts, heels and hose to hide. As I progressed in my life, I found my time was running out as a parttime cross dresser. Either I needed to do more or purge myself altogether of a pastime which had kept me from jumping off so many bridges I had built. 

Another problem I discovered was when I began to be more skilled at building my gender bridges was becoming, I was increasingly under more pressure to be successful. The more success I felt as a transgender woman, the easier my life became except for the very serious bridges I faced such as communication with the world. 

The best time I have for building my bridges is late at night when I am trying to sleep. These days, I have plenty of things to worry about. In fact, next week, my wife Liz and I will be heading north to my daughters, mother in laws lunch. During that time, I hope to find out what has happened to my transgender grandchild job offer as a civilian nuclear engineer with the Navy in Maine. Hopefully they have been able to stay under the radar so far and has maintained the job which they wanted to start this fall. (They is their preferred pronoun.)

Going to see the family is always very affirming as I have been accepted for years as my authentic feminine self. Early on it was very difficult for me to adjust to because nearly everyone in the room had known me for years as my old male self. Others including my first wife, who is the mother of my only child usually always attends, and she has a difficult time sometimes not referring to me with the proper pronouns when recounting a few of the long-ago days when I was trying to live as a macho man. Plus, we also met each other while we both served in the Army in Germany. With all the extra baggage I carry when it comes to her, I think she has done a good job of building a new bridge to me over the years.

Now, at my advanced age of seventy-five, I find myself looking ahead at the biggest bridge of all. When it is time to enter a new reality when I pass on. I have decided to do the best I can with all the aches and pains I have and keep a positive attitude. Of course, there are other major bridges to think about also when and if I need to enter assisted living, which I am not looking forward to. Liz and I were supposed to attend a special seminar put on by an attorney specializing in "elder law", but Liz got sick, and we did not go. So sometime in my future, I need to insist we find an attorney to give us a consultation. 

In life, it seems, there are always bridges to build. It is just a special problem unique to gender conflicted transgender women and trans men. Overtime, we can become very good builders and even better at hiding our results. Fortunately, there are more and more trained therapists to help us these days. Ironically, some of us have to go through several therapists until we can find the proper fit. So, we can find someone who can build a solid bridge, rather than tear it all down. Which, if you are like me, you tried to do many times during various purges.