.jpg) |
| Image from Hoite Prins on UnSplash. |
Sometimes, change comes slow in the life of a transgender woman or transgender man. I can speak from experience since my change came roughly over a fifty-year span.
During the old if I had known then what I know now experience,
if I had known my male to female femininization project would have taken that
long, would I have tried it at all. Then again, I would have had too because
becoming a woman with my own standards was always the main dream I always had.
I never knew how I was going to make it, or if I even could but I was
determined to try.
And try, I did. Repeatedly until I came closer to getting it
right. I spent countless hours in front of the mirror as a youth trying to get
my makeup and clothes just right and dreaming of the day when I could afford a
nice wig. I had had enough of my short male haircuts, and as far as change of
hair styles went, I would be forced to wait until after I got out of the Army
before I could begin to grow my hair out to where I wanted it. In the meantime,
I was able to buy a beautiful long blond wig to help my change along.
About that time, I realized I could help my way along with a
major change by going on a crash diet. By doing so, I was able to lose enough
weight so I could finally fit into the more fashionable women’s clothes I was
finding at all the thrift stores I was shopping at. Even the weight loss, along
with my new skin care program, did not help me enough in the change department.
I wanted more in my desire to be the most attractive woman I could possibly be
and worked constantly at it. Much to the chagrin of my second wife who wore
nearly no makeup at all. We clashed about it all the time, but I stayed on my path
to always do better.
Sadly, before my second wife’s death, my formative years of
change as a novice transgender woman set in. I wonder now, how I made any
strides with all the restrictions which were put on me. I did know one thing
that I could not see any real changes in my feminine life until I could make it
out of my restrictive lifetime closet and be allowed to explore the world.
Something my wife was dead set against, adding an extra barrier on my gender
path. In place of being able to explore more in the world, I daydreamed my life
away. Thinking what it would be like to live the experiences I had as a cisman
as a woman. I would like to get back just a portion of the time I wasted
daydreaming and have often wondered what I could made of my male self if I had
been constantly focused on him. Of course, I could not get the time back and
had to make the best out of what I had been given.
When I was able to finally break out of my closet and begin
to explore the world as a transgender woman, change began to come quicker for
me. I got to the point where I could not wait for the next time I had the
chance to go out so I could have the opportunity to learn more about the life I
should have always been able to live. In an extraordinarily short period of
time, I was able to establish myself and begin to carve out a new and separate
life away from my old male one. For once, I did not have to wonder what the
life of a ciswoman was like as I was experiencing it for myself. The time was especially
valuable to me when I began to lose most all my friends to death and I was
desperately lonely. I needed a new place to turn and all the changes I had
worked so hard on over the years really came back to help me.
Perhaps the biggest change which helped was that I came back
as a wiser/nicer self than I ever was before. All the years of watching and
learning from the ciswomen around me did come back to help me after all because
I learned that all women did not fit the kind and giving stereotype of the
feminine world everywhere. I gained some basic knowledge of which women to look
out for in the world and how to change around their often-passive aggressive spirit.
Lessons I learned the hard way on many occasions when I learned a smiling face
did not mean a smiling spirit.
If I had not let a lifetime of change help me, then shame on
me. So, I needed to make the best of a life which on occasion seemed to be
totally out of reach. It was not until I realized it was that I resolved myself
to do the little things to make me a better transfeminine person. That is where
the little circle of women friends who I built up around me came in to help me.
All the girls’ nights out and lesbian mixers helped me to round off the remaining
rough male edges that I had and send my life in the right direction where I did
not need a man’s support to validate me as a person. Another woman’s validation
was just as valuable to me without all the resultant drama and sexuality
questions I would have had to have gone through.
I suppose all the changes I went through in the military
when I was stationed on three continents in three years got me used to change
and in fact, I often craved it. It worked to my advantage later in life when I
had all the gender changes I could handle. Even though my immensely influential
male self as well as me trying to appease my second wife went, they never won
and I changed anyhow. A drastic change from societies’ standards as I was able
to cross the gender border and femininize myself from male to female.
I certainly was fortunate to be able to do it all and see
the world the way I could behind the feminine gender curtain. Even though I
ignored the obvious about myself and it took so long to do it.
Thanks so very much for joining me on my gender journey!
Any comments or thoughts are always
welcome.
.jpg)
