Transgender Whirlwind

 

Early Archive 
Image. Jessie Hart

Looking back, there were certain decades of my life which seemed to shoot by faster than others.

When we hit the new century, my life seemed destined to speed up without me even knowing it. First, my Mom passed away, leaving my elderly Dad by himself and before he was diagnosed with dementia. Fortunately, my suddenly smaller family bonded together to take care of Dad. My brother and sister in law took care of all his meds and my wife and I fed him. The situation worked well until the very sad day when he needed to go into assisted living. If you are not familiar with Dementia, it is a very sad and ugly disease which towards the end robs the patient with all of their integrity, making them a child again or worse.

Then I used my inheritance to buy a restaurant which after a good start hit the skids when the town I was in was deeply affected by a severe economic downturn. My whole move was similar to pushing all my chips to the center of the table in a poker game and hoping I would win. Which I didn't. Regardless of all of that, life was dealing me death cards right and left. To begin with, I lost nearly all of my few close friends to cancer then in 2007 I lost my wife of twenty five years to a massive unexpected heart attack. I was in shock and ended up taking the only sure route I could to saving myself, falling back on my feminine self. In her, I took solace and knew I could make it through my dark times. 

The problem I had was, I needed to catch up with my fashion, makeup and everything else it would take me to present in the world as a transgender woman. The best part was I was all by myself and could basically do whatever I needed to achieve my goal. Which was seeing if I could indeed jump the binary gender frontier and see if the grass was greener for me. The more I explored the world, the more I discovered I could indeed carve out a new life, if I wanted to bad enough. 

During this time, which would have been around the year 2010, my life was moving towards being a whirlwind of transgender experiences. I equated it to sliding down a wet hill towards a steep cliff which I had no idea of steep and long it was. What I did not realize at the time, I was losing all of my male privileges and starting to panic. Still I persisted until I learned what female privilege meant to me. Finally I learned being a trans woman meant so much more to me than having doors opened by men. It meant freedom of expression for me. My inner female finally had her chance to live and was taking full advantage of her opportunities. Even still, it seemed every day, I was facing the differences in life I had only dreamed of. All the way to going to male dominated spaces and seeking service which was something I had to do to live the existence I wanted.

Even though life finally did begin to slow down and I became more and more comfortable with my life as a transgender woman, there were still surprises. Since I had survived the gender transition whirlwind, the surprises were easier to overcome. Plus, seeing as how I had survived all the dark years of death I went through in my life, I became more appreciative of the life I was still living. Especially since I was able to transition at the same time.

Having Fun????

 

Image from Jarritos Mexican Soda 
on UnSplash

Depending upon which label you use, transgender or cross dresser, when you reached the heights of dressing yourself as a woman, did you ever feel as if you were having fun?

I guess before you can answer the question, you have to define what fun is to you. To start I went to a popular well known source for an answer and it said whatever provides amusement or enjoyment. At that point I began to think at what point did I achieve either amusement or enjoyment. Although I couldn't remember many times I was amused with my life as a serious cross dresser or novice transgender woman, there were plenty of times I enjoyed myself. Even though many moments of gender euphoria were rare. However rare, there were enough moments to encourage me to move forward in the world I wanted to create for myself. 

There were many times my old male self filled in the blank spots in my life as he always did. To him, he rarely enjoyed anything and was amused by less than that. I can blame my parents on how I was raised to feel nothing was ever good enough, I could always do better. There was never time allowed for fun or enjoyment when I was moving on to the next thing.  My male life carried over to my earliest cross dressing days when I always thought my next outfit or wig would allow me to present better the next time I went out into the public's eye as a feminine person. Even on the rare times I was successful in my transgender quest, I never allowed myself a moment of fun. 

During that period of my life, like most people, I thought I would never be old and wrinkled and my idea of having fun would change. Even though, unexpectedly, the introduction of estrogen based hormones into my system plus the blessing of good genetics, allowed me to continue the partying lifestyle much longer after I should, sooner more than later I needed to calm down. In order to save my body the best I could, I needed to cut back nearly entirely my alcohol consumption. On the other hand, as I reached my mid seventies in age, I needed to find activities to motivate my mind and body as I approached the end of my life. 

What I decided to do was continue to write the Cyrsti's Condo blog on two on line platforms now and on the other hand try to push my body to do more walking. Since my Dad began to give up on himself and retire to his easy chair later in life until dementia ultimately led to a very ugly death, I figured even though I couldn't enjoy the same aspects of life I didn't take the time to savor when I was younger, I try to set myself up for the future and enjoy what I have. Such as the rare accepting cohesive family I am so fortunate to have. I cherish the relationship I have had over the years with my wife Liz as well as my daughter Andrea. 

Even if I am not having fun as such, being able to lead a life as a fulltime transgender woman is special to me. I try to always remind myself how truly special it is to lead the life I do. 

It is always special to me that all of you take the time to stop and read my blog. It means so much to me and thank you.