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| Image from Ludovica Dri on UnSplash. |
Severe escapism has been part of my life for many years.
It all goes back to the humble beginnings of me exploring my
mom’s clothes and makeup. The entire process helped me to escape from a male
life I never wanted. What never occurred to me had how quickly I escaped would
become reality as I kept going back to my cross-dressing beginnings to seek
guidance from the mirror.
Problems began when I began to listen to the mirror
completely. It was telling me I was an attractive woman but was I really and
ready to prove it to the world. When I switched out the mirror for the world, I
quickly learned I had a long way to go in my heels to do better in a feminine
world. What turned out to be a short trip really kept on going into a major
lifetime of escapism.
How did I know I was escaping? Primarily it started when I
began to feel so good as my novice transgender self. I thought, how could I
feel this good and natural if I was just escaping. It was at that point when I
seriously started exploring the possibility of living out my dream of
eventually living out my life as a transfeminine person.
Increasingly, I discovered my dream was a reality if only I
could sever my ties with my escapism I was suffering under. No more could I run
home to hide behind my skirts if I was so completely exploring the feminine
world. Whatever was going to happen just would. What happened was I did not
have to escape nearly as much because I was increasingly enjoying my journey into
transgender womanhood. Again, because I could not run and hide when someone
tried to interact with me. I even was able to conquer my fear of the “mean
girls club” as I not so fondly call the so-called gatekeepers of femininity. Perhaps
conquering is too strong a term. Put up with maybe a better one. The mean girls
may not have liked me but found I was going nowhere.
As I no longer had to resort to so much escapism, I began to
look for better ways to live my new life. I started to see new colors in the
world as the gender affirming hormones (HRT) in my life began to take control.
My senses heightened to a point where I could sense the world as well as the
cisgender women around me. I learned women were really cold all the time I
thought they were making it up, is a prime example.
It was increasingly a very rare occasion when I needed to revert
to my old male life to take advantage of a male privilege such as taking my car
in to be repaired. Even though I have needed to conquer that fear, I still have
nagging problems with doing anything auto related to this day. Outside of that,
I have overcome most of the problems I faced which sent me home hiding behind
my skirts. Even my mirror has become a noncombatant in my life. I see myself for
whom I really am. No better, no worse and I work from there with my makeup.
To be sure, running away from my gender issues did not improve
my life. I continued to switch jobs and locations as I tried to escape my true
self. It was not until I landed a dream job in my hometown did, I had to stay
put and quit running. For all intents and purposes my escape route was destroyed.
For a while, channeling all my gender issues into my work proved to be a wise
choice as I made it nearly to the top in my field. Hear I was, with a good marriage,
family and job, while all along something was still missing. That something was
I still had the nagging idea something was still missing from my gender
identity. I was still living a lie and found it increasingly difficult to run anymore
from the idea.
In many ways, tragically, escapism would work for me as I
became the last person standing in my small group of friends. They all died
including my wife of twenty-five years, so I needed to start all over again. As
they say, when one door closes, another one opens. Which is all well and good
if you can find the door. Destiny paved the way for me to make the final gender
transition of my life away from the male road I was on. For every tragedy which
I so poorly faced, I discovered a person to help me rebuild, and that person is
my wife, Liz.
With the magic words, she had never seen any male in me at
all, I threw all caution (and him) to the wind along with all my male clothes
and closed out the portion of my male life I had fought so long to do away
with. My only regret? I selfishly would like back all the time and energy I
wasted on fighting the inevitable, it was always time to allow my transgender
woman to live. She was tired of not being allowed to do anything. Escaping was
over.
