A House of Cards

Image from Angshu Parkait
on UnSplash ...

For most human beings living a life with no severe downs is very rare. Most live a life with some sort of ups and downs.

In many ways, I was fortunate enough to live long enough to have seen many severe ups and downs during my life. I went through possibly a thirty year period when I could say I was leading a good positive life. Even when it came to my gender issues, I was living on the transgender edge but still managed to walk the tightrope and keep my all important marriage afloat. Looking back on the process, all I was doing was building a house of gender cards. 

My cards I was playing included all the times I went behind my wife's back to explore living as a woman. I was living large each time I presented well and was able to get by when I went out. I became the person in the family who did a portion of the grocery shopping, all the way to becoming a veteran shopper in certain venues. Through it all, no matter how excited or secure I felt about being a successful serious  cross dresser or transvestite, I was just playing more cards I didn't really have. At times, I even gambled and played them very recklessly.

I did crazy things such as flashing semi trucks on the interstate when I adjusted my mini skirt up my leg to it's limit just so I could validate myself as a woman. It took me quite an amount of time before I could outgrow this portion of my life and become a more or less secure novice transgender woman. In the meantime, my house of cards grew and became less stable.  Little did I know, I was headed like a runaway train down a track which would end in failure.

What began to set off my failure was the arrival of death in my life. Since my parents had passed on before as well as several other close family members, I thought I had some sort of handle on how to deal with the finality of death and dying. I had no idea of what I was going to face when my house of cards came crashing down. The crash began when I had several close friends pass away. Adding to the impact was the fact I didn't have many to begin with. Plus, it was during this time, my second wife passed away quite suddenly leaving me no time for grieving and/or closure. As my world tumbled, I was a hot mess and wondered what else I had to lose. 

It turned out, I didn't have to wait long to find out. In the middle of a crippling economic recession in the old Ohio rust belt town I lived in, I lost my restaurant I owned and fell behind on my house payments. Perhaps the worst part of it all was the fact I somehow deserved all my problems. Out of all the friends and loved ones I had, why was I the only one left standing.  Why?

Once I met my wife Liz over twelve years ago, she began to help me rebuild another, much more secure, house of cards. Hopefully one which is built to take on the ups and downs of life. At the least, with my gender journey mostly behind me, I won't have that portion of my life to worry about. I can now commit more deeply to enjoying my life as well as the life of loved ones around me so my current house of cards can continue to be stable. Until the end.  

Grieving

 Grief is a part of our lives. As transgender women and men most of us at some point grieve the loss of our previous gender. Others, not so much. 

As I have written, my deceased wife of twenty five years was keenly into celebrating Christmas. In fact, she would have rooms dedicated to the holiday spirit. Including animated figures all the way to collector Christmas villages. We had fourteen foot ceilings and a twelve foot gigantic tree. 

All of this led up to the main holiday itself. For it, we had three main gift giving activities. Later in life as she started to grudgingly support my cross dressing, we had our own little special gift swap. Specifically for my feminine self. Of course it quickly became my favorite of all the gifting going on. 

As I fast forward this post to Christmas eve this year, it was a very sad time for me. Being me, I tried to hold my feelings in as I watched (yet again) one of my favorite Christmas movies "It's a Wonderful Life." Along the way I have learned to curtail many of my feelings around Liz concerning my previous  wife Cindy. In most cases this works fairly well. In this case it didn't.  

I was feeling so bad I couldn't hide it and Liz kept asking why.  Unfortunately I have carried the male tendency with me to never show emotion. Of course hormone replacement therapy has helped me to cry and feel emotions, in some cases I am still a rock. 

Finally yesterday morning I figured out the reason I was feeling so emotionally poor was I had never allowed myself to properly grieve when Cindy so unexpectedly passed away. This all happened way back in November of 2007 so it's not like it was yesterday. I was so mad at her for not seeking the medical care for her heart problems she obviously needed. I begged and begged to no avail and then she was gone. 

The good news is I finally allowed myself to grieve her loss on Christmas Eve. Ironically, this tragic loss in my life allowed  my authentic self to flourish. During the final six months of her life I even grew a beard to attempt at hiding my femininity. I was proud I did it on one level but intensely unhappy on another.    

The photo I am sharing today is taken of me pre beard and weighing nearly 275 pounds. Today I weigh approximately 220. 

As I approach 2022, I feel better about my life following ridding myself of part of the grief I felt over the years. I doubt if I will ever be totally free of the feelings but I am trying to replace the bad with good remembrances of the twenty five years we had together which in turn will make me an easier person to live with.