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| Image from Anderson Rian on UnSplash. |
It is not like I am new to being out in the world as my authentic feminine self, so I don’t know why I feel certain ways.
One of them happened this morning when I needed to take our
car to the shop to get the oil changed before we take a rather lengthy trip to
my old hometown later this week. As I have written before, I am still fearful of
going by myself to any male dominated businesses.
I think it goes all the way back to when I was a kid when I
used to go with my dad to an auto parts business a friend of his owned. There
were never any women, and I felt totally out of place. At the time, I felt it
was because I was young at the time and I would grow out of feeling self-conscious
there. But now I think, it could have been my inner female rebelling at the
ideas of being around all that intense masculinity.
Back to this morning, even though I did get an early start,
I wanted to be there when they opened at 7:30 AM to get my paranoia over with. I
was worried since we are headed into a holiday weekend, they would be busier
than they were. Which was a moot point, since I had to figure out what I was going
to wear, shave, put on my light makeup and head out the door. After doing all
of that, I was still out the door by eight and still was able to get right into
the oil change location.
Since I would not be getting out of the car for either of
the places I could go ultra casual and wear my jeans along with my “Libra” themed
burgundy tank top which I wear with my long hair pulled back so it softly falls
over my shoulders which is my revenge for having to cut my hair extremely short
when I was young and even later when I was in the Army. I am very fortunate in
that I have never had any male pattern baldness, so I have always had a great
head of hair.
It turns out all my paranoia was unfounded as none of the
male workers did anything out of their way to make fun of me and were
professional in every way. Before I knew it, I was on my way and breathing
normally again. On my way to my nest stop at my wife’s Liz and I’s favorite
coffee shop to pick up coffee and a light breakfast. Other than having coffee
and food we like, the coffee shop also has a LGBTQA+ flag proudly on one of
their walls. Again, the person who served me was very nice and put me at ease.
On the way home, during my short trip trying out the world
again as an independent transgender woman, I was wondering if changing my
estrogen HRT patches out today had anything to do with my moodiness about going
out in the world alone. Friday, when I make a much longer trip back to my old hometown,
Liz will be going with me as I must pick up more copies of my name change
documents from all the way back to 2015.
Sadly, I have more negative memories of my hometown than
good ones, but I need the legal copy with the judge’s signature on it for a
life insurance policy I forgot so long ago. I can procrastinate with the best
of them!
To make a small joke about my visit to have the oil changed
this morning is that all my fluid levels turned out to be OK. Maybe the true
win was to realize what the basic reason I still fear going into male dominated
spaces so badly. It is a deep-seated problem which goes back to my youth which
makes it very difficult to get rid of.
