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| Image from Ekka Wessman on UnSplash. |
As I progressed in my cross-dressing life to a novice transgender woman, it proved to be difficult for me in several different areas.
Just one of those areas was the amount of time I needed to
stay in the present for the first time in my life. My problem was compounded by
the fact I had trained myself to daydream my life away as I wanted nothing more
than to be a girl. Then, when I took my feminine image out of the mirror and
put it into motion, I needed to constantly stay in the present to remind myself
where I was and what I was doing. If I did not, I would be in danger of
slipping back to my old ingrained male self. The problem was particularly
intense when I was trying my best to mimic the magical way ciswomen moved.
Sadly, I found if I relaxed at all, no matter how attractive
I thought I looked as a trans woman, all would be lost if I looked like a
linebacker in drag as I walked. And to make matters worse, I needed to quickly
learn to change the old stay away masculine scowl I had perfected and replace
it with a more welcoming feminine look. As I shopped and interacted with
ciswomen in public, they wanted to smile at me, so I needed to be pleasant and
smile back. Especially if they suspected all was not as it seemed gender wise
with me. I did not want to appear as any sort of a threat.
Staying in the present brought about other pleasant rewards also,
such as when I communicated with other women, I needed to look them in the eye
and listen to what they were saying, not jumping ahead and anticipating what I
thought they were going to say. My communication game with women had really
changed.
After a lifetime of hiding in the future, the present
started to be a very pleasant place for me to be. I could take the time to feel
the different clothes and talk to different people from a whole new viewpoint. I
could take and give compliments from others regardless of their hidden motives.
I found just the most innocent mention of my earrings from another woman was
not about my choice of jewelry at all, she was gently starting a conversation
to find out more about me. It all carried into the learning curve I experienced
when I began to take lessons in passive aggressive aggression, from other
women. I never had needed much knowledge of passive anything with the alpha macho
men I hung out with. They were upfront with me for the most part. Ciswomen, on
the other hand, could smile at you while they clawed your back for whatever
reason they had. For a while, I thought I was going to have to carry band aids in
my purse for any surprise attacks such as one night when a woman was coming
back from the restroom and caught me talking to her man and took a dim view of
the situation.
The more time I spent in the present, the better my life had
become, and I got to the point where I missed out on all the time, I spent daydreaming
of my life away. As I wondered how it would be if I could shed all my male
existence and redo it as a transfeminine person which made me unapproachable to
family and friends as well as making me totally miserable. Also, all the
jealousy I felt towards ciswomen would have been swept away if I had had the
chance to live and compete with them in their own world. To be sure, it was a
different world but a life I discovered I enjoyed immensely as I found my new
life to be all I thought it would be and more.
To arrive at the point I wanted to be, I first had to be
confident in how I arrived at my own womanhood and if someone did not like me,
it was their problem not mine. Then and only then could I fully live in the
present and most importantly, try to forget most of my past. The future is still
a problem for me as I wonder what will become of me if I have to encounter an
assisted living situation where my gender issues are not addressed. The difference
now is that I don’t spend the time dwelling on it as I used to. The present is
just more important for me, which was a hard lesson to learn.
