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| Image from Heidi Fin on UnSplash. |
I define my own personal “North Star” as the basic direction I had to go to be truthful to myself. Many times, I found how valuable my star was when I was lost in my own transgender woods and couldn’t see the forest for the trees.
Along my path, there were many times I lost sight of my
North Star and needed to regain it before I could continue. As I did, I spent
many a very dark night searching for my life’s truth of wanting to shed my male
existence for a feminine one. I would not recommend what I went through to anyone
because it was a long, lonely journey. Even still, I was fortunate in that I
seemed to always have just the right amount of gender euphoria to propel me
forward. It did not matter if I was just gazing at my image in the mirror and
thinking I was a pretty girl, or shopping for groceries in our local market,
something possibly positive came along for me to see my star and wondered if it
was still within reach.
Sometimes, life was cruel and dealt me roadblocks which kept
me from following my dreams such as the unplanned birth of my daughter. Which
turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me in my life. At the
time of her birth in 1976 I was very much out of control and needed something
to ground me. Much more than the excessive amount of alcohol I was drinking at
the time. All the beer did was help me to lose sight of my North Star until I
could regroup and find it. I did not learn until much later how alcohol was a depressant
and did not mix well with my already depressed personality. Even though I was
dazzled by the miracle of birth and the rapid growth into a little person by my
daughter, life was still not good as I was sliding by in a haze most of the
time and losing track once again of my North Star.
Somehow, I was able to emerge from this part of my life on
my feet and ready to search for my truth again. But not enough to accept what I
was finding. Even though that bright light of a transfeminine existence seemed
close enough for me to reach out and grab it, I just kept denying its existence
and taking the route of least resistance and was existing the best I could as a
part-time cross-dresser.
When I changed professions and entered the professional
restaurant business, I developed a love/hate relationship with what I was
doing. I loved the extra money and advancement it brought me but hated the
hours and extra pressure the job brought with it. I guess the good part also was
that the new profession cleared the way for me to reset my existence and locate
my North Star again.
Once I located my star, I had to finally face the reality of
where it was leading me. Gone were the evenings or days of going out into the
world thinking I was nothing more than an innocent man trying to look like a
cisgender woman. In, was a new reality that I wanted much more than to look
like a woman. I was a woman and needed to see if I could live my truth, I knew
all along but refused to face. Even though I was terrified of doing it, I was advancing
down my gender path, and the skies were clear so I could see my star and have
an idea of where I wanted to go. Better yet, once I was passing my gender
mileposts of very much socializing with cisgender women as an equal in my mind,
there was no going back.
As I did it, I made certain I was trying to cover all my basics
such as what I would do to live in a new transgender world I dreamed of and in reality,
had never seen. Such as how I would support myself because I knew my current male
job would never support a mid-gender stream male to female transition. At that
time, I was still several years away from an early Social Security retirement,
so I needed to be careful of what I decided to do. What I decided on was a low
impact non pressure job I could work just to get by for the time I needed until
I retired. I found that was impossible and I had to backtrack into fast food
again and work a job I hated until I could quit and pursue my star.
By this time, I had paid a lot of dues playing in the girls’
sandbox and I had a very good idea of what I was facing if I went full time
into a transgender world. I don’t think it is possible to ever capture your
North Star, but I do think you can come close to living it. There are many
paths to get there, and no one is right. Some transition on their own while
others have help like I did. I was always a social critter, and my process
happened to work for me but yours could be different. Plus, destiny can often
alter your path to following your personal star. Do not panic until you find it
again and revive your journey.
Remember, you are in uncharted gender territory, often without a compass. When it happens to you, you need to just hitch up your big girl panties and do it.
