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It took me over a half a century to open all the possible doors I could before I decided to begin gender affirming hormones and transition into a full-time feminine life.
For any number of reasons. I over-reacted and resorted to excessive experimentation before I quit knocking on so many doors. Such as, behind door number one was a wife who did not approve. Other doors had the usual questions such as what would I do with my friends. extended family and employment.
Before I could make it to the other main doors, I needed to prove to myself beyond any shadow of a doubt, I belonged in the world as a transgender woman. What took me so long was I needed to live my male life at the same time as my new femininized life. Switching back and forth between the male and female genders took a toll on me but I kept slowly finding new doors to knock on and walk through. What I did was single out a door to go through and then judge the reaction. If I was successful, I would look for another door and if I was not, I would go back to the drawing board and attempt to figure out what went wrong. Often I found out the hard way that even though I was accepted in many venues, in others I was not. Mainly when I pushed the envelope too far and journeyed into the wrong redneck venue just to see if I could.
Other doors I attempted to open and was successful is when I went to very small diverse mixers at an acquaintance's house in Columbus, Ohio. During the parties, I was able to meet all levels of the transgender community and see how I measured up. Especially with one of the transsexual women who I admired so much. Even though I did admire her, I learned her life was not applicable to mine and I had to keep looking for my own door. Since her path would not work for me. She was a soon to be retired Columbus fire person and was looking forward to a good pension to support her as a single woman. Plus she had good insurance, and I had none of them, I wondered how I was ever able to make it to my dream.
On occasion, I grew frustrated with the number of doors I needed to go through. It seemed just when I thought I was successful, I was met with a dead end and needed to turn back. I did purge a few times and tried to put my male self in total control but deep down inside I knew the purge was only temporary and my girl self would re-emerge. She always did, stronger than ever searching for the mysterious, magical next door to go through. Sometimes it seemed as if I was stuck in a huge gender maze trapped and looking for a way out.
Finally, I knew it was time to put my maze, doors and gender past behind me and do the right thing. I found the way out I was always looking for and she was with me all along. All I needed to do was admit the truth. All those years of looking behind all those doors made me aware of one main thing, don't wish for what you want because you just may get it.
I wished for a full time transgender existence and kept opening doors until I got it.
