"C" is for Charles?

Yesterday, I finally grabbed my partner Liz for a girls out shopping trip. We did really well at a store called "Gabes" which features overstocks of name brand fashion clothes. I ended up buying four different tops and one long summer dress. I am sure I will wear one or two of the tops next week at the Trans Ohio Symposium so I should have a couple pictures to pass along.

All went very well, including the changing room attendant directing Liz and I to the women's changing rooms. After we made our decisions, she said you Ladies have a good day. From there, we proceeded to the front registers to check out. As I was paying for my treasures, the clerk asked if I had a rewards card and I said no.  After deciding I needed one, she asked for my email address. It's still under my old name "Cyrsti" so I had to spell it for her. She said did it start with a "C" or a "K" so I said "C" as in Charles.  I wonder if I set off some sort of gender reaction in her, because, out of the clear blue sky, she called me "sir".

After getting upset, I decided not to say anything because I don't hear so well and she sort of said it in passing (or not passing). I just took my purchases and took off.

Then I started to think, the next time someone asks me to spell my email address, to say "C" as in cat. To make sure I'm not sending anyone any subliminal signals.

As I thought about it further, I decided to include things like "Charles" in my next "wall."

In addition, my next "wall" goal will be to try to make the smallest detail of my feminine presentation a priority. As I have written about before here in Cyrsti's Condo, I plan on trying to get involved in feminine voice therapy of some sort and getting some new makeup techniques.

The whole idea has rejuvenated me!

You and Your Mother?

Perhaps I should save this post for closer to Mother's Day, but I received another comment from Connie concerning a Cyrsti's Condo post (Whose on First) about her Mom, so I decided to use it. It came from a comment I made which included the phrase "per Norm":

FABULOUSCONNIEDEEApril 18, 2018 at 6:08 PM

"Just to be clear, I never do anything per Norm. I do, however, do things per Norma, as that was my mother's name. I am reminded often by family members how much I resemble her, both in looks and in personality. That used to bother me a bit, but now I just accept it as an affirmation of my destiny to live life as the woman I was born to be.

Come to think of it, being compared to my mother is a label that has been put on me. I guess some labels are just inescapable."

Like many other transgender women, I, like I am sure many of us have spent a considerable amount of time wondering about our relationship with our mothers. It's ironic how close we were to having a "mother-daughter" relationship and never knowing it.

My mother and I were much the same, including the resemblance factor. We both shared the same restless personalities and a complete need to try to dominate the other.

She (my mother) was the one who suggested electrode shock therapy for me, when I came out to her after I got out of the Army. And it was me who took her first name as my middle name, when I legally changed it. I did it partially as an honor and partially to know I got the last laugh with her about being transgender.

I honor her because she went through the hardships of WWII and the Great Depression, which I guess "battle" hardened her to face the challenges she was to face having child birth. I was the first to survive after several still births and miscarriages. In fact, I could be the result of a hormonal drug given to expectant mothers back then who were having problems with child birth. The word is now, the drug could have had something to do with gender dysphoria. 

If I had actually turned out to be her daughter from the beginning, I'm sure my life would have turned out about the same way,...because she had her way of doing things. It was her way or the highway.

Obviously,  I will never know but on occasion it is interesting to think about.

Life Through a Mirror?

Most of us start this journey as a transgender woman, trans man, or cross dresser the same way...with trips to the mirror.

For most of us as well, we begin to separate from the mirror and have a tendency to want to try our hand living out in a brave new world. One of the opposite gender. When we do, at least we think we are moving away from the mirror.

When you think about it, all of our lives revolve how we see the world, or how it sees us. Crossing the gender frontier becomes so difficult when we already have specific gender ideas ingrained within us and something is screaming, wait!, that's not right. As we begin to live in the proper gender, often, the first thing we do is to do our best to at least look the part of our chosen person.

From there, the mirror gets much more intricate. Not only should you do your best to present your gender properly, you have to learn how to read others. A keen observation of whom you are dealing with can take you a long way. Especially, if you think you may be finding yourself in an unpleasant situation.

I guess you can say, a trans life could become truly one of smoke and mirrors but then again it doesn't have to and I am sure you know a cis gender person or two about whom you could say the same thing. Or, your life could be entering an extraordinary phase. Even phases though must come and go...and the extraordinary becomes mundane, as Connie says:

" Finding the extraordinary to now be ordinary. Then, when you think about it, life can truly be extraordinary by that very shift. As we transition to womanhood, we move past living through experiences on to discovering that we are free to experience life."

So true. and when it happens, the freedom is wonderful.