Love Hate Relationship

 In a bit of extension on yesterdays' post, today I have decided to write about my life long love-hate relationship with mirrors. In my family home growing up we had a fairly long hallway which happened to have a full length mirror at one end. When I began to cross dress at a very early age, I used to walk slowly up and down the hallway admiring myself in the mirror. I did it so much I an surprised I didn't wear a path in the carpet. Probably the only thing which saved me was not having all the time I wanted by myself to work on my feminine presentation. I cherished the all so brief periods of time I could actually be by myself. If the mirror could talk I could only imagine the stories it could tell. 

Mirror Selfie from the
Jessie Hart Collection

As I progressed through life, the urge to have a friendly mirror grew with me. In fact when I was apartment shopping with my first wife, the location and access to a full length mirror was always a deciding factor. Even though I never said anything about it to my wife. The truth of the matter was I was addicted in a way to my beloved mirrors. One of the reasons was the mirror only told me exactly what I wanted to hear. None of it became evident to me until I began to seriously push open my gender closet door and see if I could exist as my feminine self in public. The more I tried to adjust my appearance, the more the mirror would tell me I was already doing a wonderful job. What I didn't understand was I did become fairly proficient in changing my male self to a feminine person but all of that wasn't nearly good enough. In order to survive in the world as a woman, many times I had to do better than just blend into the background. Plus a part of me was telling me loud and clear how much fun would it be anyhow to just blend in with a group of women increasingly falling away from the art of dressing up.

Finally, after my well documented failures as a novice transgender woman or cross dresser, I began to be successful in finding a sweet spot in my search for a dependable presentation. I discovered I could fall back to a fairly intense business woman look or on other occasions fall back into a much more casual jeans, boots and sweaters look. Normally, if I followed my developing feminine instincts and stayed within one of the two looks I mentioned, I found I could magically navigate society as a woman. Ironically at this point, mirrors would begin to help me. I found when I was out in public, the occasional glance in the mirror would calm my gender dysphoria and give me the courage to push forward into the brave new feminine world I was exploring. 

It is important to note also, I had to learn the hard way to establish a truce with my mirrors. I came to the decision I didn't look as good as I thought I did. But on the other hand, I didn't look as bad as I thought either. At this point, all mirrors became a tool I could use to improve myself. In other words, my mirror became more of a reality check and my life really began to improve. Even though I still have the occasional morning battles with my mirror setting off my gender dysphoria, increasingly I am able to cope by thinking I am not as bad as I think. It's just the mirror playing it's tired mind games with me. No more love-hate relationship.

Gender Euphoria

Image Courtesy Matt Moloney
on UnSplash 

Every so often I grow weary of waking up in the morning and having to look at the same face staring me back in the mirror. Regardless of the softer angles and skin of my face which happened because of my hormone replacement therapy, I still see the same old me before I can apply moisturizer and a little eye make up to help. After a small period of time feeling sorry for myself , I tell myself life didn't have to be fair and move on with what I have to work with physically. Most days gender dysphoria is sadly here to stay. On occasion I do venture out into the public and test my chosen gender myself. It's a  chance to experience a touch of wonderful gender euphoria. 

Sometimes I feel I am cheating the process because I am fortunate to have Liz by my side for the overwhelming number of times I interact with the public at large. I always feel she shields me from any potential haters I may encounter due to my transgender status. In addition, she is always the first to use my chosen pronouns of she and her in public. This morning was one of the rare times I needed to go out without Liz.

After going through the lengthy process of cleaning the remnants of ice and snow off the car, I headed out on the short trip to my Veterans Administration clinic to be administered my latest Covid booster. In the past, I have not been treated very well at this particular clinic and have been mis-gendered several times. Normally just thinking of returning  there sets off my gender dysphoria.      

Happily this morning was different. Before I was called back for my shot, the nurse peeked out the door to make sure I was there. Once she did take a look at me, she very shortly came back out and called "Miss Hart". What a relief! So many times in the past I was called everything but my preferred pronouns. Including the all time worst, Mr. Hart. I have got to give her or the VA credit. Recently I have taken part in several VA surveys wanting to know problems and or solutions with the VA transgender care system. Since that time, in this clinic at least, I have seen a real improvement. Leading to a real dosage of gender euphoria when I was called "Miss" Hart. 

From then on, I felt better as I finished running some other errands and even stopped at a fast food place to pick up breakfast. When I did it, I flashed back to my early days of exploring a feminine existence. I went through drive throughs to see if I would be mis-gendered  or not. Most of the time I just left them confused. 

This morning I didn't care. I knew who I was and that was all that mattered. Everyone needs a little euphoria in their lives. Especially transgender women or trans men. 

Getting Your Groove Back

During my early adventures out of the closet and into the world, I am fond of saying there were more errors than trials. In other words, I made many mistakes trying my best to figure out what I was doing and just fit in. More times than I care to remember I came home with my eye makeup ruined from excess crying and tears. Too many people were just cruel.

Jessie Hart
From my Boho Days

Amazingly, once I had a good cry, I was determined to do better. To learn from my mistakes as a feminine person and try again. My inner woman turned out to be my biggest fan. She pushed me forward and I finally began to learn from my mistakes. It took awhile but I figured out I needed to be more worried about how I looked for other women, who seemed to notice every detail about my appearance. In the past I spent more time thinking about my appearance as it related to how I thought a woman should look...as a man. The entire thought pattern led me down a path of trashy, attention getting outfits. The exact opposite of what I needed to be doing to make it in the world as a woman. It seemed I was destined to repeat what many beginning transgender women or cross dressers do. Dress trashy thinking your testosterone poisoned body would look good in a too tight and short mini skirt, in heels at the mall. I wonder now why the mirror kept lying to me and didn't stop me from going out dressed like that. It turned out, the mirror part of this post is strong enough I should write a separate blog post about it. 

At any rate, I was fortunately having enough success in my closet busting explorations to keep trying. After several mis-adventures with the wrong wigs, I finally settled in on a shoulder length blond style which seemed to work well with my Boho fashion inspired jeans skirt and flowing light weight top. Using the outfit as a base, my presentation success rate sky rocketed. Not only did I have to worry less about how I was presenting, I was suddenly thrust into a totally new situation. By getting my public groove back I found other people who were curious about me and even wanted to know me. All of that was so exciting but the problem was I needed to find the inner woman who wanted out for so long and let her express herself. I just sort of let her go and found out she was a pretty nice person who had been hidden all those years behind a false male personality struggling to survive. Once free, she thrived. 

My groove was back but the problem still remained what to do to clean up and close what was left of a male life which was growing more and more distant. It was about this time when destiny or fate stepped in for my groove. Tragically my wife and many of my closest friends passed away and I had lost nearly everything which was dear to me during the bleakest moment of my life. It turned out my shining star who stood by me was my feminine self. Surprisingly she was stronger than I ever thought possible. She was there all those nights when I was recovering and trying to figure out what to do next with my life. 

I am sure many of you have faced similar dark moments in your life too. Times when you have discovered how strong and resilient your feminine self was. Hopefully she was worth the wait.