Dating Myself

 This post goes back to my intensely lonely days following the loss of my second wife and several dear friends. Throughout my life I had plenty of acquaintances but very few people I could call friends. Perhaps it was because deep down inside I did not want very many people close to me in case someday I would follow my dream and come out as a transgender woman. I just didn't feel many of my friends would remain with me, or would I want them to as I went through such an extreme lifestyle change such as changing a gender. Personally, I knew of all the stress and tension caused by crossing the gender frontier myself and couldn't imagine anyone else understanding. As it turned out, this wasn't the first time in my life I decided to go it alone (so to speak) when I was attempting a major life change. The same thing happened when I had to go away and serve my military duty. When the time came to go away to basic, I had done away with any possible serious girlfriends and barely communicated with anyone at all. The only mail I received came from my Mom. 

Early Acquaintance on Right
from the Jessie Hart Collection 

So, all in all, I had experience dealing with extreme loneliness but I didn't really want to face it again. What happened was I ended up falling back on my inner feminine self for comfort. It turned out in times of extreme duress, she was the strong one who comforted me and kept me going. It was no different as I entered yet another lonely period of my life. This one totally unexpected when my wife passed away with no warning suddenly at the age of fifty. 

Rather than stay at home every night with my dogs, I packed them up and headed out to one of my favorite venues, dressed as my feminine self. My problem was I knew I would be attracting attention as a single woman where I went so I had to be careful. I was not in anyway trying to pick anyone up. On the other hand, I did not want to be ridiculed. Ironically the venues I chose to go to I had gone to as a guy to check out to see if my feminine self would be safe. Once I decided they were, I started dating my new self there, 

As it turned out, I couldn't stay by myself long. I started to interact with other people if I wanted to or not. First I had to learn how to communicate with the world as my authentic self. It was quite the growing process but surprisingly an easy one. Because it felt so natural. I wondered why it took me so long to do it. I fortunately became on speaking terms with one of the bar tenders at a venue I was going to. In turn she introduced me to her Mother (lesbian) and we hit it off. Then, there was the night another woman came into and ordered a to go order and in the meantime slid me a note down the bar showing interest in me. Over a relatively short space of time, the three of us became party buddies and I didn't have to worry about spending nights alone. What happened was, once I finally freed up my inner girl, she established herself in the world fairly quickly. 

Dating myself proved to be a process which taught me a lot in a short period of time. But again I have several other women to thank for my journey. I learned so much from Liz, Kim, Nikki and Hope on how to socialize myself successfully as a woman. In all of their own ways, they were strong, successful women in their own rights. By allowing me to tag along, I learned so much about my true self. Most importantly, they looked past my gender issues and saw the real me. They built me into the woman I am today. So much so, I can't imagine dating myself ever again.  

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.