2023 A New Year

 I am not sure which part of my life led me to be so short sighted in my thinking and planning. Perhaps it was the time during college or the military when I was forced to pick up and move every several years.

Along the way, I thought perhaps being transgender had an extreme baring on my short term thinking. I was always trying my best to not establish any long term relationships or even friendships because I never knew when I was going to have to give them up. If the friends or family discovered my deep dark secret of wanting to be a woman.

Maybe all of this background life led me to a point of where I tended to take each New Years as just another opportunity to drink quite a bit of alcohol. Many times, I didn’t even know if the current job I had would be long term enough to think about having a resolution about it. Luckily I was in a career field which offered the possibility of many and varied new jobs. So changing jobs to out run my gender issues became easier to do.

Even though now I didn’t drink much alcohol at all on New Years Eve, I still didn’t make any major resolutions. I just hope I can be more active in the New Year.

I understand it takes approximately sixty five or six days to establish a resolution into a habit. At the least I don’t have to worry about counting off the days to make a new habit I may have to work to change later. Maybe that should be my resolution isn’t one. Maybe one possibility I should take into consideration is thanking all of you for stopping by for taking the time to read my work. So many of you have taken the time to subscribe, clap or comment on my posts. I appreciate all of your effort more than I can say.

See you in the New Year!

A New Year

Happy New Years from
Liz (left) and I

 It doesn't seem possible but 2022 is history and it's time to face a new year. I do believe the older you get, the more time flies.

Looking back at the year gone by, I suppose I should mention a few highlights or even low points. The major highlight  of 2022 was my continued relatively good health. Without your health you have nothing. The major test I passed in the year gone by was a clear mammogram. I hope I never have to experience the irony of developing breast cancer in the breasts I so desperately wanted. To the point of the long term hormone replacement therapy which now is a big part of the developing of hips I am experiencing. It's another development I take for granted but shouldn't. 

Another major 2022 happening was when Liz and I were married. Since we had been together for eleven years, my daughter finally said why don't you two get married. And we did during a small ceremony with a few family members. It all turned out to be a low key start to the rest of our married life. I guess low key could be a good descriptor for the rest of the year.

Liz and I did manage once a month to get out and explore sometimes new places to eat or visit a couple long time favorites. My lack of walking ability restricted a few of the big events such as Cincinnati Pride but as long as walking wasn't a big priority, I was up to it. Just getting out into the public's eye helped me reinforce my confidence in presenting well as a transgender woman. My lack of being able to be as mobile as I wanted to be was one of the low points of the year. It's also one I hope to do better with in the upcoming year.

Another big positive was discovering Medium as another writers platform. While the content is the same as here on Blogger, Medium gives me a whole new audience to write for plus a chance to make a few dollars which helps to offset my hours of work.  As always I deeply appreciate all of you who stop by either platform to read my efforts. Thank you!

By far the low point of 2022 was the influx of anti-transgender and potential LGBT bills being pushed by a certain political party. In some states the politicians are trying to legislate we transgender people out of existence. Sadly, it is only going to get worse in 2023. We are just going to become more politically active to fight the gender bigots. What the bigots don't realize LGBT individuals all ready have developed a core strength which we can use to fight back. 2023 will have to witness our strength

Whatever the case, I hope you have a warm, safe and festive New Years!.  

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.