Vacation Post

 

Image from Johannis Keys
on UnSplash.

The day finally is here before my wife Liz, and I depart for our long-awaited journey to the Florida Keys very early tomorrow morning. So, this will be my last post for approximately ten days. The first time in my history of writing a blog I have missed this much time in over a decade. 

As luck would have it, we are traveling on a charter bus and there are hefty storm warnings for the bus to attempt to out-run when we depart Cincinnati very early Sunday morning. 

Outside of the weather, long term, I have spent quite a bit of time worrying about potential hassles I may receive from a stray transphobe in the group. Magically however, after we packed this morning, my fears began to disappear. As Liz told me, this is not our first trip, and on the other ones, I have had no problems. In addition, I have steeled myself to facing any detractors if I run into them. Confidence in myself is one of my keys to a fun trip. After all, I paid as much as the next person to go on the trip.

After we arrive in the Keys, I am going to do my best to enjoy the brief respite to the Ohio winter and even try swimming for the first time as a transgender woman. Hopefully, this trip will be less physically demanding on me since I have mobility issues. Since the last trip we went on out west to Colorado seemed to leave very little time to relax and enjoy our surroundings before moving on, I was exhausted before we came back. I didn't like it.  Plus, this time, I have made sure I tried to walk as much as I could to build a little stamina. 

I look forward to rechecking back in with you all after we return and hopefully share a few pictures of me with my new short hair cut. 

I'm sure I will go through some sort of withdrawal when I can't write daily but then again, a little break should do me good so I can refocus my efforts. 

Hope to see you then. 

Gender Harmony

 

My friend Racquel and her dog.

When asked when I first realized I had issues with my gender I began to tell the truth and say I had known forever.

In fact, my statements were only partially true. I knew something was wrong with me, but I did not know exactly what. When I was young, I knew how much pleasure I received when I dressed as a girl. What I was lacking was the knowledge of how much harmony I was missing by learning the aspects of living in two genders.

Over a long space in time of nearly fifty years, my male and female selves battled it out, which naturally created huge disruptions in my life. My already frail mental health was in shambles most of the time. Since I had already been diagnosed as being bi-polar by a therapist before, my gender issues seemed to be a bigger problem. In reality, both issues were working together to make my life miserable before I took action and did something about it.

I started with the easier one, my bi-polar condition. After I tried several medications, I found the right ones which I am still taking to this day. The much more difficult of the two issues destroying my inner harmony was my issue with my gender. Had I listened to my first therapist years ago when she told me there was nothing, she could do with me wanting to be a woman, I would have been better off. Maybe I would have been able to relax more with my issues and realize my transition into transgender womanhood was going to be a scary yet exciting journey I should try to relax and enjoy. Rather than fight and destroy my mental health as I did it. Plus, what made matters worse was all the people around me I attempted to make miserable too. Leading my second wife to even consider telling me to be man enough to be a woman. The problem was, back in those days, I did not have the feminine experience yet to do it. So, my miserable life continued.  Any sort of gender harmony seemed to me an impossibility.

During that time, I really set out to seriously discover what measures I would have to take to restore any sort of harmony to my life. Which essentially saved my life after a failed suicide attempt. I found I had to discover harmony or face losing my life totally. 

Initially, I was obsessing on my feminine appearance over any other aspects of being a transgender woman until my trans friend Racquel told me I passed out of sheer will power. Deep down, I knew what she was talking about. I was not and never would be the most attractive woman in the room, unless I could afford the expensive facial femininization surgery. Which I couldn't. It did not matter anyhow, since I had already decided to move forward in the world with the best possible appearance I could put together. 

Long story short, I found my path to a new life and am very fortunate to live as a full-time transgender woman. Racquel went on to several appearance altering surgeries and moved away so I have not seen her for years. I owe her for the honesty she expressed to me concerning my coming out experience. As my wife said too, there was so much more to a woman than just looking like one. Finding harmony with myself, enabled me to find harmony with others. I made friends in my new life and moved on.

Amazing

 

Image from JJ Hart

As I sat and watched a singer do a wonderful rendition of John Lennon's "Imagine" and watched the ball in New York drop to ring in 2025, I had the chance to look back and think about how amazing my life has been.

As in everybody's life, destiny stepped in and took me in directions I never thought possible. The entire process was how I perceive the supposed death experience people have when they die. In other words, they get to see their life pass in front of their eyes. If indeed that does happen, I may have to ask for a little extra time to view all of mine.

Over a long life, I have been so fortunate to experience so many things. Outside the all-encompassing world of gender for me, was when I managed to land a job in the Army with the American Forces Radio and Television Service in Thailand and Germany as a radio disc jockey. To put it into perspective, there were only sixty other troops in the entire Army who did what I did. Since back in those days, we were basically the only connection our listeners had with home, it was a very serious job. 

Once I had served my time of three years and was released from active duty, I needed to take on again my larger issues of gender identity. To do so, I undertook serious research and development. Any time I could such as Halloween parties, I began to explore public reactions to my femininized self. For the most part, people I knew were astounded and I moved on. Perhaps it was my shaved legs which gave me away. Whatever the case, time flew by, and I started to cross dress more and more in the public's eye. Plus, at the same time, I slowly began to perfect my knowledge of fashion, makeup, and hair. I discovered the more I did, the more natural I felt and the more I wanted to do. In no time at all it seemed I was accomplishing tasks such as doing the family grocery shopping as a woman and it felt amazing.

Imagine my surprise when I then discovered I was going through another major gender transition. All of a sudden, I was losing my desire to just look like a woman and I more and more wanted to explore a path to transgender womanhood. Mainly because I was feeling alive and amazing when I did it. Now we all know how difficult a gender transition is for the average human being, and I was no different. I had very few natural feminine characteristics to work with and I had to struggle completely to survive in the life I wanted to live. Especially when I hit what I call the dark period of my life when I lost nearly everyone close to me to death. 

In order to bounce back, amazingly, I was able to rely on my strong inner feminine soul to survive at all. She helped me find my way. During the bounce back period of my life was the time I found a whole new set of women friends to instruct me on how to live my new life. Included in the trio of new friends, was my new wife Liz who I never expected to meet. At my advanced age of sixty plus, I would never find another person to be close to the rest of my life. Especially since I carried so much gender baggage with me. At the time, I still maintained one tentative foot in the male world, until Liz told me she did not see any male in me at all and what was I waiting for. Go ahead and fully transition. I was amazed and still am since it was over thirteen years ago when our relationship happened and is still going on strong today. 

The end result of watching the ball drop to welcome the scary year of 2025 was I have been so fortunate to have led an amazing life so far. Mainly because destiny has been on my side, and I have lived long enough to accept it.