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.