Integration

I have lived just about a full year now presenting female to the world, and myself,  24/7. My life is fairly routine so I haven't had much opportunity to have a lot of different experiences. It is something I consciously am aware of and try to do at least once every couple of weeks. Go out somewhere I haven't been before, or meet people I haven't met before. Just to see what it is like to go through these experiences as the woman I am meant to be. What I am finding however is the difference between mundane things, mostly social interaction, now as a woman.

Years ago I knew a woman that had a personal cab driver. She would call him up, get a ride bringing her friends with her and when we would arrive at our destination she would just get out. A quick, "add that to my account" was exchanged and that was it. I thought it was fantastic, and have wanted the same for myself for years. I tried, in the past, to make the same sort of arrangements with cab drivers and have been flat out refused.

One day, about a month ago now, I called a cab from the grocery store. During the drive home the driver asked me if I was the one always calling for cabs from my work place and heading to the same street as I was today. I told him that was me and he quickly offered to give me his number so that I can call him directly for a ride, stating, "Now you have your own personal cabbie."

Just like that I ended up getting this little thing I wanted for a good while. Now, I know it isn't miraculous but it is a clear statement of how even the little things are different for men and women. On top of having a personal chauffeur, he has also been quite kind to me. He has given me breaks on ride fees for a night on the town, he has offered somewhat difficult to find food-stuffs knowing I'm a cook who loves food. He has even gotten a little pot from one customer and given it to me. All of these things would have never happened to me as a man.

There is another reason I mention this cab driver. A few weeks ago I was at a party, a rather large one. One of those parties where you know everyone but didn't get a chance to talk to them all, some of them being people you rarely talk to but see several times a week. As it was starting to wind down several of us were calling cabs. I called my own cab, and since it was my personal cab, and I was heading home rather then in the opposite direction as everyone else, I hadn't planned on taking anyone with me. As my cab driver pulled up the back seat filled before I even opened the front door. I got in anyway, and explained I had no idea we were going to be taking a full cab. My friends offered to get out and both I and the driver said no. I got my ride home and asked him to give the girls a good deal. We said our good nights and I got out of the cab and left them to their continued partying.

The next time I called this driver he mentioned that night to me. What he said stirred emotions in me I can't really recall having before. He said the three girls that were left after I got home think very highly of me. He didn't get into detail but he said he asked if they knew me, saying I was a "sweetheart" and they responded with several compliments.

I am not used to this, from many different angles. For whatever reason I feel like compliments given to others from people about me are more sincere then compliments given to me directly from those people. To hear a car full of people describe me as a "sweetheart" and "so nice" takes a serious chunk out of the old self image of the hard, bitter man I used to be. It allows the mental freedom to occasionally picture myself as a sweet, kind, thoughtful woman. An image that brings me inner peace and calm that I get from no other source. I have mentioned the concept of "emotional transition" before and it seems this true acceptance of being a woman now, of being the kind woman, among other things, that I would want to be, is a large part of that emotional transition. It has become apparent to me that I have a hard time accepting the fact that I am actually the woman I have always wanted to be.

I feel like this is something that is hard to explain to the cis-gendered. I imagine most people just are who they are, they picture themselves, exactly as they are. They may have goals they would like to achieve, gaining a house, losing weight, etc. but they ultimately have no reason to feel like they are something they are not, or that they have to convince themselves they are something that they are. That's the tricky part. For so many years now just about every source in my life has told me I am a man, even my own eyes. There has been one voice of opposition, my own feelings, and while it seems it is undeniable, it is something that is difficult to override when you are the kind of person that lets logic defeat emotion 90% of the time. It seems, this is my current battle. The accepting, the... amalgamation of my feminine emotions and desires with my inner dialog and daily self image. You would think this is something that would be fairly simple, but it would seem that after so many years of hiding who I am and wanted to be, it has made myself the most difficult person to convince that this is my life now.

Something else that the talk between friends and cab driver has done is make me again see my lack of self worth. For the majority of my life I have always felt like no one talks about me when I'm not around. I have thought this way for one reason, I am simply not that important or interesting enough for people to consider after I have left their presence. "Out of sight, out of mind." in the truest sense. To be told people were talking about me, and in such a pleasant way, feels out of place for me. Imagine, people finding me a topic of conversation? Why? Honestly, the idea baffles me so much that I find myself wondering if maybe the cab driver made that little story up for some reason. That not a single word was said about me. That makes far more sense to me then thinking people actually like me enough to talk about me to each other.

In a somewhat related matter. I find myself doing things I would not have done before in the past. Now that I'm out as transgender, now that I'm striving for this one thing I want more then anything else and I am letting nothing get in my way, including everything else that is important to me I find myself less inclined to not speak my mind. My reasons resting in two places. Now that "everyone" knows my ultimate secret, why should I be concerned with all of the little things I  think, especially the things I think about myself. Why be afraid, or embarrassed really, to tell people I think I'm intelligent, or that I am capable of anything I put my mind to? Any of that is nothing compared to what I have already told people. The other reason being I see the wisdom and importance of not being afraid to go after what you want. There is nothing but pure truth and wisdom in the words, "First, learn how to make yourself happy."

I had a conversation with my employer a while ago about my place in the business. I had two actually. The first I defaulted to my usual guarded self, being non-committal, not saying much about myself, my goals, ambitions or abilities. That meeting left me feeling unfulfilled. Honestly, in the past I would have blamed that on my employer not me. This time however, I seen the truth, that I did it to myself. How could anyone want to put any resources into an employee whose personal opinions and agenda have nothing to do with the company? So I asked for a second talk and I spoke to her like I speak here. I was unapologetic about the opinion I have of myself, where I am going in life, my potential and my goals. Something I would never had done in the past. This time the conversation went well, and I will leave it at that.

I wonder if it is easy to see how each of these things all come together to create a whole. Being treated differently as a woman then I was a man, learning of people talking about me showing me how low my self-worth is, the acceptance of the woman I have become and doing things I wouldn't normally do. They are all a result of my transition. The good and the bad coming to light now that the curtains are raised. Now that I am expressing myself as the woman I want, it is giving me permission to express myself in other ways that I want. There is more then the self confidence that came out with talking to my employer, I also express my happiness more readily, I have learned to let stress go, etc. I see the holes that my self worth has punched into my character and they are slowly (very slowly) beginning to mend themselves. Things happening to me now feel real, more genuine, because they are happening to the me that has always stayed hidden in the past. My transition, being myself, has let all of these things happen, they are showing me the person I am. It is taking time, but being true to myself, honest with my feelings, and honest with others is creating a me that I feel like I can begin to love. That is a feeling I have never had before.

Sweaty Plans

A very close friend of mine that I haven't seen in a while stopped by yesterday, We chatted for a while about all kinds of things, his kid, our family, jobs, my transition, etc. In our talking I mentioned I just joined a gym, that day actually. I told him about the facilities there and that I'm excited to get back into a gym again. I paused for a moment, noticed that he was thinking about something and, guessing what was on his mind I said, "So that's a frontier to push past." to which he responded, "Yeah, some careful planning involved there I imagine."

The moment he said that I seen the reality of what I have been doing. I hadn't noticed how much mental effort I have put into going to the gym for the first time as a trans-woman in the middle of my transition. I'm not even sure I can remember every detail of what has gone through my mind as I try to make myself comfortable with going to the gym, something I really want to do. Before I get into this though, I want to explain something.

I'm sure it is easy for the cis-gender to think "I put a lot of thought to going to the gym as well, what is she complaining about?" Women, for example, may be concerned about if they look good for the gym. Do you put on make up? Maybe just a little? Do my clothes fit, are they flattering? etc. I can tell you with complete certainty, that this isn't the same. How? Because I am thinking these things as well. These are the basic worries and concerns I have. The other concerns go much deeper  for me, and for other trans people.

I'm sure we all think about what to wear. I'm not just thinking about how I look in them, flattering or not, I'm worried about if someone will notice I have a penis. I have a shirt that is long enough to go over it, I think, but I'm not sure. I may use my new found courage to just "do it" and let fate take over, which is probably what will happen. But it has been on my mind for days, in fact it has been what has  kept me from going for a good while now.

I'd like to go with no make-up and put it on after I'm done but that isn't an option. So I have been thinking about what to do, how much or how little to put on. Also, they have a pool, I would love to go swimming but that would remove any efforts with makeup and show everyone the beard shadow underneath it all.

That's all only about how I will present myself. There is also the change room. How do I make sure no one sees what I don't want them to see? I guess it will come down to me getting changed in a stall or something, and I certainly won't be getting a shower there, maybe on the days I go swimming, if I figure out something for that. What will I do, and what will happen, when or if someone finds out? What if that someone says something to the gym, what will their policy be?

I am trying to figure out a way to get from the pool to the change room with as little exposure as possible. My plan is to go to the gym, lifting weights or at the machines or something for a while to feel the place out and come up with a plan. So I'm planning on making a further plan just so I can do something I enjoy and most people just "do".

I shouldn't have these concerns. I should live in a society that doesn't care if a trans-woman is getting changed in the women's change room or wants to go for a swim. No cis-woman is thinking "Oh, what if someone find out I have a vagina? Will I get kicked, or ridiculed, out of the gym?" A part of me hopes a scene does happen. That's the advocate side of me that wants to be put in a situation that I have been discriminated against and can show the people the error of their ways and have the moral high ground while doing so.

Besides all of these worries there is a great deal of excitement involved. I am going to the gym! Every time I do something like this, something I want to do and haven't because it has been too far outside my comfort zone, I get excited. I get excited because it is something I want and I am about to get it, but I am also excited because I am doing something outside of my comfort zone. It gives me an example of my progress. It lets me watch it happen.

I never would have thought of going to the gym eight months ago. In fact, I recall talking to my partner at the time and saying I will "never" be able to go to the gym. Swimming was something I assumed I would wait until all surgeries were done before I would see the wet side of a pool. Here I am now trying to figure out a way to make it happen. My emotional and self confidence has been growing quickly lately, I feel like I am riding a wave of self discovery and coming to terms with some key emotions and each one is opening up new doors.

CBC Radio St. John's Interview

I did an interview with CBC Radio, a local radio station Wednesday morning and the wonderful people there gave me a copy of it. So I thought I would share it with you all. Oh and i had to turn it into a movie to upload it to blogger. So excuse my staring at you.

Sorry about such a verbally lame post, my keyboard is broken.

Sex and Lies

I am sorry it has been so long, again, since I wrote something here. I can't really say it has been because I am busy, while that is true, I have still be writing a lot. What I have been writing however has been deeply personal. Unfiltered, inner thoughts that I haven't been able to translate to writing here. "Diary writing" as opposed to "blog writing", as I have been calling it myself.

What I will talk about here today is what I have been writing to myself about. I'll just leave out some of the details. There have been a few things constantly on my mind lately, sex and how I behave. 

I've been focusing on how feminine I am not being. At work I am loud, giving orders and sarcastic, to name a few things. These are all traits I feel come from pretending to be a man for so long. My sarcasm being, to me, the most interesting of them all. People never seen what I was doing with my sarcasm but it let me hide myself in plain sight. I said so much "just to be funny" or in a sarcastic way that no one knew when I was serious. I have flat out said to people before that I would love to be a girl, but the tone of the conversation and my voice made it so that the person I was talking to would not have taken me seriously. They never would have had the idea that that particular time I was being honest. 

To be fair, I rarely felt I was being honest because I know what I felt wasn't actually getting relayed to my listener. I had a hard time lying, so I made up a way in which I could say whatever I wanted and never worry about someone seeing the truth. Eventually it made it easier for me to lie. It clearly didn't matter to people what I was saying, by my own design of course, so I ended up being a master at keeping the truth from people. So good, I could tell you the truth and you would think it wasn't. It would just be me being "silly" or whatever people thought. I can't remember any of those honest remarks I have said in detail right now, but I can tell you I have said so much to someone at one point or another. My love for lingerie, my desire to be a girl, my suicidal tendencies, my feminine emotions, just about all of it. 

I cultivated this from a fairly young age. I'm sure if you were to ask my parents they would tell you I have been this sarcastic since I was a teenager. I vaguely remember both of my parents saying something to me about how sarcastic I had become. I always tried to keep a balance though. I didn't quite realize what I was doing when I was younger but eventually I learned that I needed to back up what I meant to say with action and emotion. Again, I created a person that said what I wanted. One of the things I wanted to say to people were compliments. I always craved them, but received very, very few of them when I was younger. Well I guess few of the sort that I wanted to hear. I remember at one point I actually made the conscious decision that I would tell people the nice things I thought about them because I would have liked to hear them if I were that person. I learned through that, that I had to back up what I was saying with a certain seriousness that was clearly honest, but not committal. I think that part of it worked, I think people took me serious when I wanted them to. I just never said those things that I hid most in that serious way.. until a little over a year ago.

I guess I got off topic there a little. What my sarcasm did do was let me leak out those little things I wanted to tell people I knew and felt about myself that I didn't want to let people know. It was cathartic in its very limited way. 

I have realized a few things about the way I am. First of all, my personality outside of the work place is actually quite feminine. Of course I let that go a little around people I know very well and am comfortable with. Even with these people, I am not as rough around the edges as I once was. I have been focusing on how little my femininity comes out because I spend so much time at work that is all I was thinking about. My work place, and my role in it, more or less demands that I take charge, I am loud, and I joke around and be sarcastic with the other employees there.

Outside of that environment I am a different person, I am actually much closer to the person I want people to see this new me as. I am more quiet, less sarcastic, honest, I've been called demure. My voice is happier and higher, my movements are more feminine and graceful, less forceful. It has actually taken me some time to see the two different people I am, and to come to terms with the fact that I have a "work mode" that I basically need to ignore when it comes to my personality. Once I done that, I really started to come to accept my femininity much more, I became more comfortable and confident in who I was being to the world now. I feel more like I present to people, and am seen by them, as the person I want to. Honestly, it has given me a fair amount of peace of mind. I was starting to tear away at myself for not being the feminine person I felt I was, and should be at this point in my transition.

Now the second thing on my mind, sex. I wrote a post not too long ago about how I feel like I am asexual. A part of me still thinks that is possible... however. 

Lately I have begun to have feelings like I used to have. To be blunt, I've been horny. It doesn't hit me any more like it used to, which totally makes sense given the hormonal changes in my body. It has created desire though. What finally did it was one day while playing some playstation I looked down at my arm, (Random as hell, I know) and suddenly I looked at myself as the woman I have become. I wasn't just seeing a shell I was occupying, I was seeing the body I wanted to live in, the body I felt comfortable in. With that came the desire to feel again, to touch and be touched. I started to imagine what it would feel like to have a man (yeah yeah.. specifically a man) feel desire to touch me. I looked down at my breast and consciously thought "what if I look at these like someone may actually be attracted to them?", like someone would want to see me naked and then put their hands on them... dare I say, suck on them, be lustful for me. I aroused myself like I haven't been in a long, long time. Emotionally I still feel like no one will ever feel that way about me. Intellectually I know I will never feel like that if I never give someone the chance to show me they do feel that way about me. 

I find myself being "horny" now, like I mentioned, because of that night and that little mental and physical experiment, but (yes, there is always a but)  I still have no idea what I want, and more importantly, I am terrified to be sexual with anyone, male, female, trans, it doesn't matter. I can't imagine being like that with someone. 

But I CRAVE it, god dammit. There was a part of me that was always extremely aroused by the idea of having sex as a woman, and quite frankly, I can sit in a room listening to someone read a dictionary and manage to turn myself on by fantasizing about it even now. I can fantasize about being with a man or a woman and turn myself on. What I can't do is imagine the reality. Once I let reality seep in I become afraid again. As usual, I am in a battle with myself. Part of me deeply wants to have this experience. That part of me sees someone who is very sexual, and sensual. A good lover, enjoying myself as much as I always imagined. Being, how do I say this.. indiscriminate of my lovers because sex is beautiful and so are people. 

But I'm scared, I'm so damn scared I don't know what to do with myself. I'm the kind of scared that makes me think "Oh well, I don't actually HAVE to have sex in my life anymore.". I could just die a, more or less, virgin. 

To go along with the fear is a realization of my hatred toward certain parts of my body. Specifically my genitalia. I think about being with someone, and when it gets to the point of revealing my lower half, I get half disgusted with myself. Also, it completely throws off my confidence to be with someone. I can't imagine how much I would ruin the mood with a "btw, I'm a girl but I have a penis." uggh...

Hmm, I actually find myself not even wanting to talk about that anymore.

So, people, that is where I have been lately. I carry a little booklet around with me all of the time and I am filling them almost faster then I can keep up with getting more. Ever since those fateful two days several weeks ago my thinking and writing have become far more honest and inward. I find I am somewhat addicted to it. I write something at least once a day, and it comes from my thoughts straight to paper through my pen. 

Just so you are all sure, I have not given up on this blog. I will always come back to this and write something eventually. I may take longer between posts from time to time, but unless I say otherwise, I will be back again.

Take care.

Rekindling Vulnerability

I want to start this one by saying nothing I say here is indicative of transgender people in general, this is just how things happened to me specifically. And there is a point, eventually

I can pinpoint the feeling I had that started the hiding of my gender to myself. It started when I was in my teens, exactly when, I can't pinpoint, neither can I pinpoint the exact circumstance. How it started though was a thought, "Why can't boys and girls do/say/want the same thing?"

After being made fun of enough times for doing/saying/wanting things that were typically reserved for girls, I started trying to reason out why it was ok for me to want to. Strangely, language plays a part, I often used words that "only girls used" like "beautiful, lovely, dear, honey (when referring to others)" and had it pointed out to me a few times that only girls said that. I also started taking notice to what other people could "get away with" and found there was a pattern. I also found I didn't fit that pattern, and I had to explain to myself why I didn't. An example that sticks out in my memory is how often I was called a girl, and how I secretly, desperately, wanted to be called a girl but could never let anyone know, I always had to act offended when it happened. I think if at this point I had any knowledge of transgender culture I would have started making sense of it in a different way, but I didn't.

I used my desires backwards. Instead of acting on them, I used them to help me hide who I was even more. As if from a bad joke, I took everything I wanted and did the opposite. I took cues from men and women around me, building my 'shell' as perfectly as I could. My therapist, who knows me pretty close to best these days, tells me I'm obviously an observer of life, and of people. I used that, or became that I'm not sure, for the reason of hiding myself. I'd see what a man would do, compare it to what I would do and make adjustments as necessary, the same with women.

I created a world in which what I wanted didn't matter at all. In the recent past, since my transition, I've thought that it was simply not being a woman that made me so bitter. What I'm seeing now is it was everything I did to myself that made me angry and depressed all of the time. People say "oh I never get what I want." and they are not being that literal. I truthfully never got what I want because I wouldn't let myself have it in fear of giving myself away. I don't mean I didn't get a car, or a certain girl I wanted to date or something so big as that. I mean I didn't act the way I felt, I didn't say the words I wanted to say, I didn't express feelings I wanted to express, fundamental things that people do as they please so often they don't even consider them. I considered them, every passing second.

Who would want to live like that? Truly getting to do nothing at all that you want to do. This of course made the more tangible things hit me even harder, and that would cause the release of anger at those around me.

After I figured out I wanted to be a woman, even if only in my fantasies, that became the most powerful thing I would simultaneously hate and want. It would eat at me how much I wanted to be a woman. Not only did I want to, I thought I never could. I looked up things in desperation trying to find a way to transition, even thought I didn't know what "transition" meant at that point, I didn't even know that that was what I was trying to do. It seemed I had nothing but roadblocks that made it impossible, yet another thing I wanted and couldn't get.

Over time this wore down my ability to have any passion for anything. Why want something, anything, when you feel like you can never have anything you wanted. That was how I trained myself to think over the years. I remember the last day I had passion, the day I squashed what was left of it in an attempt to rid myself of the hurt of disappointment. I was on my bed in an apartment I was sharing with my brother. I'm not sure if he was home or not at the time, I just remember laying on my bed, hating myself for wanting to be a woman, hating myself for wanting it because I 'knew' I could never have it. Hating myself for breaking my own rule of not wanting things I can't get. Hating how it had been an ongoing desire for many years and all it ever did was leave me unfulfilled. I decided then, after a river of tears, to never think about it again, I would never try to look up how I could transition, never let myself be consumed by the thought of being a woman, never let myself slip out of this 'man-shell' I created for myself because it all brought me nothing but pain.

The irony of it all was I told myself then, "I will live to regret this decision I'm making right now." and I was completely right. After my two days off work I wrote about previously, I've started to become more honest about my feelings, and more direct with my questions to myself. I see now how I cut myself off from the world around me that night. I let go of any passion I had, of any desires I had. I wanted nothing after that, I just did things I thought I should do, or were expected of me. This is also why I act as if everything is happening to someone else, because in my mind, everything was happening ot someone else, it was happening to the character I made to present to the rest of the world.

The most damaging part of this is with the loss of passion, the loss of connection to the world, the feeling of everything happening to someone else, I lost my ability to love. I guess I shouldn't say love. What I lost was the desire to attach myself to someone. To let myself be vulnerable and let the possibility of getting hurt happen. That may be painful for some people in my life to read, but it is something I'm coming to terms with myself. I couldn't let myself become attached because that involves wanting someone, and if there is anything I learned in my life, things and acts are far easier to obtain in life then people, and I couldn't let myself want anything, I certainly couldn't let myself want the second most difficult thing in my life to get, my transition being the first. There is no greater pain then thinking you have someone to love you forever and letting them into your heart just to lose them forever instead.

It has taken the last few days of acceptance and honest questioning for me to start to come to terms with what I have done to myself. None of it was really conscious, other then that day in my apartment on my bed. I crave the passion I slowly made myself lose. I crave feeling it again. I do next to nothing because I want to, Even my clothing is mostly made up of things I "have" to wear. Shoes, pants, shirt, bra, etc. Putting on things like jewelry made me feel awkward, and sort of still does, even though I love them. It feels awkward because it is letting a little bit of my want, or desire, to flash out for the world to see, and I'm more used to hiding that instead.

Another thing this acceptance has done is I'm starting to feel like I am living my life, like things are happening to 'me'. Like I am the character in my movie, rather then like I'm watching myself play someone else in a movie. I want to remember what it feels like to have a passion for my own life. It is actually scary to me, it means opening myself up like I haven't allowed myself since I was fairly young. I used to think the way I am now is just what happens to people over time, with age. But I hear others talking about their life, how they can think of a person and get butterflies, or how there is something they do, some hobby that they really identify themselves with. There was a time that I would immerse myself in anything I was passionate about. Now it seems like "why bother". Why bother when I know it will go away, or I simply will not get what I wanted anyway.

I am finally starting to get something I want out of life through my transition, but even still I don't allow myself to be truly content with it. There is a part of me that believes this could end at any moment. That doesn't even include the things I assume I'll never get, top and bottom surgery, all of my facial hair and body/chest hair removed, etc. To allow myself the excitement of honestly believing I will eventually get these things feels to me to invite the inevitable pain of disappointment.

I am starting to truly see myself in the world now, I'm seeing how I am indeed a beginning trans-woman. I've accepted a lot of things as "how it is" because this is exactly where a new trans-woman should be. Now I just need to see all of the things I want as things that are actually obtainable. To look to a future and picture myself with breasts and a vagina with more then pitiful hope, but actual desire, and belief it will happen. To be honest though, right now, it feels impossible to let myself be vulnerable enough to get excited over something, to let the fantasy play out in my mind like it will become reality. To allow someone in my life to make me feel safe, like they are here forever, that they mean the things they do and say, the compliments they give, the promises of love. That seems like a feeling left for the young, basically it feels like a feeling that is not possible for me to have any more. It is to the point that I assume others don't get together because of some mutual "spark", they get together for more tangible reasons, loneliness for example.

I know the overall tone of this post doesn't seem very positive, but in truth it is. It has taken accepting a lot of things about myself and some emotional breakthroughs and understanding to start seeing what I have done to myself as a result of being transgender. Or I guess, how I have tried to deal with being transgender in my past. Now that I accept myself, and have more understanding, I can face these things and start undoing them. I don't know how many times and how many different people I have told that this last week, the days my previous post was about, has changed me and my life. I can suddenly see so many things about me that I have an answer for. Like I finally found the key to opening so many doors. I have found peace with so many of my life long troubles the last few days I could write several posts about them if I had the time. I keep having emotional progress daily because of this new me that has emerged from those two days. Whether it is accepting someone about me that is who I am, or coming to terms with parts about me I wasn't away of, unconscious defense mechanisms like I have talked about here, it is all good, it is all progress and I welcome it all. Others may not think this way, but I feel like I can not truly grow as a person, or grown into the person I want to be without first understanding the person I am. Maybe this is something others do at a much younger age and I am just slow, or maybe it is something few people do, I don't really know. What I do know is I'm starting to make more and more sense of myself, and I'm starting to become more and more content with myself, and that feels like a rare and beautiful thing to accomplish.

Truth

I asked myself the question last night "What happened, or what was there in my life that made me finally make the decision to change genders?". I also made certain it was *my* answer. Too often I give an easier answer, or one that I think makes sense for a transgender person to answer with. This time I thought deeper, and what I came up with started a chain of thoughts, emotions, and understanding.

I let myself truly accept this one fact. Every chapter of my life has one thing in common. They would all start with me in the mental state of mind of hiding away from fantasizing about becoming a woman, and would end with me being obsessed with fantasizing about becoming a woman.

That is the bare truth of it all. If I wasn't spending time trying to run away from wanting to be a woman I was spending time running toward wanting to be a woman. All of my life. Everything else I did was based on that constant back and forth. Either things to keep my mind off of it, or my mind being dedicated to it. There was always a building process, I didn't go back to being obsessed instantly, but it was always inevitable.

Understanding that truth about me then started to make other things make sense. The best example was today at work. As I said I started thinking about this last night, when I woke up this morning, I wasn't done thinking about it. It was on my mind when I got up and didn't go away before work, it still hasn't gone away. I was at work for a while, maybe 45 min and I started to realize "I need this day off to deal with this." I told my manager I wasn't feeling well and I will probably go home early. About an hour and a half later I caught myself with my hand in a bowl of lettuce staring off into space recollecting about how I use to so desperately want to do so many of the things I am now doing, and how much I would want to be a woman, live how I am now living. I seen one of the female servers talking to a male server and I was captivated by how she was "just a woman" I don't know how to describe it, but how she was just being her and what was "her" was just "female" and I envied her. I started to see how true the dysphoria really was. How I am forced sometimes to really try and figure out what gender I would like to be because I want to be like her, not like I am, and certainly not like I was. I started to see how the dysphoria is what causes that. My body getting completely in the way of my mind being able to calm down, in a very real sense. Someone said something loud in the kitchen and it snapped me back to reality. 20 minutes later I went to my manager and said "I need to go." and just walked out.

I have a different perspective on this now then I usually do. Instead of thinking I did something like that, something out of my nature because I work hard and very rarely take time off, as a reason to see that I'm transgender. I see it now as something I did because I am transgender. Me being transgender is the only thing that makes sense out of why I would leave work to search myself and think hard about what my gender is. Cis people don't feel the need to do that. If I wasn't transgender, maybe I would be leaving work to take care of my car, or my kids or something but that wasn't what this person was doing. I left work to try and make sense of my gender.

A friend picked me up and we drove around for a while. She knows what to expect from me when I'm like this and we barely spoke, she just let me sit and think for the most of it. After a while we decided to stop for something to eat and she asked me if I wanted to sit in the car a bit. I was visibly shaken and even though I hadn't said much she could tell I needed to relax. What I was asking myself was this "What if I really let go of all the doubt? What if I really let myself believe I am transgender just like I believe I can play guitar. Not just believe, but know I am." It was that question that made me panic. For the first time in my life I had a legitimate panic attack. I started breathing heavy, I started feeling scared. I couldn't really take it.

Then sitting there, I let the fear go. I started thinking again, "If I can just accept this, it explains so much of my life, it explains everything." The truth washed over me eventually and suddenly all I could do was cry. I cried like I haven't cried since... well I don't remember. I cried like a child cries when it learns something it cannot undo. I wasn't taking it badly, I was relieved by the sudden acceptance. The truth of it then hit me harder then anything else I have ever thought about myself. Unlike my ability to play guitar which I just accepted, have never once given it any thought, my being transgender is something I have fought with all of my life. To let that struggle go, to just accept it. To accept the fact that I *AM* different, I *AM* transgender. No more need to fight, or doubt myself because it is just who I am. The whole thing was more then I could really handle, really. My friend pulled away from the restaurant and drove some more.

I'm home now, and I have been for a few hours. This isn't consuming me as much as it was in the car and that is a good thing. I'm not sure my emotions and mind could handle thinking like that for a long time. It is all still on my mind and I am still clearly shaken by today's events. I'm not "myself" here at home right now, normally I'm fairly on the go, watching a show, or chatting with people online or doing something with the house, something. All I've done this evening is lay down and think, and write this and think.  I'm actually at the point right now that I'm considering what to do about work tomorrow. For me, again, that's very out of character for me. One thing I have accepted about myself today as well is how much I need to make decisions for me. Accepting being transgender like I am right now has given myself the permission to do things in life that I need. My fantasizes have started to become reality. My reality has started to become truth and I find myself starting to not want to compromise on what I want or need at all.

Instead of going to work and pushing this off for another time in some way to make the people I work with happy. I see now that  I'm transgender, I'm going to have needs that others do not, right now I need this time off to take care of my mental health. It may be a mundane example, but it speaks so loudly to how I have lived my life, I have put others needs and happiness before mine.

I have seen this coming for a while now. I started to see things in my life, and patterns in my thinking that were going to lead me to this massive acceptance. A few weeks ago I started dedicating time to just thinking about me, about how I feel about being transgender, how the things in my life that I have done have all related to being transgender. I wanted to confront the doubt I have been having. I have come up with a lot of "Well this proves it's true." moments, but this is the first time I started thinking "This is true, and it proves everything else."

I hope I was mostly clear in what I have written here. All of this makes sense to me as quickly as thought moves, and I'm afraid I can't type that fast. I feel like this is a very important part of my story. My time with my friend today is a big part of my life. As I said to her, if I were to make a movie or write a book about my life this would be one of the scenes in it. Me sitting with her, first in the car, then in the restaurant we finally went to, and my emotional acceptance being the theme of the entire scene.

Undoing Fear

Why do I not fear people knowing this about me now? There was a time in my life that letting people know I was anywhere near the transvestite, or the transgender I thought I was would have sent a terror through me that I simply cannot explain. I compared it before as the same as the terror of thinking I was about to die, like "sucked up in a tornado" kind of die. Yet when I think back to it, I realize, I can not find a specific point where the fear really left me, or at least was greatly enough outweighed by my courage that it seemed gone.

It wasn't when I told my partner, I had the courage to do it, yes, but I was far more terrified then I was brave at that moment. I was so scared all I could do was sit and think there on the bed about do I tell her or do I not and keep this fear forever for the rest of my life.

I've never really thought of it that way until this very second. What I was doing was letting my fear go. I've been frightened since coming out, yes. I was almost hit by a car today and I was frightened but I had this unbelievable fear inside me that was hurting me in every possible way.  Whatever it is that created that fear in me is now gone, the feeling of fear is now gone. I never worry about someone finding out something about me. I'm not worried someone will come in to my house and find something that I don't want them to find. I don't mean mundane stuff, I'd clean the dishes and make the place presentable on different levels according on the company, sure. What I mean is I have nothing about me now that someone could find out that sends me to a pure sense of panic. All because I let go of it and simply told everyone.

That has to say something about my decision. Isn't the ultimate goal in a humans life really to not live with fear? Who would want to be afraid, ALL of the time? Could there really be a worse thing to feel for any sense of "always" or "forever"? Pain is bad yeah, but I'd rather live with pain then fear. Let me correct that, I'd rather live with physical pain then mental pain or fear, if they are actually two different things, though I'm not convinced they are. All sorts of people have said the phrase "like a great weight lifted" and I think I know what they mean, it does feel like that now, but it doesn't too. It feels like curing something that was killing me. I mean that figuratively and literally in that I've thought about killing myself so many times because of this, and if I were to ever tell someone, or someone would have found out, I would feel like I was about to die, and maybe before in my life, I would have done the deed myself.

But yet I told my partner. How did I ever manage to do that? After that I told my parents. The fear I would have had before of either of those people finding out about who I was would have terrified. I had things hidden away all of my life that would have terrified me if someone would have come close to finding, now I have no trouble talking about any of it. If my parents wanted to know about all of the things they found in my room, I would, now, answer them freely. Well I guess I have already told them the answer, probably nothing needs to be said now.

All of these things that had to do with who I was was generating a deep fear in me. The various paraphernalia I have had from dildos to lingerie, the websites I would visit, the tv shows I would watch, I done it all in secrecy completely out of fear. I guess it is true that the only way to remove your fears is to face them, as cliche as that may be. I had no other way to rid myself of this fear then to offer it up for everyone to see.

I haven't felt that utter hate for myself that I felt a little over a year ago, and all of my life before that either. A hate that has ruined so many things for me, believing myself unworthy of anything positive. The hate for who I was goes deeper then hating the person I presented as a means of hiding myself. That was actually a side effect of the true hate I had for myself. I hated being transgender, I hated not knowing who I was, I hated not being in a body that made sense to me, I hated feeling things that I felt I shouldn't feel. I hated everything about me, I even hated myself for hating myself. Just more negativity centered around being transgender. This too is mostly gone, with the fear, in me. I guess now that I think about it the only times I hate myself is when I see something that reminds me, or looks a little too masculine.

Again, clearly I have done something good for myself. Possibly the only good thing I have ever done for myself. Certainly the best, if there is a list. I can't really describe what this feeling is like.  This shedding of the fear and self hate. Honestly, this is one of those times I feel like I haven't done an adequate job of explaining the severity of this whole post. The seriousness of the fear and hatred and the elation of feeling it gone.

Being true to this person that I am, this person I'm enjoying expressing so very much, has made me fear free. Free to be comfortable with everything about who *I* am. It is a feeling I have never felt before. I used to be so ashamed about so many of the things I would do in private. Things I now present regularly for everyone to see. All of what I'm doing, all of who I am expressing as me now making me feel so good about myself, so happy... stress free.

I think the main point I want to remember is this. I had to show everyone my biggest fear in order to get rid of it, and ridding myself of fear seems to be a healthy thing to do. My therapist explained to me how "happy" is our default as humans, that is when we are who were really are. An emotion like fear is meant to steer you in the direction of happy, making you do whatever it is to be rid of the fear. As I keep transitioning I keep shedding more and more of that fear, and in turn it is making me happy. Presenting as female to everyone, even at home by myself makes me happy, happier then I have ever been. Every now and then the realizing of this new found happiness has made me everything from ecstatic to what it is doing now and that is making me see the truth of who I am, shattering another block of doubt. How can I deny such feelings when they are happening to me on a daily basis,  written on my face in the smiles, laughs and happy expressions I carry with me at all times now.

Understanding this loss of fear in me is something else that is making sense of who I am to me. So much so that I am almost crying here thinking of the truth and ramifications of this new thinking. I can stop being defensive because that fear is gone. I can start feeling who I am again. There is no other choice I have made in my life that has given me such a strong sense of "this is where I am meant to be, this is what I am meant to do." I am so happy now. It took this reflection and writing it down for it to make me finally see how happy I am. Why am I happy right to my core? Happy like I have never felt before? There is only one answer, because I am transitioning and presenting the female I have always wanted to present, I am feeling inside the way I have always wanted to feel.

Look at the woman I have become. Beautiful, intelligent, open-minded, understanding, experienced in life. I get called things like "tiny" and "delicate", adjectives that my fear would have made me avoid, made me hate myself even more. Now with the fear gone, I love them.

I guess what I have done is show myself I have nothing to be afraid of. With that fear mostly gone I have started to cast away the hate of that fear, or of the target of that fear. I guess it works like all fear, you hate the things you fear. This is a powerful emotional breakthrough I am seeing the me I have become, the me that has wanted to get out. The me that is a brand new woman, young at heart, learning how to be herself.

This is beautiful.