End/Start of a New Year

Dec 27 98

My situation is that I live in a rather large and private apartment which faces a lake. That’s a nice set up for seeing what you like, and what you don’t about “being a woman.” You can learn a lot, such as cosmetics… from my past: I would spend a long time in front of a mirror and look like a Dragon Lady when I would get done. I would a short time later scrape off the cosmetics and do it again… now-a-days I appreciate a quick/simple make-up routine that enhances how I look, as opposed to changing the way I look. And I stay that way all day… experiment with a routine of skin maintenance and I think you’ll get an idea what women go through on a daily basis… taking care of themselves and their bodies.

9:03pm

Okay… here’s a first. I’ve got email in my hotmail box from a guy who wanted to met for oral sex. That’s new to me! I sent him email back explaining that I may not be a person he’d be interested in because I lack a vagina and breasts. We’ll see what he thinks. My profile he referred to said I was transsexual, so I’m curious to see what’s up with him. What do I do, what do I do? I guess wait… geeze I’m tingly and I’ve got a hard-on… am I disgusting or what? Whew… calm down. I’ve always wanted to give oral sex to a guy… I think I lack the nerve to do it, however… and I’m not sure how I feel about meeting a guy for just the oral sex… how do I feel about that… I’m not sure. This guy might be a sicko, or crazy, or something like that… whew.

Dec 30 98

Good morning. I wanted to start out today right… seems like the past few days I have been off or something. I found myself saying I don’t want to spend my vacation rationalizing/analyzing my gender feelings. Feel like I failed there somewhere. I did not realize also that tomorrow is New Year’s Eve… so my independent solace will end a day earlier… if that makes any sense.

I guess what’s bothering me, or a recent issue is the zone that I live in… I don’t know how to describe it… I allow myself to do as I want to do… meaning dress, poise, etc. A big issue for me is stereotypes… I don’t want to exchange one stereotype for another. It’s fun to play at roles… to duck behind the muy-macho male, the frightened female, etc. But that’s not life… not reality. I’m trying real hard not to quantify things… this is my vacation, for goodness sake.

But where do I fit in? If I could speak freely for a moment, I’m a person who likes to be comfortable. In my free time I wear solid-color t-shirts and boxer shorts. If I feel like wearing panties, they are simple cotton… no flashy/sexy stuff. I’d wear a bra out of necessity… when I’d go outside or do something where bosoms would get in my way. I think being a woman is great because of the variety of clothes you can wear. I love skirts and heels… but not all the time. Heck, the past three women I dated owned one pair of heels and a skirt each… just for formal occasions, akin to a guy who has his “best-and-only” dress clothes for church and interviews. So I’m happy to do as I please… but there is still some void in my life… I suppose where the worlds divide… even in my own house.

It is when I get out of bed and I imagine “going to work”… with me dressing as a professional woman… the full outfit (business suit, heels, cosmetics)… and then I realize all I want to do is bum-out today… so I’m back to what’s comfortable. Part of me says “well, that means you’re not really transsexual”… another says “that’s baloney!” What’s with that? I mean sure I could re-paint my nails, but I want to go to the mall today, and/or I want to go to the hardware store… and I’m not comfortable… well, I’m not ready for that. Wish I could express what I’m feeling.

I guess to ease friction, I live within the norms of being 26, 270#, 6”, single white male. And men don’t paint their fingernails, or shave their legs yet. Is that okay? I know I’m the only judge here… but it makes me pause and ask the “am I ts” question. I choose not to spend my life chasing my own tail… which I feel like I’m doing. When it comes time for bed… I guess when I want a physical interaction (hug, embrace, kiss, sex) I know as much as I can that I want to experience/be a woman… not a man.

Maybe I’m being bitchy here… but I choose to live a bit secluded… I don’t have too. I could walk out my door and be a woman… the clothes would not fit in the right places, sex would be impossible… but to all who look upon me… even bare-ass-naked, I am a woman. I may not look like a woman, I may not talk like a woman… but shed these physical things and take me for me. I guess that’s what I’ve been doing for the past 8 years… I don’t care what other people think… when it comes down to it I gotta live with me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week… so it is important to me to accept who I am.

But I am not perfect. To be honest I am somewhat envious of other people… they don’t have the same uncomfortableness that I do… the people I work with. Sure they have problems… but do they ever wake up and doubt their gender identity? Do they go to the mall and feel depressed because they can’t wear clothes not meant for their body shape? Or that they can’t have children? And I feel like such a bastard… here I have a perfectly working body… and I’m whining? What about an impudent man who just wants to make a family? Or a paraplegic? Or a homeless person who lives under the freeway overpass? Here I am sipping warm coffee all nice and snug in my house when people are freezing outside… what a smuck I am.

I imagine things can always be worse, and they can always be better. I think about where I was not even a year ago, when I was sitting in an emergency room bay, having life dripped slowly back to me after I tried to get rid of it all. How far I have come… why not enjoy life as it is and then make changes later? Easy to say, hard to do. My suicide attempt was like cleaning my glasses… cleaning my soul? It brought my life into focus.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget talking to one of the orderlies at the hospital… when he asked me why I tried to kill myself, all I could reply was that I wanted to be a woman… live like a woman, dress like a woman, have sex like a woman. The guy leaned back in his chair, then said I don’t think you’ll ever get there if you kill yourself… what you want to do is all possible if you want it. It’s not going to be easy, but if you want it bad enough, you’ll get it. I started to cry, and mentioned all the things… the fears/doubts that were keeping me back. Namely my size, shape, age, appearance, voice, etc. The guy seemed to laugh… I remember getting annoyed at him. How could these things be more important than living? I was talking convenience… he was talking living. And thinking back, even if I am totally deluding myself, how will I find out if I never try?

And I guess that’s what’s been keeping me going… the desire to try. I don’t do electrolysis because it’s fun… it’s because I want to get rid of my facial hair. Right now I look somewhat scummy with my hair… but that’s because it’s growing out. How will I know unless I try? So I guess I am still living in a strange ‘zone’… the try zone. Women are women no matter what they do. The stereotypical diesel dyke is a woman… even if she wears men’s clothes and does as much as she can to abuse her skin (cosmetics, etc). She is still a woman.

For myself, I want to go outside, so in my male shell I put on the right gear and do it. Had I a female shell, I could do the same (I need different apparel for the body, not the soul). Hmm. I guess I want to change my male into a female shell… which I am slowly doing. This takes time, the will to make it so, medical means to make it so, and finances to make it so. Thank goodness it’s medically possible, with advances in technology/technique every day… the passage of time is not a bad thing. Also, time will help make sure that the will is strong. I have very little doubt of that. I know what I want, and will experience the steps leading up to it. Seems like I’ve got all the bases covered except finances… and one day that will come.

Whew. Did I achieve anything today? Seems like I re-confirmed what I had already known. Amazing how all roads come back to the same thing. For a long time I was told “you’ll know if your really a transsexual or not”… I still think this is baloney. How can you know for sure till you get there. Sure there are little things… like if you realize you can’t stand urinating sitting down… well, you can either have a pussy and pee on yourself, get used to sitting down, avoid the operation, or reconsider your transsexuality.

My experience is a feeling… hard to describe that I can’t get away from. Like I said, all roads lead to Rome. No matter what I do I come back to the difficulty I have with being a sexual male… I want to be a sexual female. And I should be happy that things are finally configured for me to achieve that in time… and I think it’s okay to feel sad about the time factor… but time is a good tester of feelings.

Jan 1 99

Life is a very interesting formula of random elements that seem to coalesce on a day-to-day basis. There are so many things to deal with living… just being alive. So many things to come together… and we only have control over such a limited amount. Someone asked me why I wanted to be a woman today… I said it was because I wanted to be penetrated by a man… and be in a woman/man relationship with me as the woman. I think that’s possible. Of course, in order for all this to happen, other elements come into play…. Transsexual womanhood, womanhood, relationships, transitioning, hormones, therapy… to get further along the path you must face much. Even the transsexual stuff aside, life can throw you some curveballs at times.

Thinking back to 1998… it was a year of many things for me. I started off the year on the rebound from a relationship that went sour… my transsexual feelings were in full bloom. I dated a bisexual woman for a while. I dated another woman later… realizing that I was no longer interested in any relationship with a woman with me as a man. My car died, I lost my job… I tried various jobs/careers, finalizing on designing and building theater sets. I was so depressed I tried to take my own life… my brother in law did the same last month. My grandfather got institutionalized for Alzheimer’s, my grandmother died. My sister filed for divorce. What were some of the good things? Hmm… my Mom and step-dad did not get divorced… I get along well with my roommate. I’m more comfortable with waiting on HRT till I can afford it and my life is together. Inspite of the ups and downs… my family is a closer unit… we’ve learned that people are not perfect, and families can be a safety net. For myself, I’m building a future for myself, and my transition so that when the time is right, I can proceed and feel safe… school is cool and I love my job. Not much else I can ask for that is possible.

10:23pm

It’s kinda ironic… well, the outcome of things. When I was 8 years old, for fun my sister dressed me up in her clothes and took a picture of me. I loved it. A few years later I remembered the photo, and searched for it… I was ashamed of the photo… I did not want other people to know about my “secret” desire to be a girl instead of a boy. I can remember hiding the picture for a while… and then one night in some sort of Catholic-driven purification ritual I thought up, I decided if I burnt the picture, I would be sending away my “evil” feelings, and God would cure me… make me glad to be a boy. I was wrong… nothing happened one way or the other.

Jan 6

Since returning to school/work, I’ve stopped shaving my leg… it’s growing back in. What ever nail length I had slowly got chipped away… I build theater sets for a living… so longer nails and hammering don’t mix. I’ve not had the time to keep up with the electrolysis… I feel like I’m slipping in some way… but I know that it does not matter much as I have so much time between now and when I am on estrogen. Why rush things? I stress a bit… when I can’t do what I want… the zapping… it’s like I only have a certain number of hours per day to myself… and those are short right now. Sure they will grow as time goes on. So things are back to a slow crawl. I may have some time for some zapping this weekend. I left the nail polish on my toes… if nothing else I’ll get to see how fast my toe nails grow.

I remember last year, about this time, I was seeing a therapist once every two weeks… and we really did not cover much ground. Our sessions would go like this:

Dr: So… how are things?

Karen: Fine, I suppose… all things considering.

Dr: Any changes?

Karen: Well, I still can not transition yet… I know one day I will, but it is not in the cards right now.

Dr: Oh. Right. Anything else in your life?

Karen: Not really.

So, after five months of nothing.. well, I decided I did not need therapy. I guess it was about April that I stopped seeing the therapist. I was fired from my job about that time, and lost the insurance coverage to see her. I suppose that was when I could of talked about “important” things like losing a job. Of course a few months later I found myself regaining consciousness in a emergency room… and feeling so sorry for myself.

I look down at my clown-shoe feet and feel a slight bummer. I look at my big strong hands and feel a slight bummer. I look at my face and see a cute looking woman with a beard… heh. I ask myself… what’s wrong with this picture? I wonder if God cares what I am thinking… doing… what I want to do to my body is so against the blueprints.

Not only do I have a major organ to invert… but there are thousands of little hairs that need to get repeatedly shocked, plucked, and re-shocked until they are no more. I don’t know… feel like I’m just generating friction.

For the past 7 years I’ve been putting my HRT plans on hold, waiting for the right time… when I’m making money… so I can pay for things. Can I continue to wait? Right now I can. Six months ago I couldn’t… I was so tired of waiting for the right moment. I saw death as either being with God as a woman-angel, or ending my suffering here were their no heaven. I may be calm now, but what if I have another anxiety attack? I guess since then I’ve handled them better… there may not be much to speak of.

Now I find myself back to a grind… with projects to do and diversions to keep me from my feelings. On a daily basis I wake up and get slightly upset when I feel my penis slap against my groin… or when I go to the bathroom and don’t see the breasts that I feel I should have. But once I get out the door and at my job… I don’t think about them much unless I see a woman with a body I’d like to have.

I catch myself shifting between rationalizing/mimimalizing my transsexual feelings, and the desire to show up before a group of horny men (redundancy?) in a traditional Japanese woman’s kimono and doing a strip tease down to my firm, voluptuous body… and then an erotic orgy occurs, with me as town whore.

I’m curious to see if this is just a phase… or what I’d be doing down the road. I think that jobs can be like relationships… I may find something to quell my transsexual feelings for a while. Perhaps I will graduate, get a job, and work ‘happily’ for several years at my job and then one day the pressure will be so much that I have a nervous break down, and immediately try to start HRT. Perhaps. Who knows… okay, bedtime.

Sat, Jan 9

It’s tricky at times dealing with transsexual things. I’m not unhappy, mind you. I was just thinking about ‘being at peace’ and a whole bunch of other stuff. To be honest I’m pretty happy for the time being… I’m working a lot and learning about theater stuff… I’m just very curious to see what will happen down the road. Being busy, or rather right now when things are calm and you know you’ll be busy… well, sometimes things pop up.

I’m back to looking a bit scruffy looking… hard to feel like you’re a blossoming woman with a whole bunch of beard hair… know what I mean? Oh well.

Sun, Jan 10

Well, this is the last day of this week. As I slowly come out of sleep, I feel I have failed in some way. Deeply. I try to look inwardly and search for more along this thread, or at least to look outwardly and remind myself of my accomplishments. I felt drawn to the computer this morning, so perhaps this will help me out in some way or another.

Why do I feel so low? Is it me being in college? I don’t think so. I believe there is a certain amount of credibility one can attain by going to school, graduating, and working at a career. My baloney detectors are going off… is that true, or an illusion? I’ve had transsexual feelings all my life, and some depression associated with it, but I wonder how much dealing with my ts feelings will deal with the depression. It’d be a mistake to assume that one would cure the other. On the other hand, if you’ve got a splinter in your hand, you take it out and the pain goes away.

No, I think I am doing a real good job juggling my life and dealing with problems in my own way. The fact that I have been in the college phase of my life is okay. I feel I am going in the right direction. I must give myself a laurel for realizing in 1990 that I wanted SRS… it was land-mine I stepped on, but when all was said and done I avoided being an Air Force officer and a dishonorable discharge because I was ‘gay’. And, even though my life since then has been a learning experience to bringing my plans for SRS into reality, here at this point in my life I get excited with my coursework and feel very much at peace. I may have to face some unpleasant things, but that’s just life, and I’ve conquered worse scenarios in the past.

Is it my non-existent sex life? No, I don’t think so. Perhaps it is my androngenous-ness? Could be, I don’t know. I like the fact that my underwear drawer has cotton boxers and panties all mixed up… I sometimes get depressed when I see the lump between my legs, or the empty bra cups… but in time perhaps things will change. And I’m not looking for a woman to dangle my doodle in front of, nor am I seeking a man. Perhaps there is some sadness/anxiety when I really want to give oral sex to a man… or even more so when I want to have intercourse and I don’t have the right plumbing for the job. My mind is full of mental snap-shots of before/after photos of SRS patients… and that makes me happy because I know what I want is possible. My last few relationships with women have told me that I don’t want to date women, I want to be a woman… and right now I’m not one so give up on the idea of relationships. There will come a day when the right person comes along. Regardless of who you are, or what situation you are in, you can’t rush true love.

Self Doubt? That’s what I’m discussing right now. I guess that refers to the question of ‘are you a woman’, ‘is this what you want to do’, ‘is this a phase’, ‘how do you know this is the right thing to do?’ Right now this is all academic. I don’t think we can ever know anything like this 100%. Anyone who claims that is selling something. I can say that I feel strong enough at this point in my life to commit myself to trying it. And, let me say that I am not at a point in my life where I can try it… I lack financial security. I’m doing this on the long route. So for the time being I’m letting my hair grow out, and I’m doing electrolysis. So when the time is right, my hair will be long enough, and my face will be clean enough. And, as a final note, I have done it… and I liked it. But then, like now, I could not afford it.

Has anything changed since me going back to school/work? I am having a hard time fitting in my electrolysis sessions. I suppose the biggest challenge right now is energy. I’m sure as I get accustomed to the new schedule I’ll be able to do more with my days.

While there are so many facial hairs to zap, and it is easy to loose faith that it does any good, there has been a slight change in the hairs. I have not shaved for about a month and a half, and I try to imagine what my beard would look like had I not been zapping. Doing a hundred hairs a day does make a difference, but it does take a while to catch up. I’ve noticed that with my own hairs there are very dense, transparent, ridged hairs that don’t do well with zapping, but do pluck out. I don’t know if they grow back as fast or not. Ideally, a re-growing hair seems to go from being a thick one, to a thinner one, to a very flimsy one. By the third zapping, the hair an be easily plucked… I find even with my fingernails. I keep a pair of tweezers in the car, and while I’m waiting for the light to change (or slow traffic) I pluck hairs. Again, however, it takes a long time. I can’t see how I could possibly do HRT and everything else at once. I have a copy of the Benjamin Standards of Care somewhere… but seems to me electrolysis (those painful mustache & lip hairs) are a milestone. Ditto on the legal name change.

I guess there is an item worth noting… what am I? How do I want others to perceive me? Do I really care what others think of me? These are all good questions… they really fit in with the ‘am I really a ts?’ ones. I tend to think of life as a stream. There are times when I don’t want to get snagged on something… why hold out an oar… or keep rope-line out to keep you from progressing. Where I on estrogen, or doing real-life-test stuff, certainly I would need to deal with people and their curiosities. But in my case, I am not looking at doing that for another few years… I really am not interested in someone else’s sex life, so why share my own?

I suppose there’s a bit of friction in my life there… not being a part of either gender class. I imagine when you do progress along the SRS route you also are in a lower class of women. Who do you belong too? What’s acceptable? Sure if I felt like it I could wear eye-shadow and lipstick to work… but there are full-blooded women there who don’t… again they do it if they feel like it. And if I did, I would need to be ready for the inquiries and stares. Do I want to become the punching bag right now when I’m not getting anything out of it? I mean I don’t have the breasts or the pussy… so why get shit for it when I don’t have too? Is that okay? Is that reasonable? I think so. Perhaps a close analogy would be a black man who was light enough to appear white to his friends 100 years ago… to be able to ‘pass’ in one circle of society and not belong to either.

I know. I know deep down that I want to have a pussy…. Even if I am the most ugly, fattest, un-attractive, tallest person in the world. But right now I can’t collect on it, so why stick my neck out?

I have a slight fear I’m loosing my hair. I should quell those fears with the idea that I can get implants, or at least wigs. It never dawned on me before that wigs are made for women. Why? Because as they get older their hair falls out… amazing. Heh. But, here’s a happy thought: long hair is nice. Never in my life has my hair been as long as it is right now. My shortest length is six inches. As a child my parents kept me with real short hair, and when I went to college I wanted to look reputable. What a shame… imagine how long my hair could have been? But here in the present, it is a new feeling dealing with long hair. If you’re thinking about going the SRS route, or if you’re like me and you’re trying to do whatever you can to get ready for the SRS route, then I highly suggest letting your hair grow out. It take a long time… again I can’t imagine living as a man one day, then you take your first Premarin, and then you live as a woman. Hair matters.

I remember back in ’93 when I was on estrogen… how complete I felt even with short hair. A good question my therapist asked was how would I deal with steps of the transformation… it being so slow and all. I can remember her saying something about how long it would take for my hair to grow out. And, in my own experience watching people… overweight women look better (in my opinion) with long hair. I know I do. I remember talking with a 50+ ts who said that previously as a man, she had a full length beard, and a buzz haircut… and it was one way of keeping herself from the ts path.

I guess what I feel is that if you’re like myself, and you think you’d make an ugly woman, longer hair can help… must be like the vertical vs. horizontal stripe shirt deal? Who knows. But… it seems like once a week I learn something new about having longer hair. A challenge will be when it comes time to go job hunting this summer, or when I do graduate, and I go looking for a career job. People in my profession can have long hair, provided it’s well kept. I guess I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it.

Seems like I’ve got things under control… just a matter of looking at what needs to be done today, and doing that. Why waste time today on fears of tomorrow? Ask me again in six months! In reading over my notes, I get the impression that there are re-occuring issues... self-acceptance, job, relationships. I'm curious what other ts feel, felt, and how they dealt with their feelings... there experiences. Email me if you feel like sharing.

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