I just wanted to pop in and let everyone know I’m still around. I haven’t died, been in a coma, or gone stealth.
The move to the new house is killing me. My old landlord is being abusive about the condition of the old house. Granted we need the carpets cleaned but the place isn’t trashed like she says. Oh my.
Well once I get a free moment I’ll update what’s going on in more detail.
Plus I talk to my endocrinologist tomorrow about estrogen. Fingers crossed.
One year ago today I made a call. A simple call, a few minutes knocked off my monthly cell allotment. I had no real idea how this call was going to go. I also didn’t know how it would change my whole future.
We only met once. Potential employer to potential employee. I can only remember it was a nice lunch and even better conversation. Things eventually fell through but somehow we had made an impression on each other. Too bad the two people that met that day were just shadows.
To tell the truth I’m not sure what drove me to look her up. I had called the person who actually introduced us so long ago and found out she had a website. Lucky for me there was an e-mail address and a phone number. Here is where my memory gets a little blurry. How many days it took to build up enough courage to make that call I don’t recall. Did I e-mail first? Maybe, maybe not. I do know that I got up from my desk at work and took a walk outside.
I do remember the clear blue sky and a pleasant breeze. My fingers shook as I dialed the number. As I heard the dial tone one thought flashed through my mind; “don’t pick up, please don’t pick up.” A voice more musical than I remember said hello.
Pleasantries aside I got down to the real reason I called. “Becky?” I said, “I’m a crossdresser.” More blurriness. I vaguely remember talking about dressing for the first time. Then Becky asked, “how did you feel?”
I paused for only a second. “It felt right. I felt whole”. I took a breath.
“Dear, your not a crossdresser, your a transexual.” Her musical voice just sealed my fate. One word. The word. Transexual. I felt me knees give way. More music; “Do you know the difference between a crossdresser and a transexual?” I shook my head, a useless gesture.
“No”. My voice was weak.
A cheerful reply “Three to five years!” a little laugh.
I started to cry. I know I denied it. I denied it with my entire soul. She was wrong. So very wrong. I was a crossdresser, no more no less. That alone was causing strain in my marriage. Transexual? That doomed my marriage, my family, my life. Somehow I excused myself from the call.
Damn her! She didn’t know me. How could she say that? I cried more. I went back inside and sat at my desk in shock.
Three to five years. It took three months. Three months to come to terms with the fact that I wanted to be a woman. In five months I walked out into the sunlight for the first time as my true self.
Two people once met as strangers. Not just to each other,but to themselves. Now we know each other as who we really are. Becky is my big sister. She scared me to death one year ago. Now I realize she saved my life by opening my eyes and my heart.
My life did not end. My marriage did not end. In fact my life has just begun.
Thank you sis. Happy anniversary!
I love you.
Hugs,
-Rachel
I was looking at a few old posts that seem to be getting a larger than average number of views ( basically more than one, LOL). ‘Feeling left behind’ was one of those. It’s always interesting to look back at things to see where you were at the time.
It may only be a month since I wrote about how slow my transition was going. At the time I was trying to compare myself to other people I know and even some posters on YouTube. All of those people seem like they are just cruising along. Hormones, coming out, electrolysis, going full time, and even surgeries. Everyone was just blowing past me like I was standing still. Well, it was all bullshit.
I have been tearing through my transition. I’ve leapfrogged past too many steps to count. I am not on HRT but my body is doing quite well on blockers alone. A fellow blogger Sarah said “You look so amazing !! Its scary to think how you will change once you are on full HRT. ” It is scary, one look in the mirror tells me that. It’s even scarier to think that later this month I am going to talk to my endocrinologist about starting estrogen.
Last night after my support group meeting a few of us met for dinner. We discussed SRS and what it meant to us. I pointed out that it wasn’t really that important to me. Except for a few things like wearing a bathing suit or going to the gym I really don’t need it to feel like a woman. Plus it may be one of the most important factors in staying with my wife. That to me means more than turning my outy into an inny.
When I look back at the past year I realize that I didn’t follow the normal path of transition. I took shortcuts and risks and have been extremely lucky. I do live nearly full time. I didn’t wait for electrolysis or hormones to take hold before I declared I would be coming to work as a woman. Now after nearly six months everyone at work has accepted it even if some of them still don’t understand me. I am treated as a woman in both good and not so good ways. The other woman compliment me on my outfits and I regularly get invited to lunch with the girls. However, I do get funny stares sometimes. I don’t know a lot of spanish but I can tell that some of our warehouse crew are making unflattering comments when I walk by.
I go out in public quite often. More and more everyday. I’m starting to get ma’amed more often even without really girly clothes, breast forms or makeup. It all feels so natural to me now. Women’s restrooms and changing rooms don’t seem so scary or strange any more.
It all boils down to 8 months of accepting who I am and how I want to spend the rest of my life. 8 months is a really short time to start rebuilding a life after 47 years. Especially a life that is becoming so amazing and full of wonder. It’s been a long time since I have felt so alive. The thing that surprises me the most are the people. My family, friends, sisters, coworkers, and even total strangers. They have been very nice to me. Something I never expected. I have read stories and even personally experienced first hand how badly people can treat trans folk. I have been encouraged and inspired by these people. I have even inspired a few of them. Like my aunt wrote me after I came out to her last week, “Rachel, this is a new world we live in and you can be anyone you want to be. It will all work out.” So far it’s been working out.
Well I’m back. It’s been a stressful month and things are getting better.
We bought a new place and just signed the escrow papers. Not much longer until move-in day. Which I am
sooo looking forward to. Here’s why: diminished upper body strength, stress related crankiness, hormone related crankiness, and sore boobs. Do I need to go on? On the bright side ‘Hell House’ as we affectionately call the large beautiful home we rent will soon be a smudge on our past. The place is killing us figuratively and physically. Plus it’s been the site of the most horrendous fights and emotional battles that my marriage has ever faced. This place combined with my coming out has left a bad taste in our mouths (that and the black mold). On to not so bigger but much better and hopefully more sane things.
Oh, and Happy New Year!
A recap if I may. As of 2:30 am January 2012 it has been one year since I told my wife I was a crossdresser. Almost two weeks shy of telling the woman who is now one of my best friends that I was trans. Then I hung up on her because she told me I was a transexual. Nine months have passed since I accepted the fact that I am transexual (thank you Becky, I won’t hang up this time). I have started my 6 month of being myself at work. 4th month of t-blockers. Two sessions of electrolysis. Third week or so since I noticed boobs where my once manly (not really) chest used to be. And now one day after I pretty much outed myself to the entire rest of my extended family and possibly my dad through a dumb (Freudian) mistake on Facebook. Thank you Mr Zuckerberg.
And I told myself and my wife that I was going to go slow. “Sulu, ahead warp factor five!” ok, bad Star Trek joke. (By the way I have met George Takei on three separate occasions and William Shatner twice. Yes, I am a geek girl.) All kidding aside I went from crossdresser, to transexual,to going out en femme, passing a great deal of the time, to working as a woman, and starting mild HRT in less than a year. I have nearly gone from guy to girl overnight. All the while I was jealous of the women in my support group starting HRT and beginning their year of full time before surgery. Many of them struggling with their presentation and mannerisms. Look out here comes Rachel making it all look so easy. Get her in a skirt and move out of the way!
I am still amazed that my kids haven’t said anything about their weird looking dad with the shaggy long hair and pierced ears. I forgot, throw in wearing ballet flats around the house. And the one time my youngest caught me leaving for work on casual Friday in a coral pink girls v-neck tshirt and girls jeans. (He was really sick that day so he must have thought he was hallucinating.) Or the time I sat on the couch with the kids playing video games while barefoot wearing electric blue sparkly nail polish on my toes. I could go on.
Then there is my wife who watched me try on a few clothes in the early months. Then joined in playing dressup one night. She tried on all my heels and was embarrassed that I could walk in them better than she could. On another night opening the bedroom door to see ‘some woman’ in a peach blouse and black miniskirt sitting on our bed. She ran downstairs in tears. Cooking together while the kids were over at a friends house. Me in a black cocktail dress, strappy heels and for the first time my breast forms. We laughed and had fun, but it was ‘safe’ I still had my mustache and guy haircut. Her finding a picture on my computer of me the first time I went out en femme. Screaming at me that I looked like some drag queen and hating my friends for going along with it. The monumental argument that scared our kids and caused us to sleep in separate rooms bathed in tears and hoarse from screaming. Almost two weeks of silence when each of us thought the other would just leave. The tear filled night when we began to talk again. The same night I said I wanted to become a woman and would not live my life and end up being buried as a man. And she still held my hands while we fell asleep exhausted and emotionally drained.
To the place we are now. A kind of stalemate with enough give and take to keep us together. A place where she can see that the person in front of her might not look exactly like her husband but inside is what made her fall in love so long ago. This strange person that is no longer angry and depressed. Who can still make her laugh and smile. A bizarre androgynous creature that understands her more than any man could. A being caught between genders who loves her more than anything or anyone in this world.
And here I am. A man who lost himself to become a crazed 14 year old girl going through a puberty he was denied. A man who had to realize that he was becoming a girl even he didn’t like. A person who tried to recapture the essence of what made him whole. The struggle to integrate who he was into who she was becoming. Accepting transition as a process of discovery and growth. To shedding off useless fears and forging her own path. And to still be able to find himself inside herself when she had too. A woman who became normal by not being ‘normal’. A husband, father, wife, and mother all rolled into one. An anomaly. A boy who grew up knowing he was a boy. Who became a grown man that people liked and respected. A man who married an amazing woman. His soulmate who bore him three incredible children. A man who thought he was comfortable being a man; ignorant of all the signs to the contrary. And, when things got so bad he finally realized he was a she all along. That simple thought nearly destroyed him/her. A simple thought ‘changing your gender’ that saved them both. Not without heartbreak and suffering. But there was also joy and happiness. To this moment. Another beginning to another end. Not the beginning of her because of the end of him. Both together as one being, a woman who knows what it is like being a man. A woman given the chance few ever get or ever take. A chance to live one’s life more completely than most. To experience life from both sides.
Love, life and happiness to all of you
-Rachel
thefrugalcd 