Long time

This was supposed to be a journal of my journey but there is no journey, just an almost constant level of frustration.  There is no moving forward.  My husband and I have decided to open our relationship so he can experience intimacy with a real female.  Technically it's open on my end but who the hell would I find who could see me for who I really am?

I have a lump in my breast.  I've read online that whatever it is, it is unlikely to be cancerous.  I have found that it is completely impossible to find the number for the breast screening clinic.  You wouldn't think that it would be that hard.  I have mixed feelings.  I know that if I had to have a mastectomy there is no way that I could have reconstruction done or wear a prosthesis.  Well, it's not even a bridge I have to think about burning at this point I guess.


I've been working on overcoming my depression.  I heard on the radio that not daydreaming is the key to happiness.   I can really see that.  I've been trying to keep my mind occupied.  So far rock band and cleaning seem to be the best way to do it.  It's working a little bit, hard to keep up though.  I sure hope that I can.

Effeminate

I wonder if I am effeminate enough that I could completely be myself and not have anyone even bat an eyelash?   Not to the point of wearing women's clothing, I just can't do that anymore at all.  Funny how things progress.  Two years ago I could wear skirts and I didn't even think about it.  Now I get nauseous just thinking about it.  I honestly don't get that. 

Sometimes things like that make me think that it is all just in my mind.  I've been playing a character for so long I worry that this new me is just another character.  Everything seems to be changing so organically, some things I don't mind, others I'm not sure of. 

I wish that I could put on a dress.  I have to go to a friend's wedding and I have no idea what I'm going to wear.  I can't go in men's dress clothes.  The friend's soon to be husband knows people who know my husband and she's from work and I'm going with someone else from work and it would be really, really bad.  So, I'm not putting on a dress but I'll be wearing a women's blouse and I'll be the character once again.  It is so hard not being out.  And I can't see coming out any time soon.  The closest I ever come is telling people that I'm not a girly girl.

Inbetweener

I've been feeling sad and frustrated lately.  I masturbated to gay porn for the first time the other night and cried afterwords.  My gender seems to be the elephant in the room between my husband and I.  We allude to it sometimes but we rarely ever talk about it.  I worry that I can't be the woman that he wants me to be and I can't be the man I want to be.  I wouldn't mind some appreciation for the sacrifice that I feel I am making for my family.  I'm not convinced that I would pursue hormones or SRS even if they were not in the picture, but the option would be there at least.

A friend told me that I am her best friend today.  I don't feel like her best friend because I have this secret from her.  It is so hard for me to talk to anyone about it.  Thank god for the internet.  I also have the opportunity to meet a trans or trans-friendly person in the local area.  Honestly, I am terribly frightened that my trans feelings will be confirmed by others and then I will really want to transition.

I'm afraid that this life that I have would not be enough anymore if someone accepted me for who I am.  This whole thing is just so steeped in fear for me.  The major fear of my mother finding out has been lifted but it seems to have been replaced by so many others.

Everything to lose

My level of frustration is very high right now.  My goal a while ago was to meet people that I could be out to.  Now I have pulled back from that and although the urge to be out is very high, I'm afraid of what meeting people and having people accept me might lead to.  I can have a chance at happiness and royally screw up two people's lives or I can live with this frustration.  I wonder if it is even possible to be actually happy like this?  I try not to even think about transition, but it is hard not to.  Would I lose my hair if I went on T?  Would I get chest and maybe even back hair?  What would my chest look like without breasts?  How would people treat me if I tried to live as a man where I am so effeminate?  Would the guy I flirt with at work punch me in the face?  Sometimes I feel like my life is made up entirely of impossible dreams.

Confidence?

Several (many?) years ago, when I was only occasionally flirting with the idea that I might be transgendered, I gave a speech at a benefit dinner and auction.  People were amazed at my confidence.  I have had people comment on my confidence since and it thoroughly confuses me.  I have most of the same insecurities that most of the people I know do.  I think that it might be my masculinity emerging.  I think that it took a lot of energy to not be myself, and as I let me be myself as much as I can, then I can focus my energy on other things.  I'm not really sure how it works, but I like me more now.

Sometimes I wish I was a lesbian

I don't know if lesbian is the right term, where I feel like I'm male.  I guess sometimes I wish that I were attracted only to women.  If I were then I would have to enter the GBLT community in order to find a relationship, or at least that would be the most likely place to find one.  Also it might give me an opportunity to talk to people about my sexuality and gender identity. This is just a thought experiment.  I could be completely wrong.

Question 1

The following is a question by Madeline H. Wyndzen to help explore transgenderism. 

Imagine you could start life over, right from the moment you were born. Knowing everything you know now, you get to choose which sex you are born. What choice would you make? Why did you make that choice? What might be better about your life as the sex you chose? What might be worse about your life as the sex you chose? 

This question really got me because I haven't had the best life ever.  It's pretty good now, but it hasn't always been.  Also I find that a shrinks diagnoses of me wanting to be someone else has clouded my thoughts on my gender for a very long time.  If I chose to have been born the boy I feel I am, which is gay and somewhat effeminate, I doubt that my young life in the 70's and 80's would have been very pleasant.  On the other had, it is likely that I would have escaped the sexual abuse that happened to me on two occasions. 

Being transgendered led to depression and frustration until I knew what I was.  Even as a teen, knowing who I was for a short time, faced with leaving friends and family behind at the prospect of living my life as I felt it should be lived filled me with fear and apprehension at the same time as it filled me with hope.  Then 20-odd "lost years" while I was trying to be a female, during which I had no direction or ambition and almost no will of my own.  After my son was born, I got my act together a bit, but that was for another person, not myself.  Now I live with frustration and confusion.  I feel like I have a secret and no one really knows me.  I think that I would prefer to have lived my life without that if I didn't know about this life because I could not give up my son and husband for anything.