Its that time of the year – to reflect.
I have grown to hate Christmas – the season of false jollity, partly to keep the frenetic activity going to brighten up the mid-winter and partly to stave off the dreaded thought that people are buying less than they used to so as a society we are unable to sustain the relentless upward cycle of consumption that drives the system forward.
Perhaps I have just grown cynical over the years?
I never saw myself as a grump, but then I never saw myself as a lot of things.
So – what is the result of this reflection, apart from a bit of seasonal bad cheer?
The inescapable conclusion that I am essentially two co-existing personalities; one a shadow of the other.
Hardly ground-breaking, I hear you say. It is a fairly conventional view of a male to female cross-dresser.
The big question, though, is which is which? In my earlier years my male persona held sway; the girl within struggling for identity, let alone expression.
Never having dressed fully until my 30s, I couldn’t get to know much about her, apart from her taste in underwear.
Finally in my fifties making an appearance in public for the first time, I was told I seemed amazingly confident. Not how it felt inside – with even basic issues like realising that I had no choice about which toilet to use, for example making me realise just how big a world it is out there.
In my past I did some acting training – but nothing prepared me for the sense of new identity being out and about on a winter’s evening brought to light.
Very early steps indeed – but enough to make me realise that at the moment I am less daunted by the practical issues still, than by the emotional ones to do with the partner I have to create some workable new relationship with.
The question of which personality is more real, though, is more urgent than ever.
If 50+ years of primarily male existence makes me yearn for a few of whatever I have left as much more female time, who is the real me?
I have never felt that I wanted to transition completely – but if I had the power to choose to be one thing rather than the other, I feel strongly that I would tend to the female by preference, but that makes the everyday a prison, now.
Finding the key to get out is my New Year project and one that is related in so many stories on this site.
So I am not expecting lots of responses – just sharing the stage I am at and welcoming any comments it elicits.
Hugs
Paula xxx
Originally Posted by Denise Rhodes
