Making life complicated

[Sarah Doepner]

So I've been trying to make life a little more simple, but it refuses to allow that to happen.

I was out to my wife but she passed away about 2 1/2 years ago so this summer after seeing a therapist I decided I needed to stop hiding from my kids and I let them know. They are all adults and evidently had figured it out years before, so that made things easy, right? So I thought. If they came over and had to get in the closet to help me or found me dressed, there would be no lengthy explanation or major embarrassment. But there are still the majority of the people in the world that didn't know. Like the doctor who would treat me for a sprained ankle/broken foot after I fell off a ladder. Yeah while doing a home improvement project I damaged myself, crawled into the house and realized I needed to go to urgent care. But first I needed to clean the nail polish off my toes of that foot at least. I did okay and those who looked close may have seen something, there were no questions or raised eyebrows.

In the meantime my son's best friend needed a place to stay for a while. This friend is a good person and one I call son and he calls me "Pops", so I say fine come on over. After a while it's obvious he will do better staying here and getting his car fixed and world stable instead of leaving right away. I'm fine with this because I trust him and he's also a big help while I'm dinged up. But I need to let him know that I'm trans and he may encounter things that don't make sense otherwise. So we sit down, I invite him to stay but then I decide to let him know what lies in the back of my closet and what may happen once I get the cast off my foot (because I really don't feel like dressing right now and that is another story).

He has the chance to reconsider but "Okay" he says without a blink or flinch, "I already knew." It appears that while my kids didn't use their knowledge of my Crossdressing against me, they didn't keep it too close to themselves. A followup conversation will have to happen so I can try to figure out how far this has all spread without causing much in the way of trouble on it's own.

I may be much more "out" than I ever thought and I'm the one that's been making my life complicated.

[Jennifer_Ph]

Well maybe your life just got a hell of a lot less complicated.

[Saikotsu]

Honestly, in my experience, we are the ones who care the most about our being trans. Most people I've come out to didn't bat an eyelash. Most had figured it out before I did.

Not everyone will react that way, of course, but I think it's less of an issue to most than we make it out to be.

[Nadine Spirit]

It sounds as if it is just your way of thinking that is making it all far more complicated than it needs to be. Maybe instead of thinking you need to hide this from certain folks you should just own it. It seems as though the important people (your children) already know, so who cares who else knows. Like the doctor? They really don't care what you do in your own life. Just sayin.

[Pat]

Well, let's say your kids told everyone -- that means you've been living "out" all this time and nothing bad happened, right?

In terms of personal injury, you were definitely making it harder on yourself -- if you need urgent care, you should probably not worry about nail polish. I say this from a position of having to do the same -- construction accident; I ended up in the emergency room of the local hospital on a holiday weekend all the while sporting bright orange nail polish on fingers AND toes. It didn't matter to them and it didn't matter to me (I was concentrating on getting out of there with all the parts I brought in.) Doctors and nurses are professionals and they act that way.;)

[Sarah Doepner]

Your observations are getting pretty close to my own. I'm the one making my life complicated, mostly because that's what I've been conditioned to do. I'm always looking at the potential consequences for every action, who is going to be helped, who will end up being hurt, will it cost money we need to commit to something else, what will the neighbors think and on and on and on. All the time I'm putting my own life on the back burner and now I'm over 60 with lots of security and still fearing things that don't really matter like they did at one time. I'm working on finding that sweet spot between finally growing up and finding that child's attitude of don't care. Things to think about and work on until the cast comes off.

[Saikotsu]

I wouldn't say an attitude of not caring is neccessarily childish. After all, teenagers care far too much for things that don't really matter. "Oh my god, I have a pimple, everyone will see it and mock me and my life is ruined, I'll just have to live under a rock the rest of my life so no one will see my hideous face!"

That may have been an exaggeration, but I think the ability to not let things bother you is a skill we learn as we grow up. Not caring at all, that's something that kids do though, you're right. I think it would be bad idea to not care about who knows your secret, but I think that not letting it bother you would be far healthier, not to mention more realistic. After all, now that they know, they can't unknow it. At least not without severe head trauma or hypnosis.

[carrie001]

I'm fairly certain that when I come to most of my friends, their reaction will be something like "no shit, it's about time.", but I understand how you feel. I think it's great your helping your son's friend. Hope you heal up quick!

[Katey888]

What our kids understand can be almost as surprising to us, as how the fact we used to be kids too (and what we used to get up to then... ;)) is surprising to them...

I'm all in favour of things being uncomplicated - I wish you well of your further conversations (and I suspect they should be very fulfilling ones..) :)

Katey x

[PaulaQ]

I may be much more "out" than I ever thought and I'm the one that's been making my life complicated.

The part that I bolded is just very frequently the case with trans people, in my experience. I'm glad your kids are ok with your being trans.

I hope that you are able to figure out who does and doesn't know. Sometimes the simplest thing is simply to be "out". Trying to control a secret like this, once it starts to get out, is very difficult. I hope this causes you no issues in your community.

BTW, you aren't the first story I've heard like this, not even close. A lot of times we give away a lot more about ourselves than we realize.