This year has been by all standards an awful year. A year to forget. A year that I wished never happened, and a year that I hope is followed by a much better year. Both my father and one of my sisters have gone through hell with their respective battles with cancer. My sister is healing after brutal surgeries and treatment that no one should have to go through, but fortunately she is blessed with hope. My father is still fighting his battle, and has yet a long road to travel. It has been a heart-wrenching, incredibly emotional year.
Witnessing my sister’s and father’s battles first hand, and doing all I can to help out, provide support, and simply be there for them, I have learned many lessons that perhaps I should have otherwise known beforehand. Unfortunately, it has taken family illness to open my eyes to certain truths.
One such truth that I have learned is that we need to make the most of life while we are able to do so. One never knows when tragedy shall strike, and take all that we hold dear away. It is all too easy to take life for granted, and to coast through on cruise control. Until the reality of my family’s circumstances hit me like a brick wall, this is exactly what I was doing.
I have a good life, and I cannot complain. I am certainly more fortunate than many to be where I am in life, with a wonderful family, a fantastic job, and a relatively secure future. Although true that both my wife and I have worked extremely hard, and made many personal sacrifices to be where we are, we are in a good place.
But sometimes being in a good place, or what one believes to be a good place, is not enough. It was not enough for me, but until recently, I did not recognize this. I am a MtF crossdresser, and I have missed out on many years of growth, evolution, and maturation. I did not realize this until this year, when confronted by the potential passings-on of both my sister and my father.
I have written about this before on this forum – it is by and through the courage my sister, in particular, has exhibited simply to survive, remain a part of the family, and to raise her beautiful baby girl, that gave me the courage to seek out and experience something so simple as a professional pedicure with polish. Until this year, although I have wanted to experience such a thing for many years, I simply have not had the courage to do so. In the face of my sister’s struggles, I could not help but acquire the courage. If she could have her face and skull completely disassembled, and reconstructed through other parts of her body to get well, certainly I could do something so simple as have a pedicure. Admittedly, the comparison is ridiculous, as well it should be, but it took such an extreme situation before I finally saw at least this partial light and truth.
Before this, however, I thought I was content and happy within my closet. And for the most part, I am. I have written about it many times before on this forum – I love my closet! In this, I am most sincere and truthful.
However, something in the back of my mind convinced me to join this forum. I had known about the forum from various internet searches throughout the years, but had not spent any appreciable amount of time here, or on any other transgender support forum website, for that matter.
In the beginning of March, I joined the forum. Recognizing that I needed something to supplement my crossdressing life, and borrowing from the example of courage set forth by both my father and sister, I signed up, and jumped right in. I quickly began to realize, though, just how much I had missed out on throughout the years. I thought I knew myself. But what I learned relatively quickly greatly disheartened me, but only for a brief moment. I learned that Anne’s growth, development, and evolution had become stagnant and repressed, and had been so for many years. I really believed I had had a good handle on it, but the reality was that I did not, and that I was blind to it.
Since that time, I have grown and evolved by leaps and bounds. Prior to joining this forum, I had not ever knowingly communicated with another crossdresser. Now I have many crossdressing friends that I converse with regularly here. In fact, with the exception of my wife, prior to joining this forum, I had never even admitted to another person that I am a crossdresser.
So several months later into my membership here, just where exactly am I? I regularly visit my nail salon for pedicures; I am active on this forum; I have many crossdressing friends on this forum that I communicate with consistently; I have gone shopping for my own feminine clothing; and just on Friday I went shopping for makeup for myself, where I admitted to the SA that the makeup was for me, and showed a picture of my en femme self to the SA for purposes of assistance and improving my “look.”
I have spent my entire life in the closet. I shall remain in the closet. But, in the past couple of months, I have greatly extended the parameters of my closet. I must admit, it has been quite exciting, and I have no regrets to date. I never thought that I would be able to do such things, and yet, here I am doing them.
As amazing as it is, however, I do believe I am suffering from a bit of emotional overload. I have gone from zero to sixty in a very small amount of time. On the one hand, the past couple of months have been an amazing journey and experience, but on the other hand, just what exactly is happening to me?
On Friday, I posted a thread about my experience purchasing makeup in a department store. Working up my courage, in the end, I explained to the SA that the makeup was for me, and showed her a picture of myself en femme to assist her with her advice as to what I should consider and purchase. Before joining this forum, I would never have done this. Simply put, however, it was an incredibly liberating experience, and one which I loved every second of (with the exception of the initial nervousness and fear - lol).
In response to my thread, a member (a wonderful girl I have newly befriended) posted the following:
So is this where I am at now? Am I on a slippery slope? Her point is extremely well taken, and her response made me think. Clearly, I want more in my crossdressing life, and am taking steps to accomplish this. But at what cost? Or is there even a cost? I like to think I am smart enough not to risk such things as my livelihood simply for the pursuit of purchasing makeup and clothing in person, and I believe that I am. With great ease, on the other hand, I can acquire such things I require over the internet.Anne, meet Slippery Slope.
But purchasing these things myself, however, as I have just recently learned – WOW!!! Internet purchases, or purchases by and through my wife, are absolutely of no comparison. It was an amazing, emotional, and adrenaline filled moment. It felt right! It felt as this is how it should be! I was on an emotional high all day long as a result. I still am, actually, just remembering every detail of the experience.
Of course, given my circumstances, I would not do this in my home city. That would be too risky. So is it ok for me to do such things outside of my city, but within a reasonable travel distance? My selfish, needy answer is a resounding yes. With what little experience I have under my belt doing such things, I am already addicted to it. It would be extremely difficult, and depressing, to have to give this newly found sense of liberation and freedom up.
But why is this so? How can I spend an entire lifetime denying myself such things without a second thought, to all of a sudden, after joining this forum, doing such things becomes an addiction and necessity? Has the forum done this to me, or has the forum but merely assisted in opening my eyes to what has always been there within me, but that which I have failed to acknowledge? I cannot imagine the answer is not the latter, but still . . . .
In this regard, what is your experience herein? Is it similar to mine? Does my experience thus far even make sense? I have no doubt many others preceding me have experienced exactly the same scenarios and emotions, so any words of wisdom would be much appreciated!
If you don't like the way I'm livin', you just leave this long haired country girl alone:
Originally Posted by Anne2345
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