Sometimes when I'm sitting there doing my makeup for the day, (or more commonly, a long night alone with myself, since a life of shiftwork requires me to be nocturnal) or dressing for the evening, that old familiar morbid thought never fails to cross my mind.
"Uh, what if I suddenly am struck with death while dressed? How would they find me?"
In a small town such as where I live, you know the local ambulance guys, all of them, on a first name basis, along with most everyone else in town, and you know their ways, so I could reasonably guess down to the man who would be walking into my house to find a (hopefully) good-looking corpse. A few of them will have been around me dressed in life and would be amused, some others confused, I guess. You could say I'm half-outed.
This thought used to terrify me for some reason. Maybe I was worried for my wife's reputation.
But after years and years, I find the image has totally converted itself into one of amusement, and sometimes even of a final assertion of myself. I find myself almost intentionally dressing for this event. Now I go through my costume jewelry box and say: "ah these are the earrings I want to be found in if I die tonight." And as far as my wife goes, leaving her with an awkwardly dressed late husband to be carted away, I've come to think it would be kind of hilarious. Probably do her good.
Does anyone else have this experience? Does this self image of how we appear in death make some final statement on how we view our life? Or, are the years of night-shift just finally turning me into a genuinely morbid, spooky person? How would you want your mortal shell to be found if you were to suddenly perish while dressed at home?
I'd say this is more geared to the closeted, or half-outed CD, but I will assume that Transitioning TS men/women also carry a spectre of the dead self-image. I think it's in inherently human phenomenon, whether we are the type to want to dwell on it or not.