Caroline, it's funny, but sad sometimes when a pretty girl like you sees no progress when we see progress in leaps and bounds. I don't see you as a woman fishing for compliments, but I think you started flying from a good base (pun intended!) in that you weren't exactly a masculine looking male, and I see some huge changes in you. You look like a pretty woman, Caroline, stop thinking (and worrying) so much, you pass. Keaira, I see big changes in you too. In fact, I see changes in every single one of us. I think we all need to lighten up a bit on ourselves. It's one thing to try your hardest to look your best, but another thing altogether to find every flaw in yourself, real and imagined. I took about three to four months to start losing the image of that ugly, fat, pathetic, and suicidally depressed male impersonator I saw in every mirror and begin to see the woman I was becoming and am right now and will still be becoming years later. I think the biggest change in me besides losing 64 lbs., (29.1 kilos for you metric girls, lol) is hmmmm? So many things are completely different about me from HRT and living full time I can't even begin to put any level of importance to more than a few, but I know this, I'm really glad that I was given the opportunity to transition to full time only six weeks after I began HRT, because it forced me to watch, listen to and emulate those women I thought were pretty, classy, and/or carried themselves with confidence even if they were overweight or older. It made me see that how a woman looks is but a fraction, albeit a large one, of who we're becoming and strive to be. Also, I've learned that cis women come in all shapes, sizes and behaviors, and for any girl in this particular thread who feels she doesn't pass and never will, go to a mall, sit down to coffee or tea and watch the women who are in there. I wouldn't think of dressing like lots of the women in there, but they don't have the feeling they absolutely have to look like women because they were born female. I also realized early on that being a woman is sooo very different and better than I ever imagined. Living full time forced me to 'grow up' and into being female at all times, because it's who I am now, and this is the life I've happily embraced. But for instance, to go out in public without makeup is something I would never do now, even though I have few worries about passing even without makeup. I don't want to take even one day for granted, because it took sooo very, very long for me to get to the point of living full time that it would be like slapping God in the face after He allowed me to live through three very serious suicide attempts, several heroin overdoses, and at least four other near death experiences. I lived through these things because I was meant to, not from happenstance or just blind luck. I have become on the outside what I always was on the inside, a dyed in the wool. flesh and blood female. The thing I never counted on was being this happy and at peace with myself, God, and the world in which I now live instead of taking up space. I'm sorry for my long winded thoughts, but I crushed, stuffed and bottled up who I really am, along with my needs, prayers, hopes, dreams, pain, hurts and depression for over forty years, telling only my family, my closest friends and a few women I was involved with about who I am, who I wanted to be with and why I was so unhappy. I have a hard time once in awhile even now reconciling my former existence with my present happiness and if I deserve to be here. And the answer is YES! Hugs, Mira
March?>2010, 226 lbs.
June 2012, 178 lbs.
Nov. 2012, 168 lbs.
Jan. 2013, 162 lbs.
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and once again, wow!
that's quite amazingness.
