Envy and regrets.

[Sadie]

I am feeling down lately.  My thoughts and feelings make me feel like a horrible person.  Though the cause may not be what you think.  You see I have successfully transitioned.  I have been living full-time as a woman for over 6 months.  I have never been "clocked" or at least have it brought to my attention publicly.  I actually did what I set out to do, transition and live my life as a woman. I don't feel like I am done. Until I get my surgeries I won't feel fully complete.  However, I do not regret transitioning at all, it has been the most liberating experience of my life.

So why the regret? My angst comes from something inside me that is not pretty to look at, envy and jealousy.  I am a late transitioner. I waited until I was 38 to start truly pursuing my dream of being female.  Started hormones at 39, and started living full-time at 40, and now having just turned 41 and I have been successfully doing it for 6 months.  The feeling of liberation I feel has been incredible and to have successfully achieved this I count myself blessed, or at least I should.  However, now that I look at how much better I feel about myself and my life post-transition, I look back at my earlier life and wonder what the hell I was doing? Why didn't I do this when I was younger?  I could have if I was brave enough, if I had had the courage to stand up and claim what I wanted. I didn't though, no I lived my life on autopilot for 25 years. Knowing what needed to be done but living in denial. Constantly jumping to please everyone around me but myself. Now I see younger and younger trans women coming out and proclaiming what they want and taking it and I am filled with happiness that they can but at the same time I am filled with very ugly envy.  It's horrible and it makes me feel like an awful person but I can't help it.

I really did not enjoy my youth at all.  I was so busy playing the part that others wanted that I denied ever feeling my true feelings. I denied them so much I wouldn't even allow myself a release to cross-dress or do anything feminine. My only escape was playing female characters in role-playing and video games. I missed out on living a young woman's life completely.  It's hard because most people my age have very fond memories of their youth, especially ages 18 to 35, but I have none of that, my life prior to transition feels almost devoid of happiness and pleasure.  I get angry when young people are worried about what others will think of them and don't transition because one day they will realize it doesn't matter what others think it only matters that you made the most of your short life.  I made that mistake and don't want others to make it and yet at the same time when they do start to transition early I get so jealous it hurts. Transition for me has been so good that I can't help but wonder how much better it would have been at 20 years old or younger. I feel cheated by the loss of time and the feeling that I have only half a life to be female and not the best half.  However there are bright spots in my life like my children. They mean the world to me, they reduce the feelings that I wasted my life up to this point.  I would never have my children if I had transitioned early, but even that doesn't truly stop these feelings and that makes my shame even worse. I fully realize these are not healthy feelings.

I am not sure why I decided to bare my inner feelings here today. Maybe I just needed a cathartic release.  I must sound horrible to most of you, because I feel like a horrible person when I think this way. I have been feeling this for a while now and it's not something I see addressed very often by older transitioners. I wonder if I am the only one who feels this? Or perhaps it's too painful for some to admit?

I hope I haven't made anyone feel bad, that wasn't my intention. If your angry at me though I understand.

[JennX]

Good post. Thanks for sharing. I have very similar feelings on my life pre-transition. I'm 28 and often ask myself: Why didn't I do this sooner? In my reflection of this question, for a long time I had no idea transgender people existed. I heard about homosexuals (both gays & lesbians) but never met one in person until my teenage years. I grew up in a very rural environment (way, way out in the country)... we didn't have cable TV until I was 16 or so, my graduating class in high school had only like 60 kids in it total... so there were many things in life I was simply not exposed to, some good, some bad, some not at all. I also didn't have the benefit of the internet growing up, which also seems to make things so much easier relating to transition today. So my most obvious reason for not doing it sooner was ignorance, and of course along with fear. Fear of what my friends, family, et al would think and say. The upside is, although I didn't have many friends and missed out on many experiences growing up, I did do great in school, great in college & well in grad school too. Today I have a decent life and have a good paying job that has allowed me to be me and afford things like HRT/SRS/therapy/etc. So... would I go back and come out to everyone sooner? Maybe. I now love my life much more now, but that's the thing with life... it's constantly filled full regrets. Best not to focus on the past that you can't change and focus on the future, which you can.

[Misato]

I'm not angry.

I don't know where you are but I'd remind you that the world was different 20 years ago.  Resources were hard to find.  For example all I knew about people like us was from stupid, not to mention offensive, talk shows.

I would remind both you and myself, cause I could also use the reminder from time to time, that we musn't be greedy.  Yeah, we were late to the party but we got there, and we get to live our lives from now forward.  You've got kids you love and you're getting by with out getting clocked.  Those are two huge blessings!  We live in places where we could transition, not somewhere like war torn Somalia or Afghanistan.  How huge is that?

[Penny Gurl]

Envy, yes.. Regrets.. No.  So much of what you said rings true to the core.  It reminds me of a comment my mom made to me, she was bummed because she never had the privalage of raising a daughter, my response was that I didn't have the privalage of being raised as one.  There are many things I missed in my youth and 20's.  however the way I look at it now, I can truly appreciate my transition.  If I had done it when I was younger I don't know that it would be as important to me as it is now.  Also, after speaking with my mom chances are I would have been locked in my room or set up in a tower like Repunzel. So maybe I'm not that sorry I missed out on that.  In some weird backwards twisted way, I think knowing how my inner feelings were gave me strength to push foreword in my life and become the best adult that I could. 

[TanaSilver]

Sadie, envy is relative: I envy you. I have much the same history, including using role-playing and video games because I didn't have the courage to do real stuff. Now I'm 41, and dipping my toe in the pool so to speak, but I don't know if I will ever truly transition.

I think the bottom line is life moves on, whether we're ready or not. You're doing it correctly now, and that's all that really matters.

[MaidofOrleans]

I'm still young (mid 20s) and even I regret not having done this sooner. However in all honesty there is just too many factors to take into account. Many of us did not even have understanding or words to put to our feelings or the bravery to bring them to the open. I remember a particular instance when I was in high school I was taking a psychological exam administered by a school psychologist and one of the questions was "have you ever wanted to be a girl" and I totally froze up on the question like "should I put the truth?" I sat there for like 5 minutes and the doctor walked in and I freaked out and thought he would see what question I was sitting pondering. That's how scared I was of my feelings. I wonder what would have happened had I been truthful and bubbled "yes."

The present is now and your hindsight is 20/20. I'm sure we all have our regrets, but there really isn't anything we can do about it. No sense beating yourself up over the unchangeable. We just have to make the best with what we have and the time that is given to us.

[JoanneB]

Envy yes. Regrets and anger NO. Sadness, of course.

Back 30-40 years it was a far far different world. Resources were scarce even for me living across the river from New York City. What little I had did encourage me to try. To experiment. I learned, TWICE, that fully transitioning was something I could not do at that point in my life in my early to mid 20's. I had been a target about all my life for numberous things non-trans. At 6 ft tall trying to present as a woman in an age of 5'6" women I really stood out. The last thing I wanted and needed was a lifetime of being a target in front of me.

Some 30 years later as I now once again revisit transition I can honestly say I have zero regrets over not doing it earlier. I know I would have been far unhappier if I tried to stick with transitioning. Being trans has caused pain, not just for me but to others that I loved dearly and who loved me. That part I do regret.

[muuu]

.

[kelly_aus]

As a mid-30's transitioner, I realised that I can waste time and energy on envy and regret or I can live the hell out of the life I have now..

I chose life. And I'm having a blast.. I've found a partner that loves me, who cares not a bit about my past.. I'm studying in a course I'm enjoying. I love my life.

[M777a]

Sadie, I feel exactlly like you in most respects, but what I feel most is anger. I have been on this planet for over five decades and facing the tail end of my life and unlike you the time lost is greater. The anger I feel comes from, as you said, why didn't I do this sooner. For some reason I can't forgive myself for that even though I lived in rural america at a time when this wasn't even heard of. I hadn't heard of Christine Jorgenson until I was in my late teens and then I saw a small hope that I could be whole, but the question that I had to ask myself was, who could I talk to about it. Not my parents, their reaction to me was terrible,when I came out to them, and we have not spoken since. Bottom line is this; your feelings are yours and they are nothing to be ashamed of. Forgive yourself and look forward to a better life no matter how short or long it maybe. After writing this maybe I need to heed my own advice. Thanks for  expressing you feelings it has helped me to see myself better.

[Carlita]

I'm 54 and I'm only now starting a process that has pretty much been inevitable since I lay in the bath 40 years ago and prayed for some accident or disease that would take away all the crap between my legs so that I could be a girl. Even now, because of personal and professional commitments - most importantly having a kid in high school - it will be two years before I can even think of going public. So I have every reason to feel bad about all the missed years. And if transition, however painful, leads to the fulfilment I'm seeking (and I'm pretty sure it will) I'm bound to regret the decades of happiness I've been denied.

BUT ... JoanneB is right. It really was a different world all those years ago. There was far less understanding of gender dysphoria - even most psychiatrists regarded it as nothing more than a form of sexual fantasy with no basis in reality - and society as a whole was even less tolerant of transsexuality than it is today. So I could never have had my career. I would have been forbidden from getting married and would never in a million years been allowed to adopt the children that, post-SRS, I could not have helped conceive. And since I love my work and my family, how can I regret the circumstances which allowed me to have them?

I was thinking earlier this morning how the fictional stories I write seem to have a life of their own. However much I may think I know how a book is going to go when I start writing, the characters and their lives very soon take over and begin shaping what I right. It's as if there's just a way a particular story has to be and there's nothing one can do - if one writes with any honesty - to make it go another way.

And our lives are like that. They have a certain shape, a certain structure, a certain narrative. And we shouldn't complain if that narrative isn't the one we'd like. Far better to accept that it is what it is and try to live it as well and as happily as one can.

[Henna]

Sadie, I understand completely what you are saying. I'm 35 and just currently heading towards transitioning. I also feel really envy to younger transiotioners, an envy which is actually so bad, that I really have to force myself to support group meetings. I would just rather stay at home than to meet those people, who are young and can enjoy their life to fullest.

[Colleen Ireland]

Late transitioner?  Oh, puh-LEEZ. I'll turn 57 this year, and I began at 54. Had my surgery last September. I'll be on HRT for 2 years at the end of March. Even I don't really see myself as a LATE transitioner, I know women transitioning older than me. I certainly wish I COULD have done it sooner, but it is what it is. I'm certainly much happier, but yes, there are things I grieve. So it goes.

[Carlita]

Late transitioner?  Oh, puh-LEEZ. I'll turn 57 this year, and I began at 54. Had my surgery last September. I'll be on HRT for 2 years at the end of March. Even I don't really see myself as a LATE transitioner, I know women transitioning older than me. I certainly wish I COULD have done it sooner, but it is what it is. I'm certainly much happier, but yes, there are things I grieve. So it goes.

Well said!!

[Colleen Ireland]

Thanks!  I like to hope that we're a vanishing breed, and may one day become a quaint memory, like Brylcreem, typewriters, secretaries and such (late transitioners, that is).

[Carlita]

Thanks!  I like to hope that we're a vanishing breed, and may one day become a quaint memory, like Brylcreem, typewriters, secretaries and such (late transitioners, that is).

I'm so old, when I started my career in journalism we still used manual typewriters and copy-paper!

[Colleen Ireland]

When I started my career in computers, we still used punched cards.

[Misato]

When I started with computers my CPU was 16-bit, and it wasn't an x86.

I'm glad I didn't wait any longer to transition.  Given that the future hasn't happened yet I'm not losing anything that made me, me, by projecting forward.  I just don't want to be greedy with my past.  I got where I was trying to go successfully.  Why risk mucking that wonderful result up?

[JoanneB]

When I started with computers my CPU was 16-bit, and it wasn't an x86.

When I started computers 4 bitters (4040) were used in calculators and Intel soon came up with an 8 bitter, the 8080. You even got the honor of building the system yourself, as in actually having to solder parts into PC boards. If you had 2K of RAM you were rich. Even richer, a paper tape reader. The real big bucks went for the 8" floppy single sided hard sectored floppy drive and held a whopping 360K, provided you picked the right formating scheme when you hand crafted your CPM operating system for your drives.

To this day I am still amazed thinking of the software wizards at MicroPro who gave us Wordstar, an amazing word processor w/spell check that ran using next to nothing in terms of RAM and disk space. I like to think some of my programming efforts were at a par with theirs.

[translora]

I love where this thread has gone, and I simply must join in! Allow me to assume my Old Lady Voice:

"When I started my transition, we didn't have any of those dang old 4-bit or 8-bit thingies. We had one bit! And it was on or off! And we LIKED it! And back then I had to walk six miles to school in the snow in my Mary Janes...!"



Lora