My choices

[SandraB]

I do some of my best thinking when I'm not. Just a while ago, I had a bit of an epiphany.  What may have pushed me to transition and come out the way that I did, I'm older than most here, is that I'd led my life up to now trading off my dreams for others, things that would make others happy, pushing mine aside. One of the most recent was paying off a large debt rather than buying a sailboat that I had always wanted. The trade- off was I would get a popcorn machine. I got neither.  One thing that I can always get, one way or another is money. Something that I cannot is time. Time is finite. Once it is gone and has passed, it is over. Done with. It was that realization that pushed me here today. It was that understanding that has made me comfortable with my choices now in life.

[ErinM]

Coming from a younger perspective, I too realized that losing time pushed me to start looking at why I wasn't where I wanted to be in life.

It was a couple years ago and I was 29. My friends were expecting their first child and I hadn't even dated let alone started the family that I wanted. It was when I started to look at why that I realized I needed to be honest with myself. I had wasted my entire adult life at that point running from myself.

I'm thankful that I didn't have a spouse and children to put through this, but I still feel pressure to get things together so to speak.

[JoanneB]

Comming from a likely bit older perspective, I mostly saw myself needing to do "what was expected". Also my second generation peasant East European background didn't help my thinking much when the generally attitude was "life sucks and then you die". Oh yeah, there is having family a little joy here and there but don't expect much more.

By most outside observers I've had a great life. Like you money has never been a real problem. (Nor finding sailboats) By me, my life was meaningless. Mainly since it wasn't really me living it. That was my sort of epiphany. That most of the major disasters in my life came about from an inner me, needing to be repressed, beaten down, subjugated trans self.

As I get older time becomes less and less of a friend. A couple of years ago my wife uttered to me "what sane person wants to be a 56 y/o woman?" Back then I was still leaning more towards wanting to avoid going that way. Yet it seems harder each passing month to feel that joy and happiness of living in my own skin in my male life. My destination for the sail I went out on 5 years ago was to bring the two great aspects of myself together into one whole healthy happy person. I am almost there. Fortunately, I didn't know enough to add genuine into the mix. I see only one way to achieve that at the cost of having to wait about 2 more years plus all the risks involved with a transition to full time.

[Megumi]

I was nearing my 30th birthday, still less than a month away from it right now. I was badly badly depressed while looking at the last decade of my life in comparison to the rest of my friends. They were all starting family's or moving on towards their future and here I was just floating there doing nothing. Sure looking at my life from the outside it's been good. I have a pretty decent job that makes me median household income but still I had done absolutely nothing over the last 10 years. I wasn't really doing anything at all to prepare for my future "still kick myself over that mentality right now", I was miserable about myself, always asking why I wasn't being true and simply just hiding from the world all by myself. Was that really all I did in my 20's, NOTHING??? Yes it was.... so I asked myself what do I really want to do in life? The answer was one I've always had hidden deep down below. It's time to start living the rest of my life and get things started so I set up an appointment with a therapist. Since then things have been great and difficult with dealing with the family drama but things are looking up and most of all I'm actually HAPPY in life right now. Yeah trying times are ahead but I can see a future in life where I couldn't before.

[izzy]

I was nearing my 30th birthday, still less than a month away from it right now. I was badly badly depressed while looking at the last decade of my life in comparison to the rest of my friends. They were all starting family's or moving on towards their future and here I was just floating there doing nothing. Sure looking at my life from the outside it's been good. I have a pretty decent job that makes me median household income but still I had done absolutely nothing over the last 10 years. I wasn't really doing anything at all to prepare for my future "still kick myself over that mentality right now", I was miserable about myself, always asking why I wasn't being true and simply just hiding from the world all by myself. Was that really all I did in my 20's, NOTHING??? Yes it was.... so I asked myself what do I really want to do in life? The answer was one I've always had hidden deep down below. It's time to start living the rest of my life and get things started so I set up an appointment with a therapist. Since then things have been great and difficult with dealing with the family drama but things are looking up and most of all I'm actually HAPPY in life right now. Yeah trying times are ahead but I can see a future in life where I couldn't before.

Oh gosh, I just past my 30th birthday, and I feel like i havent dont much other than working and more working. I havent progressed like other members of my family, with getting families, relationships. my life has been stagnant. I feel like this is the life that I should be having or I wasnt meant to be male.

[Natalia]

From a bit younger perspective...I'm 26 yo, but I feel that way too. I see all my friends getting married, having children, working on great jobs...and where am I?

Stucked finishing my degree, unemployed, gone trough the death of my father two years ago, having to deal with my mother's problems and not having time for my own problems...I never had a girlfriend/boyfriend/whatever...I just feel I am alive but I live as a dead.

I feel like I have wasted all my life until now...My dreams? I barely had time to dream.

Then I had an epiphany too and out of a sudden decided to analyse why my life is the way it is...and I finished realizing that the first thing wrong with me is the way I fit in the society. I don't fit at all, not as a male. Since I realized my condition as a MTF I am thinking different and I see the world with other eyes! I feel like my life has an objective now. I feel that I can be happy someday.

That won't change the fact that I have wasted all my life until now, but at least I can stop wasting it and I can start to live now.

[SandraB]

A pretty rough week for me emotionally, but I made it through unscathed. Again, I do some of my best thinking when I bathe, this morning doing my legs, always a happy and peaceful time for me.  I don't know if it's the hot water or the act. Whatever. Years ago, my first therapist told me that love is an open arm embrace, not a tight hug. I just smiled and nodded my head. Never got it. It took me years to figure things out. Now I understand. I see much clearer now.
Things haven't been going well here with family. Not at all. Acceptance is totally void. Maybe the passage of time will help that. Most everyone lives elsewhere. My sister, sent me pictures this week of my wedding ten years ago. A couple of days later, left a message that my shrink is going to Hell. One of my sons has wanted me to come see him, he's eight hrs away. This weekend is the last one until next October that he's free. I almost went. But the night before, I spoke to another son, he'd been encouraging me to go see him also (so he could fly down and they both could do a type of intervention). Once I figured things out, I opted out of going. To finalize things, once the first son understood that I wasn't coming down, started asking very uncomfortable questions and then telling me that he wanted to show me crime videos of penis amputations and mutilations. Last week I met with my step son. He's also my boss. That went so so. But the long and short of that is I will end up losing that job as soon as I start RLE, if not sooner.
But the real kicker in all of this, the common denominator, is I'm constantly told that I'm choosing myself over family, deciding to walk away from everyone. That's troubled me all week. I've wondered if that's indeed what I am doing. Abandoning my loved ones. I have two grandchildren that I have been shut out of now. But while bathing, it dawned on me that I am abandoning no one.  I'll still be around for everyone. I don't have to tell anyone why I have disappeared, gone away.
You see, this plays out one of two ways: You choose not to accept me (I'm fine with that) or you choose to accept me. There is no in between. No grey area. As quickly as you can cut me out, I can do the same. I've had enough pain in my life. There will be no more. You're either with me on this or not. Love: an open arm hug.
(an aside here: my sister's e-mails now go into spam and calls go un-answered...wife has divorce papers/forms in the car...it only gets better..at least I'm smiling now)

[Sophia Hawke]

Oh gosh, I just past my 30th birthday, and I feel like i havent dont much other than working and more working. I havent progressed like other members of my family, with getting families, relationships. my life has been stagnant. I feel like this is the life that I should be having or I wasnt meant to be male.

I used the work to quite the thoughts. 120 hours a week.  Every time id go to bed though, i would be stuck with them.  Eventually it took me to the point of not being able to take it anymore. I wanted to be physically female or die. I hated and still do hate my body.  I hated the way others interacted with me as a male in public and in private.  Nearly all of my oldest friends are married with kids.   I could never get there as male because ive always been female and the interactions on some levels made no sense to me.

[JordanBlue]

You see, this plays out one of two ways: You choose not to accept me (I'm fine with that) or you choose to accept me. There is no in between. No grey area. As quickly as you can cut me out, I can do the same. I've had enough pain in my life. There will be no more. You're either with me on this or not. Love: an open arm hug. (an aside here: my sister's e-mails now go into spam and calls go un-answered...wife has divorce papers/forms in the car...it only gets better..at least I'm smiling now)

I admire your resolve.  I'm also older, and not quite in your situation but can definitely relate to the pain part.  I wish you the best.