Thank you all for reading and commenting on my GRS experience. I'm glad it was helpful. I've been helped by so many who've gone before me that it's just my way of paying it forward.
I've only been in transition for a little over two years, but it seems like forever. The hardest hurdle was just accepting myself for who I really am. Then, it was deciding to make amends for all the years of denial and self-hate.
I learned that the decision to transition is, as much, a decision to change your life in a very fundamental way. Trying to preserve your old life is futile. You have to be willing to let everything and everyone go; to start over. Only those who are willing to transition with you will have a place in your new life. Some will choose to journey with you, others will not.
Being true to yourself is so vital to personal growth and happiness that it shouldn't be made a second priority in one's life. But, isn't that what we've been doing for years and years? Having missed the boat, so to speak, on confronting my transgender nature early in life for all kinds of reasons, the possibility of doing anything after years of conditioning myself to fulfilling a male role, suffering the ravages of testosterone on my body, and building a life around my constructed male persona, always seemed to be the most unattainable goal I could ever set for myself. The obstacles were so numerous and onerous, I couldn't image overcoming them and finding peace of mind.
It was only when the pain of gender dysphoria became so great that these practicalities no longer held me captive, was I able to start my journey to find the person I had buried so deeply in this protective male shell. That's when I decided that nothing was worth enduring the pain any longer. It's a point that bodes great risk for transgender people because it sometimes leads us to escaping the pain altogether through suicide.
I'm here to say that our fears always seem to exceed the reality of our situation. I've had trans friends say, "Well, you had so much going for you. You pass as a woman, something I'll never be able to do." Or, "You had the money for surgeries, how am I going to afford that?"
What people don't see is the story of my struggle. There was a time in the beginning when I, too, didn't think I could pass as a woman. I was convinced that I could never make a go of transitioning to a more satisfying life. My lack of insight, self-confidence, and just plain fear kept me frozen in my state of angst.
It was the example of others, the courage of others, the guidance and counseling of others that got me to set out on my own path of self-discovery and a better life.
As Daniel Burnham, the architect of master plans for the development of a number of cities, including Chicago, Manila and downtown Washington, D.C. once said, "Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency."
