Melancholy thoughts

[Alyssa M.]

This is an experience I am having as I am preparing and planning for transitioning, a little bit difficult to put into words...

My emotions and thoughts have been a bit tumultuous, varying from euphoria to panic. Well, it's not really that bad. But sometimes it just seems like too much right now to think about, for instance, coming out to everybody I know -- colleagues, friends, family, etc. Other times I have to hold back, because I just want to do something, and I'm just so sick of waiting and pondering and dilly-dallying about it all. This isn't the slightest bit unusual for me. I think it goes with any big change in my life.

The thing that has struck me at odd moments and surprised me a little is this bittersweet melancholy that has come over me from time to time. It's similar to the feeling of nostalgia for early youth, the slightly sad yet fond feeling I have when I remember being a small child: playing on swings or riding a tricycle; peanut butter and jelly sandwiches; learning to swim at the lake; singing; all the fragments of the life of someone dear to me, who is no longer with me -- who is no longer me. There is no regret in this feeling, yet in a way I mourn the loss of that child.

I suppose I feel a similar way about my hometown. The culture and the weather never suited me there. The greatest stroke of luck I've had in my life was the chance to move away. Nevertheless, I'm fond of my hometown, and sometimes ache with homesickness for the place.

So now this feeling comes across me at times when I envision my future as a woman. I have a certain fondness for this identity I have created for the world, as artificial as it is in many ways, as many faults as I might have. I once read a description of life before transition as playing the starring role in a dreary and pooly attended but long-running off-off-Broadway play. Well, this might not be my dream role, but there's nevertheless a certain meloncholy in closing the show.

Have any of you had similar experiences? Does this mean I'm not a "real transsexual"? Am I just being overly sentimental like usual? Please share your thoughts.

[findingreason]

I definitely know what you are talking about  . I just know I need to transition to, even with the doubts flying in my mind constantly, but I do have nostalgia towards some memories of growing up. I guess I went with the flow when I was young. It wasn't all bad things, I wasn't miserable around the clock 24/7. It makes me feel guilty about this sometimes, like "if there were so many good times as well, why am I doing this?! Why am I here?!"

[funnygrl]

Great post Alyssa; can I say "ditto" and not get booted of the forum?

I can honestly say that I have had VERY simular experiences which I feel if I explained here would just plagiarize what you wrote. There are some differences like I could care less for my hometown, cause I never really had one for long as a child.

When I decided to transition back in Sept. 2007 every emotion rushed in. Panic and fear are good words to decribe most of my emotions at that time, I've had some very short periods of something resembling euphoria like when I went to my first support meeting and going to therapy.

And then as you've already stated "...at odd moments...bittersweet melancholy" for youth, that child we're not anymore. I've actually had periods of outright crying / bawling fit's curled up on the bed, lame huh?

Does this mean I'm not a "real transsexual"?

God I hope not, then we're both in trouble. >

[Robin_p]

I feel you, Hon!!!!

[gina]

Alyssa,
I do know what your experiencing right now as most of use been though it or still having it haunt us. (hug) I wish I had a easy answer to this but I'm afraid to say it isn't simple. Constant soul searching is a major part of the issues we have to deal with and as hard as it it a decision has to be made and followed out, this of cause after looking at every angle and reaction with all aspects of life. The one thing that helped me (not saying this is the greatest way) I just pushed the button and took the plunge. I'm talking about HRT I knew I have GID and didn't need someone charging big bucks to tell me that. Once on HRT believe it or not I was able to some degree sort out the mess and at the same time feel good about it. But a Doctor is a must for the safety of your life. Like I said, it helped a little for me but we are all wired differently. You will find you answers, just hang in there and stay strong.

gina

[Kate]

So now this feeling comes across me at times when I envision my future as a woman. I have a certain fondness for this identity I have created for the world, as artificial as it is in many ways, as many faults as I might have. I once read a description of life before transition as playing the starring role in a dreary and pooly attended but long-running off-off-Broadway play. Well, this might not be my dream role, but there's nevertheless a certain meloncholy in closing the show.

You mean kinda like...

In a quaint little tourist town, there sits a girl on some steps, lost in a daydream, head propped up in her hands, golden brown hair spilling down her back. Tears betray a soft smile, reflecting a sad quiet acceptance that this is the way it had to be, the way she knew it always would be. A soft breeze tosses her hair about her face, stray whisps sticking mischeviously to the tears on her cheeks.

She muses about that Other Life, the one which had brought her here, the images and sounds seeming more and more like a fading dream now. So much lost, so much that was so real at the time, now crumbled into fraying memories, echoes of a life now lost forever. How could all that be gone? It seems so much like a lazy summer daydream now, full of drama and noise, and yet... a life lived by someone else who's memories and experiences were still alive in her.

It had been such a long road to get here. "If only there had been an easier way..." but she knew better, it had played out the only way possible, she had merely walked the path she had marked out SO long ago.

She had come home to herself at last. The circle was completed, and she was whole, reborn, and yet... right back where she had started those many years ago before she had lost her way.

With a sigh and smile, she wipes away her tears with her palms... just as her friends show up and grab her hands, pulling her up, laughing, "Come ON, silly! There's so much we have yet to see...!"

That mood?

~Kate~

[deviousxen]

 My idea to help with that is to turn my shedding skin into a character. Immortalize your mask after exorcizing it...

Kinda like Majoras Mask

[Ell]

Alyssa,

i'm no therapist, but i don't see why you'd feel regret and loss of your childhood. i've been transitioning a year now, and i certainly don't feel that my childhood is any farther away than it would have been if i had not transitioned. i still turn to it for images and memories that are dear to me. it's still a part of me; transitioning has had no effect in that regard. at least, none that i can see.

as for regret for losing your current identity, i can totally understand that. i sobbed on the day when it seemed to me that my boy self "died."  but later on, you may shrug, or even chuckle

sobbed! *chuckle*

later i realized that my girl self had been there all along. *i* had been there all along (suffering, certainly, but there). i just hadn't been letting me accept me

i should sob for her, more like, for getting shut out of my consciousness every time she popped out.

-Ellie

[tekla]

Lucky for me the time and place I grew up in (SF Bay Area, late sixties and early 70) pretty much precludes memory.  All for the best.

[Lisbeth]

Hmmmm... My childhood was never happy enough to miss it.

[Alyssa M.]

Alyssa,

i'm no therapist, but i don't see why you'd feel regret and loss of your childhood. i've been transitioning a year now, and i certainly don't feel that my childhood is any farther away than it would have been if i had not transitioned. i still turn to it for images and memories that are dear to me. it's still a part of me; transitioning has had no effect in that regard. at least, none that i can see.

as for regret for losing your current identity, i can totally understand that. i sobbed on the day when it seemed to me that my boy self "died."  but later on, you may shrug, or even chuckle

sobbed! *chuckle*

later i realized that my girl self had been there all along. *i* had been there all along (suffering, certainly, but there). i just hadn't been letting me accept me

i should sob for her, more like, for getting shut out of my consciousness every time she popped out.

-Ellie

Ah, yes. I expected I'd be a bit unclear. The remembrance of my bygone childhood is not the new feeling, but it is similar to the new feeling of anticipatory nostalgia (if there can be such a thing) for my bygone male identity.

I've certainly felt the loss of that other childhood, that girl I ought to have been. Several years ago at Christmastime, my family visited some friends, another family with three children, all girls, at the time in their late adolescence. Each one of them was so strong and full of life. That middle child, athletic, smart, beautiful, confident -- she got to live the childhood I always dreamed of having. I mourned then that life I never lived -- indeed, I always have, and stilll do.

That mood?

~Kate~

Yeah, I guess that's the one. I suppose I've read those words of yours before. When I read the words "the girl on the steps" I always picture the front cover of Ian McEwan's "Atonement," which probably isn't far from the image or experience you are describing.

Thanks, all. It's nice to hear what each of you has to say. It helps a lot.