None of us can go back and one of the cruelties of being transsexual is that we miss bits of life that others sometimes consider unimportant or take for granted. Think about childhood clothing, first dates, prom and a prom dress, being friends with a group of like-minded girls, serious romance, marriage, children, and all the negatives, like periods and being born into second-class citizenship. Conventional wisdom says to live in the now, that no good comes from wondering "what if" and yet sometimes, I do wonder "what if". The sense of loss that accompanies that "what if" is huge. So at 51, I find myself trying to reclaim a tiny bit of that, wearing clothes that are too young, acting younger, doing things that most middle aged women would consider inappropriate. Perhaps I look foolish; I don't really care. Problem is, none of this is much more than a few drops in the huge sea of lost womanhood. There's no solution I know; just musing...
Dawn
Quotewearing clothes that are too young, acting younger, doing things that most middle aged women would consider inappropriate . . . I don't really care. . . There's no solution
I don't know Sweetie but it sounds to me like you have the perfect solution! ;D Keep it up!
I missed some (I transitioned at 24) but not as much as many "ordinary" people would think. I started living a dual life about age 14 or 15, so I got to experience a lot of things TWICE - once from each side of the fence! >:D Damned few people in this life get THAT opportunity! ;D
Quote from: Northern Jane on November 17, 2005, 09:46:56 AM
Damned few people in this life get THAT opportunity! ;D
I look at it with this perspective : Few people in this life are damned to have this happen to them.
I know where you're coming from Dawn. But at 54 I don't have time time to think about the what if's as I'm too busy making sure that what ever life I have left will be the happiest possible life for me and those who are near and dear.
The only "what if" that I find myself thinking about all the time is "what if I win the lottery" :) I've tried not to dwell on my past. Yes I shop too much, I buy cloths that are way too young for me as well, yes I'm trying to catch up, and as Jane said that is what you are doing and that in it's self is a solution.
Why dwell on the past, you can't change it, live for now and your future. Have Fun, we only get one life to live and we don't get a second chance so live it to the fullest.
Chat later,
Steph
Quotewe only get one life to live and we don't get a second chance
I'm not so sure on that.
Quote from: Jessica on November 17, 2005, 01:10:10 PM
I'm not so sure on that.
Hey there Jessica,
I think that you may have come up with a new topic for the Spirituality forum. What do you think? Stick your neck out, take a risk, challenge us...
I dare ya, nope I double dare ya... ;D ;D ;D ;D
Steph
Dawn,
I have to say enjoy yourself!!! You are not being malicious, or evil, or anything else horrible. Why shouldn't you enjoy? You have that right. So, if dressing and acting younger is helping you to enjoy life then go for it. While life has dealt you a raw deal, you can still enjoy your life. Go for it. Don't worry about others and what they think. They don't have a clue what it is like for you. Which makes not one wits difference anyway.
I believe if you are not malicious to others, or harming (physically or spiritually) yourself, then you should do as you please. I wish there was a way to turn the clock back for you and all here, but since that can't happen, enjoy the rest of your long life.
And Jess, ;D Go for it. Could be a very spirited and interesting topic.
Have a great day!!
xagira
I understand Dawn,
I'm a bit older at 58 and I feel the same way. I have lost most of my life. I don't think it's something we can just push aside and say get on with our lives. That loss is a part of me, it makes me different from other women. I do and will think of this loss a lot during my life. I wont let it depress me but it will always be with me. I don't dress younger but I do get silly and run screaming thru the house on ocassion like a ten year old. This is just a fact of life for those of us who have/are transitioning late in life. I'm so happy to see all the young people we have post here, it is wonderful that they will not have to suffer the same fate.
beth
I must confess to a bit of a predeliction for skateboarder clothes and the occasional backwards ballcap. Luckily I look 19 instead of 43 so it doesn't stand out too badly, and I wouldn't wear it to work.
Dennis
What If? It's an interesting game to play as long as you don't let regret become the central player. I think of what if from time to time. Who doesn't? I remember when I was 16. I was in New Orleans. I had hitchhiked there from Mobile. I was picked up by a man who knew people. I stood before the gates in the then mecca for young TS's. I did not enter. The road taken by those who entered by that gate could not be good. I doubt many of those survived.
I was fortunate. My grandmother had indulged me early on and let me be the innocent little girl that I was and taught me the meaning of being a lady by her late 19th century standards. When I was offered what they had to offer I had the good sense to turn it down. What if? Life would have been different, probably short, and most deffinetly if survived made me very bitter. Hardly the woman I would want to be.
What if? So many twists and turns in life. The road not taken. I am happy with the person I have become, happier still that that person is the woman I have always been inside. Everything I did, everything I have experienced has gone into this person. No regrets. It would be nice if I went back in time and be at that age knowing what I know now I probably could make the transition everything I would like it to be, but, even with that, there would be no gaurantee.
And I think of all the things I would have missed, like meeting my wife. Dawn, grab what you have. Embrace that inner child and be young if you want to. While living in the Santa Cruz area in California my wife and I would go to a place called the Catalyst. On Fridays they had jazz sessions. There was a lady who would come who was dressed in all rainbow colors and would play a tambourine and dance through the crowd. She had to be at least 80. Everyone loved her and she made everyone feel good and young and alive with her prescence.
If you want you can dress as young as you like. Don't worry what others might think. It is your path and your life. Live it.
Cassie
QuoteMy grandmother had indulged me early on and let me be the innocent little girl that I was and taught me the meaning of being a lady by her late 19th century standards.
Much is explained dear Cassie,
QuoteConventional wisdom says to live in the now, that no good comes from wondering "what if" and yet sometimes, I do wonder "what if".
There is one way to look at what if. If things were different in my past would I be what I am today. I personally like my friends at Susan's and would choose them to be no different to the open sharing people I choose to be with.
Yes they could have made different choices and experienced other things. The question I have then is would they be different to what they are now. I see a group of compassionate, caring and open people who seem to be accepting of me for who I am.
If my life had been different would I be here. I fear not and in that case I would as likely not even know all of you and looking
forward what a loss that would be.
(Now teary eyed) Shelley
Then it's definitely another advanatage of looking on the brighter side of life.
Shelley
<<<<< I have lost most of my life. I don't think it's something we can just push aside and say get on with our lives. That loss is a part of me, it makes me different from other women. I do and will think of this loss a lot during my life. >>>>>
So sad! It is true that the loss is a part of you, but only you can determine if it will define you. While your sense of loss makes you different from some women in some fashion for sure, you need to keep the larger perspective. In that regard, your loss actually ties you to other women, and gives you common ground. The life of most women IS filled with loss -- just because you do not see their loss does not mean it does not exist -- just as they cannot see what you have have lost in your lifetime, but it is a tie that binds us on on a common thread.
Is it not better to focus on the rest of your life? Personally, I have always maintained that I would much rather live in a fashion, hell bent for leather for five years, than to live for decades doing nothing. Try to put together the best five years of your life. Why not choose to focus on doing as much as you possibly can now, and stop looking back. Just go like hell! Before you know it, 2 or three or five years will have passed, and the past won't feel so oppressing.
The future will get here whether you focus on it or not, and the past is like an anchor holding you back from enjoying the present.
missing bits of life? What if? Losses? Dressing to young for age? Yes, there is to much involved to even truely realize how different one could have been if things had been different, either in desires or missed oportunities. So many varibles.
The personal losses I can live with easily enough, a matter of payment for what I want, it is the mental conditioning that occurred over the years that I regret. Some of the attitudes and behaviors I picked up in all the years of denial, and denial is something that continues to crop up long after I would have thought it eliminated. It shows in so many little ways in things that are hard for me to let go of, but realize I must.
Missing bits of life? Yes, there is so much I never experienced as a female and more that I never will, but I don't ponder on such things.
Dressing to young? Most often yes. I am in an emotional sense, a very young post teen, I never developed past that mental stage other then to learn about reality and the harsh consiquences of it, but still, I am a child in an adult environment and think, act and look far younger then my chronilogical age. Just another consiquence of not being truely alive until middle age.
I can't do anything about the losses of life, but I do all I can about the gains of the future with the primary goal of just being at peace with it all and learning to overcome my shortcommings.
What if? Well, I deliberately determined a course of action back in the 70's that I felt was necessary for survival. What if I had not made the decisions I did, how different life would have been, or would I even have survived if I hadn't? And was it necessary at all to further compound the problem with actions and decisions I made afterwards? I'll never know, so all I can do is work with the created problems and deminish or eliminate thier effect on me.
What if is endless and never ending, What Now is more important to me.
Terri
Who in life doesn't spend at least a little time thinking "what if"?
I often wonder what life would be like if I had been born as the girl I was supposed to be. Or what if I had looked into my gender identity issues when I was a teenager, or even when I was twenty before I met my wife.
Had I not waited (or chickened out to be more realistic) I would never have met my soul-mate. I would never have felt the joy, the excitement, the beauty of the birth of a child ... twice. I would never have felt the pain, the sorrow, the devastation of the death of a child. I would not know the pride, the pleasure or the frustration of raising a wonderful son, being able to watch him turn into a polite and respectable young man. These things have shaped who I am today and I will never know if life would be better or worse if I had not experienced them ... I only know it would have been different.
I think the point has been made that the key is to not dwell on the past. It would be like focussing on your rear view mirror while driving down the highway. You will eventually have a bad crash if you don't look at where you are going ... and you truly don't have the same perspective when you look back at what is already behind you.
Well said Tifffany,
Life is about what brought us to this point in time rather than what didn't and then what we are going to do next based on where we have come from.
Shelley
Hi Dawn,
After reading your post, I sat here and thought about it for a moment. There are a lot of times that I wish that I could go back and relive a certain time in my life. But then I got to Stephanie's post and I saw"Why dwell on the past, you can't change it, live for now and your future."And I thought that that is what I have to start doing. Move forward with my life and make the best of it. :) By going back, sure I could correct many things, but would I be happy with what would happen in the future if I corrected my past? ???
Well said Gina,
I knew you had it in you. You are starting to develop into a more positive person and I have to say the look suits you.
Hugs Shelley
Thanks Shelley,
I had to stop feeling sorry for myself and I had to pull up my nylons and become a stronger woman and be more positive and move forward! :)
No back sliding for this girl!!! ;D
Gina
QuoteNo back sliding for this girl!!!
Don't worry if you do. We'll be here to toss you a line and pull you back again. Don't put extra pressure on yourself. Nobody needs that. You just keep growing like you are.
Cassie
That's a great attitude Gina. I'm proud of you, I know I could use a more positive outlook sometimes.
beth
What if's and looking back only lead to depression and thoughts of suicide.
Quotelooking back only lead to depression and thoughts of suicide.
I don't know about that one, I would think it's a matter of going over regrets or of self improvement. I know there are things in my past that I really can't bear to fully face, but I must go back into them in order to reach closure on why certain things happened and deal with the problems in order to eliminate thier power over me, in which case it prevents suicide, or at the least, discomfort with myself.
Each of us come with different levels of background. For me dwelling on what if's and generally dwelling on the past can (and has been) dangerous sometimes. You can't change anything that has already happened (unfortunately), so I try to move on and not try to look at the past to "reach closure".
Sarah
For me, the "what ifs" are not a case of looking back, but accepting and dealing with loss--the loss of my teen years as a girl and much of my adult life as a woman. Those years can never be replaced and are somewhat like a friend who has died, in that something dear is lost forever. With this loss--as any--must come a period of mourning. Some people need closure, some don't, in time, I'll come to accept this loss philosopically. Right now, it is too new to simply say "what if" and move on. In a sense, I--as a woman--have been in prison for over thirty years and having just been released, am still somewhat bewildered by the world and everything I've missed.
Dawn
I can't see any good coming from looking back and saying what if I had done this or done that. No good can come of it. I hate to go biblical but I believe there is great wisdom in the passage. "He who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not worthy of the kingdom of god." Take it for what it's worth.
Cassie
Thanks for throwing me a line if I'm going down Cassie. It's nice to know that I can depend on my sisters. :) Pressure only causes stress, and stress is one thing I don't need. :(
My attitude is slowly improving Beth and without the support of my friends and sisters of Susan's I don't know wheere I'd be. :)
Gina
Just to add my 2 cents here. I don't think I could deal
with this another time. But, then maybe I would know to face it sooner rather than going through years of denial and
torture.Iwould start in my late teens or early 20s.
Then again, maybe I could be born in the RIGHT gender
this time. But, like some here saying that you cant relive the past just live what you have left, the best you can, very good advice. :angel:
Rather than What if or What Now I'm look at life and saying What Next. Always looking forward I can change the pass.
As you think you are. So be as young as you want to be JenniferElizabeth. Today is a new day to live to your fullest.
Jillieann 8)
I know what you're talking about.
Everyday I wake up and am not a girl, I think "Great, another day wasted."
I really do wish I could have had the chance to do all of those things young girls do and take for granted... I suppose we all do...
1.) I have to say this to Dawn and any other that looks back so often mourning a past they didn't have. Mourning I always thought came from loosing something you had or knew. If it's a past and bunch of experience you didn't get then you shouldn't be mourning what you didn't have.
2.) Anytime you spend in the frame of mind makes you miss out on what should have been happening during that time you are loosing. You have truely lost the time, that memory that could have been being made. Now in that time frame no memory was made and nothing to look back on fawndly. To me it feels empty and pointless to mourn something that never was or never happened. Time does not stand still for no man or woman... you lost it... it's gone... Why be doublely loosing it? If you feel your loosing it agian because you lost it before when you didn't have it to loose in the first place. But the second time around choosing to loose it again is really putting yourself through imagining to much hurt and pain. Your suposed to be fair, firm and freindly to yourself... Why is it ok to make yourself hurt over dweling on something that didn't take place? It's not very freindly to cause yourself more grief. It's not fair to take away precious time thinking of what might have been in stead of what is and can be now and making a memory from it. It's not being firm to allow yourself to chuck moment after moment out the window and never be able to get it back to live it over again. It just doesn't happen that way. You would be alot better off learning to accept what you can change and forget all that you can't and don't let it come trying to creep back in and take away more of what you deserve, your womanly experiances.
Smiles,
Peggiann
If you look at worst-case scenarios, it can help...
Frank Lloyd Wright, America's most famous architect, had a few hundred designs that were never built. You look at most of them and they are so obviously the work of genius but they didn't go beyond the paper stage. When Mr. Wright was asked, late in his life, what his favorite design was, he would respond, "the one I'm working on now." He didn't lament, as his followers have, that some of his most incredible designs were not built. He looked to the present and the future.
If Van Gogh had tortured himself with the fact that he didn't sell any paintings (except one, to his brother), he probably would have stopped painting. He found joy and satisfaction in it and kept on.
If Frank Lloyd Wright and Van Gogh could keep doing what they were doing despite regrets of the past, I figure that my not going to the prom or dating boys or getting married and having babies is insignificant compared to their losses.
Or, taking a cue from the "road not taken" idea... So many of us have made mistakes in the flash of an instant. Think of the person who drifts asleep while driving and ends up killing someone. Again, their angst of that is far more horrible than my lament of not having a female past.
I know it's extreme to think of such comparisons, but it helps me get through the day.
Some of you mention being childlike.... My best friend (who is 3 years older) is someone who helped me go through transition, clueing me into female things. She became a mother to me in many respects. There is a pseudo-game we play almost all the time wherein she treats me like I'm her daughter. It gives me the freedom to act as a girl-kid. It helps me not lament the past because this game affords me the chance to LIVE today as a girl-kid. It's fun and it also gets me through the day.
Teri Anne
Also is the "not crying over spilt milk" line of thought...
Yep, I sometimes regret that I didn't do this earlier, but my experiences have shaped who I am. I wouldn't be the same person if I'd transitioned earlier.
Dennis