Okay, so, you don't know me. Aside from a post or two here and there I'm usually a bit quiet and shy when it comes to message boards. Dunno why.
But maybe someone or several someones has been where I am now, and maybe that someone or several someones can tell me how to get out of this funk, to focus on hopeful and good things again. Maybe someone can cheer me up.
I am totally fishing for emotional support, and I'm sorry. I know message boards tend to be a bit like large extended friend circles and when someone who hangs around quietly for a long time finally says something there's a bit of a 'where were you when---?' that goes on.
I'm 29. In about three months I'll turn 30. And that number, that age, keeps hitting me in the face with feelings of dread and hopelessness related to my transition.
I started transition at 23. I was on hormones for about nine months, I think, before my parents threw me out (I had moved home after leaving college for a while so I could start transition, and was a bit slow finding a new place to live) when they found out that I was secretly in a romance with a young man around my age and planning to go full time.
I restarted my hormone treatments about six-nine months later and since then I've been very hit and miss with funding. One month I'd have enough money for hormones, the next two I wouldn't. And it's not like it was a low-priority cost for me, I'd skip paying the rent, the power, the phone -- I just never seemed to have enough for everything I needed just to stay alive. I'd be able to afford them for about four months, and then I'd suddenly have an emergency -- broken foot, severe depression one winter/spring (I went to a bad place emotionally, not connected with transition, more to do with parental rejection, and got very scary), unemployed TWICE in the last two years.
It has now been almost 18 months since I was last on hormones. For the better part of the last five years I've been on and off them enough to ... A) severely ->-bleeped-<- up my body chemistry, and B) sustain a level of passable female-ness even without having finished a 3 year transition. I have ... moderately full B-ish cup breasts (slightly too small for my 5'11/6'00 frame) that are still a bit conical but much more womanly-breastish than early pubescance-girly. But for the last 18 months I havent been able to afford any hormones. I was unemployed for six months, and then when I found a job my rent went up by over 20% and my power bill quadrupled that same month. All of my hormone-savings went up in smoke. And since the recession hit a year or so ago it seems like all bills everywhere have dropped their 'you can skip a month and pay 2 months together' final notices and have just adopted 'if you dont pay us in 15 days we shut you off/evict you' policies instead, and let's face it. On hormones and freezing to death (in my own home or on the street) does not radically improve on my situation. So it's been 18 months, and my face has lost the feminine roundness from hormones -- it looks somewhere between androgynous and masculine again, sans babyfat this time.
I mean, I still pass as well as I ever did, I guess. I'm much better with makeup than I was when I first went full time at 23, and yes, I have been living full time since then. I have long (thin, but long) hair that looks very feminine and I have wider hips than I suspect I deserve given my track record with hormones. My shoulders are still too broad, but my arms are long and thin and my hips arent completely out of balance with my shoulders, and when I can control my genetic disposition towards having a potbelly (thank you daddy) I look fairly hot for a girl -- I had a pair of young men give me their sweatshirt a few days ago because I was shivering outside waiting for the bus. I was hiding my face from them, but they took me as writ -- female.
But ... I've always had in the back of my mind this thought that as long as I could get my transition fully on the road again and mostly over by the time I turned 30 that somehow things would be good, that I'd still be young and passable and able to be semi-stealth and have semi-normal relationships with people as a semi-normal looking tall girl.
But now that decade marker is coming up, and while I'm sort of managing to convince myself that I can consider myself a YOUNG WOMAN until I'm around 40, I feel as though the window of opportunity to 'make it' as a young, passable post-transition woman is closing on me, and that anything I do after 30 will just result in an unhappy future of dissapointment for me.
Not that I would stop living as myself, or transition back. Nothing like that. I've been out so long I wouldnt know how to play the part of a guy again, not that I want to. I just feel like yes, I do this because this is who I am, but there's no more rainbows on the horizon. No more hope for happiness. I dont want to be one of those freakishly weird old women who cling to their lost youth and pretend to be a decade younger than they are (although I have... considered it...) And I know there are plenty of beautiful women who are 35 or 40ish (Charisma Carpenter, Angelina Jolie, Carmen Electra) and plenty of beautiful women who are over 40...
I'm just... I dunno, reaching, I guess. For someone, anyone, who has been where I have been, who can... give me hope.
Sorry to dump this all on you. Maybe just venting is enough. I'll see.
I think it's pretty brave to put yourself out here on this forum, so I think you're stronger than you give yourself credit. I'm heading towards a similar situation money wise, but I haven't come out to my parents yet so there's still a chance they'll help me out with some of the transition related expenses (fingers crossed!).
Your post also gives me some hope -- at least from my end of the tunnel, being able to pass well enough even while struggling on a budget is good news...
So I dunno, just trying to offer some positive notes for you. Hopefully things will turn around financially for you.
Hi Bella.
I think women in general have a huge focus on age. But you don't come with an expiration date. Just like you pointed out - there are beautiful women in their 40s and not so beautiful women in their 20s.
It's not the age, it's how you take care of yourself.
Hey, I'm one of those freakishly weird old women (50) who pretend that they're a decade younger than they are.
Moreover, I'm happy being one.
All age limits are artificial, just get on with your life.
Good luck.
Quote from: Renate on April 11, 2009, 02:11:15 PM
Hey, I'm one of those freakishly weird old women (50) who pretend that they're a decade younger than they are.
Moreover, I'm happy being one.
All age limits are artificial, just get on with your life.
Good luck.
A decade. How about two? I am 55 and have to remind myself that I am not 30 ish. At least I don't think I am 20 again. ;D
Janet
I agree that age is largely unimportant and we tend not to focus as much inour Ahm 50s.
But I understand how you are feeling at the 30 approach. Life is tough all over in the financial mess. But you are further along than many.
Hold on in there and keep positive. You do sound a beautiful young lady.
Love and Hugs
Cindy James
Try to look forward, not back. I am 32 and since I was your age (terrible 29, ew I hated it) I just have been forcing myself to get used to the idea that I'm old (at least not young anymore) and fitting the way I see myself into that frame. It feels like this may be more your issue than losing the chance to be a post-op "young" woman or anything like that.
I do wish I could have spent my 20's as a woman, my teens, my pre-teens, etc., but since it takes the energy of a small star to send a few atoms back in time (theoretically), it just doesn't seem worthwhile getting worked up about wanting the past to be different.
I wish by the time I was 29 I had made as much progress as you have. You are way, way ahead of me as far as that goes, if that helps at all. Honestly, I should be asking you for advice rather than giving it.
Although some will question this statement, in my experience, the age you start isn't necessarily as important if your predisposition is towards feminine features. And based on your self-description it sounds like you have that in spades.
While I lived as a male I was fairly effeminate in appearance. When I finally decided to begin HRT in my 30s, the changes to my body were pretty remarkable. For the most part, unless someone knew me before going full time, people now have no clue about me.
By your use of hormones, it sounds like you've primed your body. In all likelihood, when you do begin a steady hormone regiment, things will progress well for you. You should have hope since the additional time between then probably won't hurt you too much.
While it would be nice to be able to transition at an early age and enjoy life as a young woman you are assuming that all young women enjoy life. Yes the age that a person transitions has it's advantages and disadvantages a persons happiness regardless is what is important.
I am what some may consider a "Freakishly Old Woman" but at 57 I have never been happier and content in all my life.
LR
Thank you ladies.
I'm still worried, still feeling doubty and discontent, but the encouraging comments have helped. I guess the only thing to do is take things a day at a time.
<3
You sound like a strong woman who has just hit a low spot in the road. Don't focus on the age thing too much. I take a philosopical view of these things. There is a quote by Babatunde Olatunji I like alot that I re-read when I start getting the age/time blues. It is, "Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. And today? Today is a gift. That's why we call it the present." My only advise would be to try and focus on the present, take care of your needs today, and tomorrow will work it self out.
Hang in there, Maya
Quote"Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. And today? Today is a gift. That's why we call it the present."
.....or, as my alcoholic friend says
"If you've got one foot in the past and one foot in the future, you're in an ideal position to p*ss all over today" ;D
Seriously, EVERYONE gets the blues when a decade clocks over. We remember what our hopes and expectations were
last decade and so very few of us have managed to get to where we thought we would by now.
You're young and pretty with more prettiness to come once you do get your hormone regime going again so enjoy it now, while you can.
The future is an unknown - you might get hit by a bus next week ......... or you might win the jackpot ..... who knows?
The one absolutely certain thing that I can tell you is that if you make it through the next ten years, you'll be looking back on today and thinking "If only I was just approaching 30 instead of just approaching 40......." ;)