I met a traveller from an antique land who said: LOOKING GOOD!
So glad to hear your story, I went through some of the same stuff. When at 45 I re-found out I was a girl, I decided to wait before transitioning not to hurt my mom. My parents divorced in the 70's when my 'father' came out as homosexual so I thought: If she lost her husband to homosexuality and now she looses her only son to womanhood, it's gonna kill her! (putting others before myself) She was 80 at the time so I figured I might have to wait 10, 15 years at the most, not so bad, after all I waited all my life so I can do that; WRONG! After about a year only my livelyhood, sense of purpose, joy and happiness all started to degrade and it got worse and worse. As long as I didn't KNOW, i managed pretty well. I knew I was different but my life was fine, even fun but the hiding started to slowly suck all life from me and it went on like this for about 4 years. My will to live was slowly fading away and so did the colors of the world (!) until one day she took me aside and told me: ''Now you're gonna tell me, what's wrong with you I can't stand seeing you like this anymore!'' Can you imagine a door opening in front of you, well that's what I saw soooo, I told her: ''I'm a girl'', just that, and she said: ''Thank god, I thought you were gay'' so I said ''WHAT, you don't mind'' and she said ''Nooo, you need help?'' WHAT! So that's how I came out and realized I had lost 4 years cause these were really wasted. So you see, I know what living for others feels like and although we have the best intentions in the world, it is ourselves that we destroy in the process but since I realized that, my life keeps getting better and better and I shall never make that same mistake again. Well, that's enough now so I'm glad I could talk to you and I wish the best for you and yours. Take care, Rose.