I had an interesting conversation with my therapist this week.  We were talking about my full-time date and how having that officially set now is impacting people around me.  So like a good therapist, she turned it around on my and asked how it was impacting me. 

I was super excited and energetic when I finally set the date with my employer. I ran around telling as many people as I could as quickly as I could.  However, I also had to admit that later on, when I thought about the implications of it, there were some bittersweet feelings.  Yes I'm thrilled to finally live as the authentic me, to finally be happy with who I see in the mirror and feeling like I'm finally free to behave the way that comes naturally to me, to hopefully be rid of that constant noise of wishing my body were right.  However, the finality of going full time does stir up some feelings.  I mean I hated who I was for 39 years, but I also did a lot of things in that life that I'm really proud of.  While I'm not going to miss living as a male, there is still some sense of loss I guess.

From there she suggested that I might want to do some type of act "maybe something sort of ritualistic" as she put it, to put a stamp on that old life and let it go for good.  I'm curious if any of you did something similar at some point in your transition to say hey, this chapter of my life is officially closed and I'm moving forward.  If you did, I'd love to hear stories of what you did.

Alyssa,

I don't have an answer for your question but you have stirred up some thoughts in me that need to come out. With a bit of warning I ask forgiveness if this rains on your celebration. I will say that my life is amazingly happy and my wife and I would never go back to the old him and not change a thing along our awesome journey.

I understand some of what you are talking about. Still being in the middle of transition (one year of hrt, full time 9 months, GCS in September) I have not done any ritualistic "Closing the door" to my old life other than clearing out the closet and taking all of his stuff to ARC. And yes that felt very good!

What I have been experiencing is the continued contact with that old life that I don't believe I will ever be able to shut off or protect myself from short of picking up my life and starting over someplace else. A couple of examples: my mom died last month and as we gathered and dismantled her life and the histories of our beginnings we found pictures of early family times that touched some nerves down deep, some good, some very painful. Another example, last week I picked up some take out at a local Chinese restaurant and saw a couple there that we had known and enjoyed for many years. They were part of a conservative church and would not have been able to accept me and had I introduced myself it would have caused us all more pain than it was worth. So I just got my food and walked away.

My point is that this is a town that I have lived in for 39 years and a life that he had lived for 67 years. I don't see anyway that I will be able to say a final goodbye to that past for I have to believe that it will continue to impact and make appearances throughout the rest of my life. To be honest, that scares me.

Anne

Anne, thank you for sharing that info.  And actually it doesn't rain on my celebration at all.  I guess I've always expected there will be reminders back to my previous life.  To some degree I actually embrace that.  While the first 39 years of my life have had serious struggles with self-hatred, shame, and of course living in hiding, there are still a lot of fond memories of my past that I don't want to part with.  I know for some, if they could completely forget their pre-transition life all together they would.  That's just not the case with me. 

I guess when I talk about saying goodbye to it, my point was more saying goodbye to living as him, saying goodbye to all the things I'll no longer do because I only did them before to try to make myself acceptable as a man, and accepting the fact that the familiarity of that life is gone and a new exciting but somewhat scary era of uncertainty has begun.

Some of the things I do plan to do include: 1. Cleaning out my closet as you described you did.  This alone could be very ritualistic.  Honestly, I could see myself right away on November 1 taking all of his clothes (with the exception of some t-shirts that I'll keep) to be donated.  2. I've asked my mom and sisters for copies of any photos they have of me from my youth so that I can scan them and put them in a digital scrap book that I'll be making of his life. 

But I had also thought about doing almost a farewell ceremony or something.  Maybe get together with the family somewhere and release a sky lantern, IDK yet.  But that's why I'm curious what if anything others have done.

I didn't do much in the way of saying goodbye as I have always seen myself as shedding a series of skins constantly through life and becoming a new person each time. This is so ingrained by now there is no use in ritualistic farewells. When I was younger, though, a long time ago I remember doing it to add motivation to attempts to move on and forward. I did it a lot, I guess my self-loathing was so strong it was like a religious conviction to destroy the past and try to be someone else.

Hi Alyssa!

Good to see your progress! And encouraging! 😉

The issue you mention, I internally debated quite early in my transition. Yes, there are people who transition and wish to totally forget about their previous lives. This might actually be possible with very young transexuals. In my case, at 45 years-old I already do have a considerable biography behind me. It would be delusional to expect to forget it.

Let's face it. Sarah would not be the person she is if she had previously not been mister S. And despite the rampant dysphoria, mister S had plenty of wonderful moments which resulted in him becoming a professional, a husband, a father... Could it have happened if he was Sarah from an earlier age? Perhaps... But there's a French proverb which says "Avec un si, on mettrait Paris en bouteille", which translates to "with if's one could put Paris in a bottle". If's... Well, history doesn't include if's. It is made of facts. And the fact is that all that happened at a time when I was mister S.

I discussed that issue with my therapist on the very first session. And I made really clear that I gladly accepted my past, of which I am not ashamed. I certainly don't intend to burry it. You burry what is dead and mister S is not dead. When a caterpillar metamorphoses into a butterfly, would you say that the caterpillar is dead? I wouldn't. Mister S was a caterpillar who is now metamorphosing into a butterfly. I HAD to be a caterpillar in order to become a butterfly. I feel that this analogy fits me perfectly. 😊

Big hug, Sarah

Sent from my SM-T810 using Tapatalk

Congratulates Alyssa I think i know what you should do, you know how feminists burn there bra's why don't you burn his pants! Just an idea 😀
Sara

Well, I went full time when I moved out of the family house to an apartment at my (ex)wife's request.  The closest thing to a ceremonial marker of some sort was packing the last of 'his' clothes in a box and dropping it off at Goodwill that evening.

I've had happier days, and I prefer to remember those.

I transitioned in my early 30s with the intention (successfully met) of going stealth, so I've done the ritualistic "purging" of old items and so on.

But the ritual I'm really proud of is the one I performed a week before facial surgery.  I went to a really nice state park about two hours away from home, with my best friend, and we hiked around all day.  I collected a number of unique stones one this hike -- stones that reminded me by shape (or color, because I'm esoteric) of the various parts of my face that I was going to change: brow ridge, nose, chin, jaw, trachea, upper lip. 

I went to the river, knelt down so my face was (blurrily) reflected in the water.  I took one stone, put it up to my forehead, and asked the stone to take away the "spirit" of this part of my face.  Then I asked the river to wash it away -- to smooth it down, as water can do to very hard things.  And then I went to another spot on the river, and did the same for my nose, and so on, until the river had taken each stone. 

Two weeks later, I took my first shower with my new face.  As the water poured over my face, I cried... because for the first time it ran straight over my eyes, which it never could do before. 

This is how I said goodbye to the past, and everything changed after that.

Hey Sister...

Like Michelle, I bagged up and got rid of the clothes I would no longer need... I gave all the cool surfing and snowboarding shirts to a transman friend and the rest to the animal welfare benefit shop... It was a good feeling but I felt the twinges of loss that you are experiencing... I came through much and built a lot I was proud of in my previous life but it was time to let go...


It's a bit like leaving high school and moving into the real world... School is a familiar thing where we have built a relationship with the world that it presents and those around us but when you're done... It's time to get on with the business of life... The school will just be a memory and stepping stone to our real life!!!!


Onward we go brave sister!!!

Hugs!

Ashley

Ashley and Sarah, your analogies captured what I feel perfectly.  Sarah you entire description of how you see your old life resonates so deeply with exactly how I feel (you expressed it so much more eloquently). That's exactly how I feel about my pre-transition life.  It made me who I am today, I'm proud of many things I accomplished and I'm not willing to just forget all of it.  The need to let go though is very similar to what you described Ashley.  Leaving that familiar space and entering a new chapter.

Sara, I love the idea of burning a pair of pants.  I didn't want to be all destructive because to me that feels like an anger response.  However, a more ceremonial burning of a single pair could actually be done in a respectful and reverent way.  I might just do that.

Sophia your story is absolutely beautiful.  I got so deep into reading it that I had tears forming in my eyes when you described the shower.  I think we all have our share of experiences like that where we feel something new for the first time.  So I think I can identify to some degree with how that had to feel.  So amazing girl, thanks for sharing.

The closest thing I did to a ceremony was getting rid of my old clothes.  Dumping those bags into the donation bin symbolized that I was never going back.  I still have one pair of his jeans and a couple of T-shirts for painting, chainsaw work, and similar messy jobs.

Like Sarah, I value my memories of the person I was.  He had a difficult job to do: to protect me.  He did that job well.  Perhaps a bit too well; he could have retired sooner!  And he learned a lot of cool stuff and did many interesting things while he was protecting me.  Now, he has stepped aside, but I cherish his memories.  It was all dysphoric, but it wasn't all bad.

If you are going to burn a pair of pants, Alyssa, make sure they are cotton.  Burning polyester is nasty.