I've been feeling like life is boring, and unexciting. I've found the things that used to entertain me no longer appeal to me. I find myself constantly wondering about different circumstances and situations that I feel I have no control over.  Don't misunderstand me, I'm happy, quite happy to have a body that I can call mine at last but it'd seem as if I didn't have any goals as before.  Is life this mundane after GRS or does it normalise with time?

GRS has nothing to do with it. Life is what you make it.

After fighting tooth and nail for most of my life to escape my inappropriate gender, I felt like I had been shot out of a cannon and just drifted in some ways. Since life was brand new it was both interesting and exciting. Within a couple of years it had just settled into normalcy and it was just a matter of getting on with it. Dull? in some ways, but always appreciated!

I tried to go back to my nomal life. It sort of worked, I have been doing different things and I feel more comfortable with who I am. I was never a goal oriented person and never like competition so I went on with life doing the best I can. Right now, I go to work during the school season and off during the Summer months. I just recently put my application in for Human Rights Commissioner for my city. I hope I get it. I have basically gone away from the trans people, only on the internet do I do anything with the trans world. I have other issues with Human rights in this city. Blanche, you should be really happy that 'nomal' exists and that you are just another female out doing your day to day job. Unless, you want the stardom of the famous.

I am not planning on GRS until next year. I'm currently immersed in the RLE, and after a period of boredom, followed by looking for a job, I decided that I'd like to just go with my heart. My boredom has been replaced with more activity than I know what to do with, all from volunteer opportunities!

I work as a receptionist, answering the phone and greeting visitors. I'm always meeting new people, and I always enjoy the social opportunities. I also work as a saleswoman, which puts me in direct contact with the general public. Again, I enjoy the diversity of people as well as the challenge of the role. There are many volunteer opportunities available that offer challenges and rewards. Many communities offer various cultural events that are either free or for a small donation if money is an issue, as it is with me! What you get out of your life is entirely dependent upon the effort that you make to enjoy it. Whatever I'm doing now will continue after GRS. I may decide to stop one activity and then begin something else. There are certain programs that I'm trying to become part of. There are always things to do! It's one of the benefits of living in a large city.

Next month, I'll apply for a part time job, only one or two days per week, since I need one or two days for appointments, and several days for my volunteer positions. My incentive to volunteer originated with my being unemployed and desiring to have as substantial a RLE as possible. I needed to fill my time with as much diversity and as many different people, experiences, and opportunities  as possible, and what developed was better than I had imagined!!! I put "Volunteer opportunities', and my city, into Google, and started my search. There are also some free job search engines that you can use to look for any kind of job that you'd like, anywhere in the country, Indeed.com is one. There are numerous others.

GID colors every aspects of my life. By cross living during the RLE, I'm finding a degree of energy and excitement that I haven't really known before. It's allowing me to truly enjoy my new activities, and I'm genuinely enjoying the interaction with so many new people! Even now, as pre-op, I'm experiencing life in the correct gender role, and it's giving me an entirely new perspective! Sometimes change is needed in more than one area of life to really appreciate yourself.

I may have no experience reguarding transitioning and still at the begining, but I tend to believe life is only dull if you let it be dull.  There's planty of interesting things out there to do

I hope that you mean that you want to LIVE an ordinary life.  Isn't that what some of us aspire to?  To live a life as what we really are, women or men (in the case of FTM's), and free from everything "trans"?

I suppose some people will say that I live a life that is "too normal" (if you will).  I mean.....I work, shop, travel, do the usual things people do;  I have a boyfriend, who incidentally, is FTM, but we are just a woman and a man living a life that finally makes sense without all this "trans" baggage, you know?  IOW the only thing "trans" about our lives is our participation on these forums, nothing more.

Always remember that realizing dreams can in reality prove to be "mundane" experiences, depending on your perception, of course! 


tink

well perhaps it's because we get so focused on grs, it becomes the holy grail.  After GRS, we're left with gee what now.  I sometimes have been very goal orentated, though at the moment I'm enjoying life quite nicely.  Ordinary is not that bad either after a few  years of riding the TS rollercoaster.

Beni

Sounds like you need to get out and explore yourself. I think from your remarks you are doing just fine. Sounds like you are ready for your new world. Get out and be yourself. Do all of the wonderful things you have always deamed of doing. It is a very exciting world!!!!

Deb

"gewöhnlich" ist, was ich immer wollte!  was kann lieber als "gewöhnlich" sein?

Quote from: Blanche on August 28, 2008, 09:04:32 AM
I've been feeling like life is boring, and unexciting. I've found the things that used to entertain me no longer appeal to me. I find myself constantly wondering about different circumstances and situations that I feel I have no control over.  Don't misunderstand me, I'm happy, quite happy to have a body that I can call mine at last but it'd seem as if I didn't have any goals as before.  Is life this mundane after GRS or does it normalise with time?

Well, a lot of my "goals" and obsessions I believe were inspired by the frustration of my GID. Much of my creativity was as well. Now that the GID is pretty much gone, I've lost many of my former interests and diversions.

What I've gained though is an enhanced appreciation for the little things in life. I'm much more present now, delighting in every little moment that makes up my day. I don't feel a need to distract myself anymore, or to get lost in obsessive interests and pondering issues and analyzing everything to death. I was struggling to exist before, whereas now I just love BEing. Give me a beautiful summer day, a comfy park bench, and maybe a pleasant conversation with some random stranger... and life is good

~ Katie Marie ~

My life before I started transition was filled with fun and laughter and no regrets.  Physical transition and surgeries will be done by the end of the year, and then I can resume normal life while T continues to morph my body.  But what I'm looking forward to is just getting back on with life.

Other than being comfortable as ME in my own skin, I don't think life will be all that much different.  On to the rest of my life and the cool things it holds!!  Namely traveling!

Jay

doesn't get 'too" ordinary, but it becomes what I would say "the way I would have thought".

I get up, get ready for work, go to work, I come home or catch up with friends & I love life.

Hi Blanch and all. well Blanch I must say for one you are one gorgeous looking lady. That at least is a #1 one as a self image booster. Well I beleive I did pretty good in the looks department myself for my age, well better then I had even expected anyway. But then I been at this transitioning game for going on to 9 years now, five years since SRS. Been in a relationship with Wing Walker for the past six years. Got married in Ontario four years ago. Well to tell the truth I never stopped long enough, at any time to worry much about the bad stuff, or the many negative things that could befall me. Getting bored or lonely with life was just small peanuts. Two years ago I retired from twenty years working as a social worker then Wing Walker and I decided to do a little traveling around the eastern states. When we got back was when I had a bit of the blues set in, to much idle time on my hands.

This was one of the things that prompted us to move to Vancouver BC, we have been living here for just over one year now. I am back doing part time in social work at a local women's shelter and also doing part time services for a local TS suport group. Outside the group and this board the word TS does not exist. Wing Walker and I love to hike in any of the local parks. I also the organizer for two local meetup groups. I can't see myself get lonely or bored with life unless I was to get to ill to continue my present activities. I do pray that will not be the case for a good many years to come, or get abducted by aliens and live forever, which ever the case may be.

Cindy

I want to be complete.  I want to live a normal female life without the burden of looking down and realising I have something extra natal females don't have.  I don't want to explain to anybody, the law, doctors, why I don't have a vagina. I don't want to be stopped, searched at some foreign airport & get questioned endlessly because my anatomical sex doesn't match my gender on my passport.  I want to be sexually comfortable in my own skin when I make love with my mate.  I want to go to the beach, wear a thong & not worry about whether things show or don't show.  Is that "ordinary"?

hi all ..... hey Leslie.. thats about right . you have it .... well i have been over that road & its been rough i know ..at 61  50 as a male  11 as a women & still growing .. ya ya .   s r s & b a . so whats left for me thats the    . well lots really womens groups .   meeting people . just people who i have never meet in nz & austraila. as it is i have just come back from 4 weeks of just meeting people in this case 160 trans girls   at a ball in sydny.     plus others.    living life loveing life .  our grand kids & just being me as a women  is that plenty .   & doing cabinat making . doing  photography & meeting up with my friends both around the world & here . i think i have it covered.  oh yea   the mundan things like......... yea you know just life.....now what did i just do in the last 10 hours .. ummm well ,,,,,,,,,,,,
  ....  okay .....        ...noeleena...

Life is quite simply what you make of it........

If its enjoying what you have so be it, if its trying new things, making new friends so be it.

For me, my life didn't actually begin until I transitioned. Before it was confusing, depressing and at times alien to me, the way I had to act and the way I was supposed to fit into society.

Now life is different and even if it was boring to live without the pain, depression and jealousy is something that I will never get tired of!

Buffy

I agree, life is simply what you make of it.

I think for so many of us we point toward SRS, live, eat, breath and love the journey there and have nothing to "replace" that after it's over and done. Nothing seems quite so exciting as getting nthere and then an aftershock sets in. We get lost or as Jane said drift because we haven't planned or even much thought about anything except the surgery.

GRS/SRS is not an end; it's simply a place along the way, the destination is a life without the dissonance. Unfortunately, many never realize that until after the surgery and then it's like "duh, there's more." One hopes there is more, but daily life tends not to hold the wonder and the fascination that huge projects, like SRS, hold.

Look for the available wonder, look for life in all its variation and glory after the big event. We get too involved in the goal and it becomes an end. It's like a ride on a high-powered thrill ride at an amusement park: the adrenaline rises and then afterwards nothing seems quite so exciting. I suppose that's why I have always loved the swings, not so exciting but plenty to marvel at as one spins around and life is still interesting and varied when the ride is done.

Nichole

Quote from: Nichole on September 18, 2008, 09:17:03 AM
GRS/SRS is not an end; it's simply a place along the way, the destination is a life without the dissonance. Unfortunately, many never realize that until after the surgery and then it's like "duh, there's more." One hopes there is more, but daily life tends not to hold the wonder and the fascination that huge projects, like SRS, hold.

Even if you DO realize that the "letdown" is coming, I dunno if there's much to do about it other than just deal... and wait for things settle as they will. I read the warnings, I knew the NOW WHAT? was waiting for me, but it didn't change the facts much, lol, ya know?

I find myself still looking for Deep Meaning in trivial things like my first dress and bikini now, lol. I know I'm just fishing for anything now, trying to make a big deal of SOMEthing to maintain the momentum of the 24/7 amazement I felt while transitioning. But it's getting harder and harder to do. No one else cares about me "being transsexual" anymore, so I can't either.

But I have my faith that things will unfold now as they should. SRS didn't make me happy, but I do believe it *allows* it now. I finally have Hope and Possibility, where before everything ended in "... if only."

~ Katie Marie ~

Hi Kate, that's great to hear you speaking with more positive thought on your post opp journey. You will do ok and I do pray that you go out somewhere and meet other ladies, heck I even use to go out to bingo to meet other ladies and I don't even realy care about bingo. But the conversations could get quite interesting. Now as for finding some guys to to hang with, but for a different reason then just having a male buddy if you know what I mean. 

I do pray that all will continue to go well for you.