Hello, WishIwasLaura,
My name is Paula and I am Cindy's marriage partner. I am 59 and post-op since November 2008. I began my transition when I was 51. I would write to you myself but I haven't logged onto Susan's under my own name in such a long time that I forgot how!
I was reading over Cindy's shoulder and I hope that you don't mind that, nor my writing to you.
As I see it, you already are Laura. You are already working on letting her out to present herself to the world. She is really who you are inside, who you were born. There is an incongruity between her inside and outside that is a problem but it is not insurmountable.
I don't believe that it is too late to be 100% yourself, Laura. The courage of your youth hasn't deserted you. Look back and think about back then: why didn't you or I do something about it in 1969, the year I graduated high school? To whom could we talk? How long would we have survived in that world? What doctor could help? Was there a psychiatrist in your town who was sufficiently enlightened to help? Did you serve in the military? Would it have been safe to be you there? And how about career, maybe family, and so on?
No, the courage of your youth has not left you. It was there for other endeavours, not this one. You have a new toolbox to help you through this journey. I might call it the "armour of maturity."
Now that you are 58 or so, what is stopping you? Whose permission do you need? I had no children (oligospermia, poor motility), divorced, was a senior person in my career, lived by myself, and I answered only to myself and the Almighty. Period.
I began being me after work and on weekends. I bought a quality hairpiece, tried my clothes on in the womens' dressing room before I paid for them, bought shoes in the large size section of the store, had a makeover at-home from a Mary Kay consultant, and told the world to kiss my class.
I went everywhere and never gave it a thought about if they were "trans-friendly." If they were open for business they had better take my money and be nice about it.
Two years later, when I was 53, I reported to work as myself.
I tell you all of this, Laura, because it is never too late to transition and to make right nature's errors. You have experience and wisdom on your side. You know that no one can deny you what you need unless you allow them.
Sure, it's scary at first but if you take the first step and ***contact a gender therapist***, it will be a lot easier than you think.
Please write to me here if you want to talk more.
You can do it.
Paula
Post Merge: June 21, 2010, 11:42:02 PM
Hi WishIwasLaura,
I am Cindy, going on 11 years full time, or there abouts, and four years post opp.
This is the way it boiled down for me going 11 years ago now. I found myself driving down highway 400 coming back from Toronto Ontario. I was in deep pain inside, had been for some time but never let it show on the outside. After so many years of becoming familiar with my distinct different characteristics and personalities I came to identify myself as two persons in one. One on the inside and one on the outside. In time I came to realize that both personalities had always been residing as as one since I was old enough remember.
That night as I drove I thought to myself, how many times have I thought about what would it be like if "I were able to kill the inner-self?" Would I essentially be killing another person that had been so much a part of me for all of my life? Of course, killing her would mean killing the outer persona as well. One can not kill the inner-self without killing both inner and outer selves, and I had not desire to do such a thing, especially not to the inner-self. It was the outer-self I wished would go away.
I realy had no desire to kill off anything I only just wished the outer-self would just simply vanish. To me, after all those years the inner-self had become like a refuge during troubled times, a best friend, a companion who at times illuminated the path ahead for me. To banish her would trully be like killing myself. I was caught between a rock and a hard place and as I saw it there was no alternative or other way out except to drive my car into a rock cut that night. *So such it was that I thought and felt at the time*.
This was where it had come down to that night. I found myself driving down a darkened highway with very few other cars about, I was actually looking for a suitable rock cut to drive my car into to end it all. Suddenly it was like a voice spoke in my mind, the voice of the inner self that spoke to me softly but firmly asking me a question. "Do you truly wanted to do what I was about to do?" "I spoke back with some anger and irritation in my voice, tears streaking down my cheeks. "What other alternative is there?" The voice responded softly, "I will leave you with this thought: who is it that truly wishes to die here on this night?" The resulting choice? Well, I am still here.
This was a Friday and I went to see my supervisor at Social Services and came out to her and told her that I would be coming into work as my true self the following Friday. That Friday morning I steped out of my apartment as proud as anything all decked out like a lady going out to do here dayly duties at work. I had that song going on in my head, Harper Vally PTA,
I had three children put in my custody on the first two years of my going full time. I had three children of my own and 8 foster children through the years.
