Hey Jennie,
I think the way you could approach this is focusing on the time you DO have versus the time you've "lost." Yes, it's sad and a tragedy that you didn't get your youth. It's heartbreaking to not get to live as you truly see yourself from the time you were little. No "daddy's little girl" or prom or any of that. It is truly sad. But here's the thing. You have one life. You have one chance to try to put things to where you can be
happiest. You can't undo the past. The more time that you spend dwelling on what you
don't have, the more lost time you have going forward. I do sometimes think about what it would have been like if I would have had the courage to say something to my Mom when I was really young. I think about if I was born in a girl body how my life would have been different. Then I realize that I live NOW, here. I can't let the what-might-have-beens eat me alive and consume me, because they will. What am I doing
right now, today to live my life to the fullest and get to a place where I am
happiest. That's really the key to it, I think. If you can make changes to your life now, you are not guaranteed happiness at all! What you can do, though, is build a foundation, like a house, that let's you at least give the possibility for happiness. You have one shot at getting it right, Jennie, don't waste it by focusing on what could have been or should have been. Be who you know you are and let the world see it, k? Meghan
PS, I found this on the web when I first transitioned. Not saying I agree with all of it, but it comes from a good place and I remember reading it before I started transitioning when I was figuring out what I was going to do:
Reasons To Cherish Being Transsexual
Because being transsexual is often so hurtful, so filled with sadness and longing, with shame and loss and difficulty, it is easy to come to the conclusion that the whole thing is utterly a curse, perhaps inflicted by arcane and evil ancient gods.
Oh, probably.
But there is an upside too.
Most human lives are utterly mundane, devoid of any real uniqueness, the average person somnambulates through an existence devoted to filling the roles expected of them.
But to be a transsexual is a magical, wondrous thing.
Consider. We are given many gifts in compensation for the terrible loss of our childhood as ourselves, and for the pain we endure. We are by some as yet unknown mechanism statistically far more intelligent, as a class, than perhaps any other kind of people. We are almost universally more creative, and we often possess incredible levels of courage and self determination, demonstrated by our very survival, and ultimate attainment of our goal. We are rare as miracles, and in our own way, as magical, or so has been the belief of all ancient cultures on the earth.
We are given awareness that others would never experience, understanding of gender, of the human condition, of society and the roles and hidden rules unquestioned within it. We are given a window into the lives of both sexes, and cannot help but be, to some degree, beyond either. From this we have a rare opportunity: to choose our own life, outside predetermined and unquestioned definition or role. We can do new things, original things, only because our experience is so unique.
We get to be true shapeshifters, and experience the sheer wonder of melty-wax flesh and a real rebirth into the world. Our brains and bodies gain benefit from having been bathed in and altered by the hormones of both sexes. We appear to retain our visible youthfulness where others wrinkle, and for years longer. We possess neural advantages from both sexes, such as the language advantages of the feminized brain, and the spatial abilities of the masculinized brain both. We are shocked into waking up, if we allow it, to a life we create for ourselves...we are not automatically doomed to sleepwalk through life.
After our transformations, after the full-moon lycanthropic miracle that the modern age affords us, we can live lives of success and love, and genuine specialness, if we choose. If we can get past our upbringing, past the programming, the bigotry, the messages of disgust from the culture around us, if we can stand as ourselves in freedom, then our special gifts grant us a heritage of wondrous power.
We have a proud and marvelous history. In ancient days we were magic incarnate. We were Nadle, Winkte, Two-Souls, Shamans and healers and magical beings to our communities. We possessed the ability to give the blessings of the gods and spirits, and were prized as companions, lovers, and teachers.
We were the prize gift of ancient tribes, entertainers, designers and dreamers. Sometimes we were the -somewhat reluctant- rulers of empires, and the consorts of emperors. We were champions and warriors too, who were feared for our unique gifts turned to inevitable victory.
Know that it is only in recent centuries, with the rise of the single minded, monolithic and monotheistic desert religions, filled with harsh single gods and twisted, narrow morals, that our kind have become reviled, the objects of scorn. Once, we were the kin of the gods.
To be transsexual is not easy, and it is not a birth that could be envied, but neither is it a damnation. It was once considered a rare wonder, if a mixed one; a faery gift that cuts as it blesses.
And in the modern age, of hormones and surgery, we are the first generations of our kind to finally know the joy of complete transformation, of truly gaining our rightful bodies. No other transsexuals in history have been so fortunate.
I say that we are unicorns, rare and wondrous, with still a touch of ancient magic and the kinship of the gods. Though it is agony, beyond the fire we have the opportunity to become alchemic gold.
We have much to add to the world, and to give to ourselves and those who love us.
We have always been, we are still the prize of the tribe, for only the world around us has changed, the desert harshness branding us vile. We are still the same.
Our compensations are real, and our lives are special; we have but to grasp the gifts born of our sufferings.
When I look around me at the mundane lives, there are times I think that maybe I am glad I was born transsexual, for I would never have been what I have become without that curse. I cannot help but be grateful for my uniqueness, so I am brought to a strange revelation:
Deep down, I cherish having been born a transsexual.
Be a unicorn with me, and cherish it too.
This is where it was, it's still there a few years later:
http://www.transsexual.org/cherish.html
