Discovering Jen

[Jen T.]

Life goes on as it always does. Holiday season is always a busy one. The kids just finished finals week (both of them up every night to midnight and beyond studying) and now they're on break for a couple of weeks. I've got work, shuttling teenagers around, buying gifts and just being generally busy. I'm kind of feeling the tug of one more year stuck in the closet but not having a lot of down time to dwell on it helps. It's not a wasted year because I have made significant progress, even though it doesn't really feel like it a lot of the time.

There are some little things that I do in an effort to feel something - anything - feminine in my daily life. All of my jeans are women's. My therapist and I had a good laugh over the irony of it: After all these years as a short, overweight man that it would be women's jeans that fit better than anything I've worn since my teens. They're just plain, basic Lee jeans but I love them. I'm also happy to say that in the last two years, after starting at a size 30, I'm down to a 26. Something else I discovered about a year ago (and I'm sorry if this is TMI) is how amazing it feels to wear a thong. Seriously, how did I not know about this before? I love how it feels like I'm wearing nothing, even though I'm wearing something. These two things, easily hidden, have been helping cater to that need to feel a little more feminine every day.

Now I've taken it a couple of steps further. While doing a lot of online Christmas shopping, I bought a couple of presents for myself. One is hip padded shorts. The pads aren't too thick and unless someone was staring at my butt not very noticeable. But I notice. They fill out those jeans a little bit and no more hip dips.😁 I look like I might actually have a little bit of a butt, which is of course what I was going for! The other thing I bought was a pack of sports bras. Now, a bra certainly isn't a physical necessity for me at this point but I've found that it's a tremendous psychological one. This is the first time I've worn one on an all-day basis. I love feeling it around me and just knowing that it's there under my shirt is all at once exhilarating, satisfying and very affirming.

Although I've experimented with it over the years, I never heard the term "underdressing" until I came here. Such a simple yet thorough description. I do it every day now and it does make me feel a little better about where I'm at.

Thanks for reading.

Peace, love and happiness,
Jen

[ChrissyRyan]

I never have worn a thong, except if they are also known as flip flop shoes!

You might want to consider body shapers, there are all kinds.  I really do not wear them much at all any longer, I guess I did not like having a compressive layer on my skin.  In fact, I may not even have mine anymore, although I did keep a corset.

They can add a little more curves, especially the corsets.  I doubt corsets have much long term impact on shape unless you wore them day and night for a very long time.  They do tend to push your body in though when you are wearing them.

Sometimes the softer body shapers are called torsettes.  Before I had had much of any breasts I wore open bust body shapers, these lifted my then very little boobs a bit.  These also let you wear a bra without the bra being covered up by the body shaper.  Now that I have boobs the body shapers should be more dramatic on shaping. But for the time being I am not going to go buy one and likely may rarely wear the corset again.  I am usually happy just having my natural look, although I do once in a while have a bigger boob and more curves envy of sorts.


I have not tried padded clothing, although some of my bras have more padding than others, as in the case of my pushup bras.

It is nice to treat yourself occasionally!

Chrissy

[Northern Star Girl ✅]

@Jen T.
Dear Jen:
Along with ALL of your Readers and Followers I am starving for your update on your Blog thread....

How is your new year in 2026 going for you?
Did you have a Merry Christmas?

HUGS, Danielle [Northern Star Girl]

[Jen T.]

@Northern Star Girl that's funny; I was reading YOUR blog when you were posting on mine.😄 I was sorry to hear that your parents aren't coming around. That's got to be rough. My parents are both gone so that's one bridge I'll never have to cross, although I wish every day that I could, for better or worse. I'm pretty sure their reaction would be similar but who knows?

We spent Christmas with a large contingent of the great many cousins I have and then had dinner at my in-laws. During the day I found myself looking around the room and trying to guess who would accept me as Jen and who wouldn't. There's one cousin that I'm 99% sure would be on Team Jen and a couple of others that are a definite maybe. There's two that I know for sure would be Team Hell No and the rest I'm just not sure about. (Bonus points if anyone knows who the original Team Hell No was.😉)

My default position in life has always been that I just don't care what most people think of me. The number of people whose opinions of me truly matter has gotten smaller over the past few years as my parents, grandparents and favorite cousin have passed.

When I'm finally ready to introduce Jen to the world if I end up a team of one, then so be it. Wow, look at me, being all tough. I wish it was as easy to do as it is to say...

Anyway, life goes on and like the song says, same as it ever was. Life doesn't wait for me to figure myself out. My daughter got her driver's permit on Christmas Eve and just turned sixteen last week. My baby girl is no baby anymore. I keep telling both my kids to stop growing up but like typical teenagers they don't listen.😄 Swim season is about to start for my son, dance comp season is about to start for my daughter and having zero free time season is already here for me and my wife.

I still have my internal struggles about the what, where, why, when and how of coming out. Or the IF. That last one is the worst. However I'm not all-consumed by all of that like I was before starting therapy and then coming here. I still can't decide what to do but it doesn't trigger my depression the way it used to. That's a win and I'll take it.

Thanks for reading.

Peace, love and happiness,
Jen