I loved my life, I was happy, content and spent time with family and friends. This was around 1988. However, as you can gather, my well kept secret (well that's debatable) was growing stronger and stronger in my mind, that I wanted or longed to be a female and in addition, I was doing more female things. So, this was my Conundrum #1.
One of my closest friends from swimming who I spent a lot of time with, in swimming training, shooting, watched a couple of movies together, camping before a swimming meet and we spent time in each other's house.
He eventually, got a girlfriend, a fellow swimmer who also spent time with us. Deep inside of me I was not happy and I wondered why? Well, eventually the proverbial penny dropped. I realized that I loved a man (no I was not gay) and I could not do anything about, it tore my heart to pieces. So, this was my Conundrum #2.
I was speaking with my uncle and as far as I can remember it revolved around me wanting to be female (long story short) and he said to me, "you need to go and live as a female" or "you should try and live as a female". So, this was my Conundrum #3.
I was pretty well known in the wider community because of swimming and every so often I was in the newspaper and to top it off my mum was also known in the wider community and newspaper articles were written about her too. So, this was my Conundrum #4.
Given that I'm very private, quiet and shy person, I most certainly did not want anybody to know about my most personal, private and thoughts about my condition. So, this was my Conundrum #5.
I read in a playboy or penthouse magazine an article that was several pages long and at the start of the article there was an outline of a man and several images later 'all outlines' the man changed into a female. This was a major source of my knowledge in regards to my issue. So this was my Information #1.
With those five conundrums and one piece of information and when they are all put together, the moment of revelation, the penny dropped or as I want to say now, My Epiphany and what was that? I wanted to live the rest of my life as a female and that meant going away, so that I could achieve, which I knew in my heart would give me the peace that I needed and wanted.
So, I left because, I did not want to hurt the people around me, I did not want them to know what I was doing and most importantly, I left because, I did not want the repercussions of what I was doing to affect my friends and family. I was prepared to sacrifice all ties from friends and family at the cost of not ever seeing them ever again, even though it would hurt them no end, not knowing that I had gone from their lives.
The most important reason why I left everyone, was, I needed to take of care of myself, so that I could take care of others and the only way I could do that was to live my life as a female. So absolutely nothing was ever going to hold me back in achieving what I desired the most.
Best wishes to one and all and I hope your dreams come true.
Sarah B