Maiden’s Journey

I wrote earlier this week about ordering my first pair of ladies shoes and how I found this surprisingly difficult to bring myself to do because they represent the possibility of going into the world fully dressed as a woman and not having any shoes is an excuse not to.  A dreadfully feeble excuse, but my cowardice doesn’t need much to cling on to!  Anyway, I ordered them and today I collected the parcel, which I opened excitedly to try them on, only to discover that the store had shipped UK7/EU40 rather than the size UK11/EU45 as ordered (which I did check!). Thwarted. Four sizes too small is a lot and there is no way they were going to fit.  Hence, having owned my first pair of ladies shoes for four hours, I was at the shop returning them.  This is hardly a gripping story, so why am I wasting your time writing this?  Because of how I felt.  Getting to placing the order had taken me a while but when they arrived I was excited. I wanted to put them on and I...

I have done something which scared me.  I know this is going to sound trivial and immensely silly, but the scary thing that I did was to order a pair of shoes.  Terrifying, I’m sure you’ll not agree.  Why am I afraid of shoes? Good question!  I have over the years bought dresses and skirts and lingerie. I’ve even, in more confident moments, tried them on in store, which is clearly far more scary than ordering some shoes online.  Certainly when I first bought female clothing that was pretty nerve wracking and I worried that the shop staff would judge me but I got over that fear and am now quite relaxed shopping for myself.  So much so, I even got an in-person bra fitting at a lingerie shop, which was an enormous leap into the unknown.  Why do shoes feel different? Shoes are for the outside world Of course I’m not literally afraid of shoes (which is called papoutsiphobia if you were wondering). The issue here is what buying shoes means.  Shoes are f...

Or maybe I should say doubt and certainty, because doubt is the dominant feeling, or at least it is this week.   I’m sure it’s the same for many of us who are stuck in that in between stage of knowing that we’re trans but not knowing how or if to move forward with that. Some days it feels like I should just go for it, what’s the worst that can happen?  And other days, the whole idea feels preposterous and a stupid fantasy that I should keep to myself.  Today, I’m feeling the latter. How can I ever be a woman? It’s an impossible dream so forget it.   But I can’t just forget it, can I?  Because it is my biggest, most important and longest standing dream.  The idea of giving it up makes me sad.  I think I’m feeling the sadness more intently today because only a week or so ago, the dream was feeling so real and possible, I felt that I really could do it. The feeling that I could and being able to envisage how and when, this made me happy.  Sitting her...