Maiden’s Journey

In short, I am basically a coward and couldn’t bring myself to start the conversation with my wife and now it’s the new year and I’ve gone to bed alone feeling devastated.  I had this sort of plan that I would start 2023 as Nicola, having told my wife before the end of 2022.  The idea was that I could wear a skirt in front of her tomorrow for the first time, to show her who Nicola is. All this as a first step to getting her on board with the steps involved in my transition.   But I didn’t manage the first step. Couldn’t work out how to begin the conversation. I kept wanting to say something. Some way of sharing who I am, but I didn’t have the words or the time didn’t feel right or I was just too scared.  Now I am hating myself for being so cowardly and pathetic that I have to live a life I don’t want because I’m too afraid to ask for what I do want.  I feel like crying. I’m so sad. 

Continuing on from yesterday’s post where I shared the first part of my 2023 transition plans, I have taken a couple of small steps today.  Firstly, I have removed a lot of my body hair using removal cream on my shoulders and back, as much as I could reach anyway, and shaving my chest and stomach. It’s far from perfect, but has made a difference and my body looks less masculine by not being hairy. After all, there’s nothing very feminine about chest hair poking out of a bra, so it is a source of dysphoria that I have now removed, albeit temporarily. This is not the first time I have done so, and I know it grows back quite quickly, which is a pain, but from what I’ve read about hormone treatment, after six months of testosterone blockers and oestrogen, body hair should go away. I certainly hope so, otherwise it will need a lot of maintenance.  Also today, I have worn female underwear all day under my male clothes and have sat to pee every time. This is a trivial thing really, a...

The end of one year is when the mind turns to the next and what one hopes to see take place in the new year.  It’s a strange tradition that we hope for the new year to be different (better) from the last, although the older one gets, the more experience suggests that everything more or less goes on as before and many things get worse.  Of course the reason most years are the same as the last is because I lack the courage or motivation to make any real changes. Obviously the biggest change of all, changing my gender, I have not done. All wishing, no doing. The problem is though, time is passing and I’m still in a male body wishing I was a woman. I’m 48 now and although I keep reading that it’s never too late, it is starting to feel that way. Or more accurately, it feels like I have missed out on too many years and that I am watching another year when I could have done something and experienced life as a woman, just slip by.  How many more years do I want to do that, until ...

I haven’t written for a while as I have been a bit uncertain about where I am, what I really want and whether I’m willing to do what it would take to have that anyway.  This week though, I was traveling for work and would be passing a large shopping mall where I first ever stepped out into the world dressed female to see how it felt. That was two years ago, in 2020 and at the time it was terrifying and exciting in equal measure. I walked around visible in a dress in public and the world didn’t end, nothing bad happened, it was fine.  Since then, opportunities have been few but I had been out one other time a couple of months ago to test myself by going and interacting with people in a coffee shop and supermarket to see if I could cope with living in the world without passing. That too was scary but actually was fine. It feels like I probably could cope with social transition.  This week, I wanted to take the opportunity for some more real life experience, although I didn’...