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26th May - I didn’t take the opportunity to go dressed

My chance to go shopping presenting female came and I let it pass. 

It was late and there was a lot of traffic and I really needed to get home, but that is just an excuse if I’m honest. I didn’t want to. 

Although what I wanted or didn’t want is ambivalent in itself. I did want to because I wanted to test myself, gain some more experience. I also wanted to look nice and feel good about my outfit and to get a couple of other things to expand my wardrobe. I didn’t want to be conspicuous though, to expose myself to staring and judgments or to put myself at risk of transphobic abuse or attack. The latter is probably unlikely, but the fear is there all the same. 

It wasn’t just fear or vulnerability. The exercise felt pointless. I am continually swinging from feeling like I have to transition immediately to feeling that this is impossible and destroying my life for nothing and can never happen. When I planned to go, it felt like a step on the journey to transition. By the time the opportunity came around, transition felt like a fantasy that could never happen. Hence, when it came to it, why would I go through with my plan and make myself ridiculous and vulnerable for nothing. Naturally, the next time my feelings swing toward my need to be a woman, I will regret not having taken the opportunity. 

I seem to simultaneously hold two contradictory beliefs: that being a woman is my only hope of happiness; and that not transitioning is my only option to protect me from the unhappiness that would cause. This leaves me stuck where I am and still unhappy anyway. 

Maybe the logical thing to do would be to find a way to be happy as I am but I don’t know how to do that. 

I’ve been listening to podcasts about focusing on what you want and what will make you happy, how to make plans and organise your life to get there, that kind of thing.  I can’t get past the first step of any of them though: defining the goals or dreams or whatever.  I’ve got nothing. My only real dream is impossible. All the “standard” dreams seem pointless and don’t inspire me. Career, house, travel…what’s the point? 

Speaking with a colleague today, she was saying there is a world of possibilities. I don’t feel that way.  I feel that possibility was all in the past, there is nothing now but getting through the day to day because I am trapped by the life I have and the paths already taken. 

One thing for sure though, going shopping in a skirt is not going to solve any of my problems.


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