Leaderboard

Starting over is weirdly freeing and oddly disturbing at the same time, whether the scale is large or small. I really wasnt' sure I would do well when Nikki decided we needed to change EVERYTHING, not just how our marriage worked and my knowing about and understanding his gender fluidity. As much as it can be understood, he's still learning as he goes too. But EVERYTHING was going to change. My home, the jobs, the lifestyle, the diet choices, our clothing, even our hobbies; literally nothing is the same as it was last year. I'm dealing, but I have fits of depression and weird resentments. I hadn't realized there were huge parts of my life I was really attached to in a way that I didn't notice every day, just reveled in subconsciously until they were gone. And finally having to stop lying to myself about the state of my relationship with my maternal family not really being any better than my paternal family, just more discreet about how unhealthy it functions was not surprisingly unpleasant. I think I can safely say I'm adjusting though, and I suspicion by this time next year I will have adapted and re-normalized. I sorta envy people who see starting over as a grand adventure and love it. I just sorta wade through it patiently and pretend I'm having a good time, nothing to see here, move along. It helps that I love my house, and now that my things are here and starting to settle into place I feel lest lost, as long as I stay downstairs. Upstairs is still an alien place. My bed sits in this great big empty room with a bunch of boxes creating a maze I injure myself on nightly trying to get to the bathroom, which is now surprisingly far away. The other two rooms are literally still empty, and it's weird how that empty plays on my subconscious. Nikki's love of his new job is becoming problematic, and I work there with him. But it's company first all the time, and I'm lucky if I get some leftover scraps of attention. And there is the weird side effect of after weathering the sorting out of the gender issues and not ending up divorced, he's completely comfortable in our marriage. Comfortable to the point that he takes out all the frustration other people in the company build up in him on me because I'm 'safe' to let it all out on. Ya'll can imagine how thrilled I am about this new behavior. Especially since I'd crosstrained to work under him in an effort to try to get more home time (I was a carpool captive). We have some more marital work to do, it never really ends does it? As long as you are two people in a relationship, there will ALWAYS be some new problem to work on. But after I got really quiet at home because I'm tired of talking about work and telling him verbally we needed to do more marriage time and less work time and he finally pushed my temper into reminding him I can be volcanic when pushed when after someone was rude to me and didn't give me the information I needed he didn't even ask what happened, just tried to silence my voice by gas-lighting me that I didn't understand the interaction I was in (and he wasn't) and I let him know clearly that was so not happening EVER AGAIN, he's working on it with me. Which makes me realize that old, underlying problem is still there, I can tell him about a problem until I'm blue in the face, but until it affects him by me puling away or losing my temper on him, he doesn't take it seriously. I'm thinking of suggesting marital counseling once he settles back into individual therapy for the dysthymia again. 20 years or marriage doesn't make anyone immune to the need for a little help sometimes. On the plus side he's working on reducing his addiction to constant electronic entertainment and actually exploring our new area with me. There is a REALLY pretty town a bit south of us (stupid expensive to live in, and close enough to drive to form where we live but the commute would have been overmuch) with a lovely bookstore. Since my town has none. So that's a fun place to go. We're going to go to this super bizarre almost tourist attraction grocery store either this weekend or next, adn the space museum (Nikki loves Nasa stuff). I hope they have a planetarium at the space museum, I do love a good planetarium I must admit. I guess all in all I'm fine, life is just continuing to happen both to me and around me. But the scenery outside is better. I have a super awesome hangout porch now to enjoy the last days of summer drifting by. The neighbors have been pleasant to us, and he said hello to me as he got home and I was reading a book on the porch and we had a nice conversation. So much better than the crazy, half dressed, theiving ones from our former town. I"m moving up in the world!

I have always known that I would be transitioning at some point in my life; just not when. That question has been answered and become quite evident to me within the past year. There are many reasons why it took so long but that really doesn't matter now. I don't have any regrets until now as I've been blessed with a good and fulfilling life except my only regret is I did not go after it many, many years ago. Think it would have been even more fulfilling. Things were soooo different in the 70's and 80's. I was never one to dwell on the past, only look and plan for the future. So if I refer to myself in this and future blogs as... when I was a little girl... that was my mindset then, as it continued into womanhood and evolved to now . My first experience ,"when I was a little girl", (I just love saying that), was sometime between 11-13 years old when Halloween was coming and someone had the idea to dress me up as a girl. Real clothes, complete make-up, shoes, panty hose, wig, even underwear and bra, nail polish, toes too! A dab of perfume really did the trick. Think I already had feminine characteristics, lean body, big eyes, long eyelashes, nice smile. THAT feeling has never left me. Went on trick or treating and realized just about no one knew I wasn't a little girl, some even asked why I didn't have a costume! Well going to end this for now; UPS just delivered, my red shoes. Got to try them on. Love shoes, dresses, everything feminine, and have built up quite a wardrobe...but will get to that in later blogs. Love

PS Just love my red shoes!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know it’s been a while but I’m finally back. I have talked to my mom privately about what I want. She completely understands which is great. She just wants me to be sure if it’s truly what I want before coming out to the rest of my family. She wants to help me experiment first before making my final decision which is fair. First step is we both will get our nails/toes painted together.

That’s so great to hear! I imagine you’re feeling good about confronting your fears talking with your mom. Please remember that feeling, nurture it. No matter where you go or end up the road ahead has plenty of crossroads. When encountering them it helps to recall previous challenges and how great it feels to be authentic.