Trans*date 2014.5.17, Moving to a New Place

As is my habit, I try to translate my insides to the outside world through words.  Analogies play a big part in that translation.  I was having a conversation with a friend, a transguy who is younger than I by age, but older in transition.  I described the feelings I’m having about moving from recognizably female to a more recognizably male presentation as something like the feelings I’ve had when moving from one home to another.  It’s not that I hate the old place, but it doesn’t fit me and my lifestyle anymore.  I’m excited about moving to the new place but also already having feelings of loss about the place I’m moving from.

Some of the changes that will take place are not primary goals for me.  I want to be seen as masculine, but I also like the way people attracted to butches see me now.  And I have some fears about losing that appreciation.  I suppose that’s a risk I have to accept.

I want to feel more comfortable in my masculinity while with other masculine and male people, but I don’t want to feel uncomfortable among those who are more feminine or female identified.  I have experienced life as someone perceived female for 50 years and there are a lot of experiences I share with female people, and that part of me is not going to be erased by my transition.  But it will be less and less visible to others and I suppose there may come a time when people meeting me for the first time won’t recognize that being female was a pre-existing condition of my life.

I want to feel comfortable in my body, I want to feel ‘right’ or as close to right as I can get.  And even with the lack of alignment I’ve felt all my life, I don’t hate my body as it is.  Any more than I hated the first house my wife and I owned, it was just too small for the family and life we had planned.  My body has been a great home, and being perceived as a masculine female hasn’t been the worst thing ever either.  I just want better than ‘not the worst’, you know?  There have been times in the past few years when I walk past the mirror and stop suddenly, fascinated by what I see.  It’s as if I’m looking at someone I know well but don’t often take the time to look at deeply.  It throws me off to see boobs on my chest, it seems weird to see feminine curves and tells.  I think I’m going to go through the same thing as I transition, I’m going to be startled by my reflection, looking intently at this new person who is now appearing in my mirror.  I’m going to have to get to know myself all over again.  That’s exciting, no doubt about it.  It’s also a bit scary.  Will I like the new person I begin to be?  How much will the physical changes effect my insides?  Will I even recognize those changes if they happen?

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