adulthood and the "man"

ADULTHOOD AND THE “MAN”

From realizing who I was to accepting it was a long step for me, almost a 20 year trial. Everyday having the feminine feelings, a barrage on my reality. In a sick way my life was simple. Simple in the way that I knew I was female but I had convinced myself for all those years it was something I didn’t need to express. Something I could live without or maybe there was a chance it would fade in time. Life was simple because I didn’t have to live my own life, I could set every aspect of the life I forced myself to live. Like living a dream where you make your own rules. I had become determined to prove to myself it wasn’t true. I would do things in my “dream” to prove this, big and small. The biggest being joining the military, probably the manliest thing I could imagine. Saying that time was a living hell would be an understatement, I never went without a collection of female clothes for long in my life, except in the military. I don’t know how I did it to be honest. I got almost inhuman at a point, where nothing affected me. I was nothing short of dead inside. Getting out of the military was the best thing about the military. Small empty silly male things such as growing beards or goatees. All in all a simple life, where I didn’t have to live in reality, I just went to work, did what was expected of me, and day after day went by and turned into year after year. I look back on this time as feel it was wasted, like I missed the prime of my life not being the woman I should have been. This period of my life accounts for an overwhelming percentage of my life and I have almost nothing to say about it beyond I look back on it as the darkest times. I wish every day I was a stronger woman and had the courage to be who I was. I started this section of my life realizing who I was but ended this section accepting who I was, two very different things. An important phase every human goes thru, I’m sure most people start and end this phase in a matter of seconds, realizing you’re a gender and accepting it. I’m also sure most transgender men and women take years in this phase. Mine just happen to be almost 20.