This is really tough

That probably sums it up.  And was written three days ago because I’m struggling to find the right words and am finding it hard to even tell myself without crying.

Further to my previous blog and in a desperate (and I mean desperate) attempt to save my relationship with the people I love, I’m trying to detach myself from my transgenderness.   This is probably the opposite blog from most you have ever read before on that basis.  Instead of making myself more girly, I’m trying to be a boy again.

But OMG is it hard.

I’ve promised myself that I will try.  I will never be able to live with myself if I get to the point where I lose those people without having tried everything that it humanly possible to overcome what I feel inside.

I’m so sad and I feel like I’m letting myself, and all of you, my sisters, down by even trying.  I’ve known I felt like a girl and not a boy for the last 30 years. Through a lack of bravery, a massive amount of stupidity, a dash of false hope and a terrible context, I’ve allowed myself to create a non-girl life that now demands some payback. 

I’ve tried to stop feeling like this before.  Who hasn’t?  I’ve never succeeded.  Why should I now?  I’m not sure that I can.  But I’ve surely got to try.  To be honest, I’ve never had so much at stake before, so much that I could lose.  That really is a motivator.

I’ve read hundreds of blogs and know the price that most transgendered people have paid for their intent to be female. I see every hard decision they’ve agonised over when they are in my shoes.  And perhaps you could say, they’ve been braver than me – or maybe just less stupid.  But I keep coming back to the point that unless I try, unless I do my best for my loved ones, they’ll always wonder and so will I.

So please, bear with me.  I need you, the kind people who read my blog and then comment, encourage and empathise with me, even more now.  My journey forges on and I still want to record it here.  Going back to my original aim, I need a place where I can think – and this continues, rightly or wrongly, to be it for now.   

The big crisis experiment

OK, so here’s the thing.  I’ve reached the crunch point.  For many different reasons, everything has aligned and it’s now or never.  But I’m faltering.  I’m really struck with anxious uncertainty.  The stark choice (and it genuinely is a stark choice) is between Rhiannon and my family.  I am not allowed to have both.

I have spent the last three months pushing down the Rhiannon route over everything else.  This week I had the chance to push the button on cementing her into place.  But I flinched.  I’d found the perfect new flat to move into – it was actually (quite literally) my dream place.  It’s the kind of place that I’d never been allowed to choose for myself because there were other people’s requirements to take into account.  I have spent years longing for the features that were in this flat.  It was within my budget.  All I had to do was make the call and I didn’t.  And in not making the call it quickly went to someone else.  It was that good.

It was like the scene in the film, Four Weddings and a Funeral where Hugh Grant is in a Landrover with his friends driving away from the woman he wants to ask out.  He gets them to stop the car, gets out and they drive off jeering at him.  Introspectively, he says, in the British way that only Hugh Grant can, “Odd choice.”  That’s how I felt.

So where is this leading to?  It’s making me realise that maybe I actually want my family more than Rhiannon.  Everything within me is screaming no and that it’s an impossible choice.  It’s telling me that the girl within me won’t be put in the corner (to use another hackneyed film cliché).  Sorry, I talk in film clichés when I’m nervous.  In fact the thought of never dressing again, never seeing my toe nails painted or of tottering around in heels so high that they make me smile makes me feel sick and like I want to cry.

I’m not even sure that it’s actually possible to give up.

But the thought of my wife, that I love with all my heart, being lonely and upset without me and knowing that I’m not able to wake up to my kids capering around me whenever I want is too heartbreaking.  And I’ve rehearsed the reverse arguments.  She’ll get over it eventually and find someone else and be happy.  Kids are resilient, they’ll get used to it and they can always visit you.  But the point I keep coming back to, heartbreakingly, is why should they have to?  Why should my priority be greater than theirs?

I’m really sorry if that offends the many hundreds of you who have made that and even greater sacrifices to be who you truly are.  I don’t mean to belittle you or what you have achieved.  But I’m not sure I can actually make that sacrifice.

I am wondering whether, as an experiment, I can live a Rhiannon free six months?  And in doing so, whether this aching need to express myself will go away?  It’s probably complete nonsense, but when I get to my deathbed (cheerful I know) and I look back, having not tried to save my family situation, will I regret it so much that I’ll die unhappy?  Is six months too much to give to find out if I can be the person my family want me to be?

I’m locked on the horns of a very wild dilemma, but now is the crunch point.  In the next few days, one way or another, my life changes dramatically.

Is there any way back from this?

I’ve fallen a long way now.  Its one thing to be a complete girl, to dress up prettily and put on make up.  It’s even fine to think that men are attractive and to even want to be romanced by them.  But over the last 24 hours my condition has become much worse.  Its regretful, but I feel the need to unburden myself.

I love reading books – a lot.  I have a Kindle, a room full of books, several large drawers full of audio books and loads more on my various iPods. I read a range of books from crime to thrillers and have always been fond of books about relationships and friendships.  My favourite authors often manage to combine comedy, excitement, fun, love, humour within their pages.   Regularly, when I’m reading or listening to a book (even thrillers), I start blubbing away about things that would not even be considered sad or touching by most people.

But therein is my confession.  Despite high standards of literature and being the owner of a veritable library, there was one genre I’d resisted.  For the last couple of weeks I have felt it creeping on.  Little niggles.  Occasional ideas.  Furtive little glances when I’ve been in the bookshop.  But yesterday, despite all my best efforts at resistance, I gave in.  The desire overwhelmed me and…and…I downloaded some chicklit.

Not just any old chicklit either.  A book by Sophie Kinsella no less.  One of the royalty of the modern chicklit novel.   To my guilty shame I downloaded ‘The Undomestic Goddess’.   And it gets worse.  I’ve read the whole thing.  Cover to cover.  And I enjoyed it.  And I cried.  Now, I want to download more.  This is not the action of a sane man.  This is the action of someone who is having their life taken over by a romantically obsessed girl.

When I read it I was caught up in the main character’s plight – I understood why she reacted as she did.  My heart heaved as she ran away from her ideal man before, (and sorry to ruin the end) they got back together.   I wanted to find someone and to fall in love all over again and to feel like she did with someone wanting to consume me with all of their heart and to think that I’m the most gorgeous thing on earth.

I guess its more than having bought a book from a genre that I never thought I would buy.  It leads me back to the question I posed: is there anyway back from this?  And the answer?  I sincerely hope not.  But that said, surely it can only go downwards from here…

Risky Risky Risky

Whenever I have gone out dressed as a girl, I never seem to do it in the sensible way.  Let me caveat that.  I’m a outsized girl who has hardly ever been out so I possess a limited experience.  Combine that with my lower confidence because I worry about some of the stuff you hear from other girls who go out more often.  Large groups of teens, disapproving women, sniggering men.  And I'm not sure I'd know how to deal with that yet.

So sensible to me, probably wrongly, but as a starting point in the journey to being a public girl, is to get dressed up in a nice dress and go to a safe t-girl bar or nightclub, dance away and then return safely.

But the other night, for reasons I still can’t quite explain even to myself, caution got thrown to the wind and I took another risk.  I went to a place where the general public are found.  Brazenly I might add.  OK, so I mitigated it a little.  Admittedly I was wearing low heels, girl jeans, a blue top and a purple cardigan.  Possibly this might have meant that people didn’t clock me as anything more than a boy.  But when you know that the shoes were v girly, the top had lots of pretty detailing, I carried a handbag, my wig and breasts were in place and there was a whole load of make up going on, it was probably quite obvious really.

I’m probably making it sound braver than it actually was.  The trip out consisted of walking 300 yards to the car, driving for an hour to the hotel I was staying in, walking into the hotel, checking in and walking to my room.   But it seemed more than that at the time.

The whole car journey was spent thinking about how I would react if someone said something.  Or was negative.  Or even horrible.  I obsessed with the fact that I might see someone I know.  As I pulled up at the hotel, I nearly gave in.  In fact, I had brought my boy clothes with me in case I chickened out. I really couldn’t help but wonder if I was making a really bad decision.

But the words of comedian Dave Gorman came to me.  In his Googlewhack routine, he makes a decision to do something crazy and he says [and I take artistic license due to memory problems], “I thought fuck it, I’m Thelma and Louise going over that cliff.  I’m Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  I’m David James fucking Gorman. And I’m just going to do it.”

So I opened the car door and got out.  I put one very nice heeled foot in front of the other and I walked into the lobby.  The receptionist in the hotel clearly realised who and what I was, but was genuinely kind and lovely.  I felt such a relief as I got my purse out of my handbag and paid.  I really smiled.

I regularly stay in hotels, arrive late and want Rhiannon time.  It takes a while to transform and means I’m often up late: this girl is not good at doing late!  This night was different and fantastic. I got ready first, went to the hotel, was already dressed and ready so got to my room, watched some crap TV, drank far too much diet coke and relaxed.  It was how the world was meant to be.

Boring Old Boy

So, after regaling you with my depressed feelings at the weekend – sorry about that.  Today, well some of today, was better.  First things first, thank you.  Becca and Karen – your kind words were so appreciated at a low point.  I'm really grateful that you took the time to encourage me.  I don’t get upset that often, but when I do, it can be spectacular!

Work was mad today.  As usual I am trying to do much in an unrealistic timeframe.  But that’s what I’m like really.  But I got back late today from work and just was in the mood to do the whole works. So I shaved, put on my glad rags, took ages to put on my make up and really enjoyed doing it.  Ate pasta and had a nice bottle of wine.  Whiled away the time watching TV, responding to a few emails, chatting to friends.  Vacuousness alert: friends are really fantastic, I really love them!

Anyway: at the risk of sounding schizophrenic – sometimes being Rhiannon is the best thing in the world.  Challenging and in many ways difficult to accept.  Always hard when the look isn’t completely what I want, but its still better than being a boring old boy anyday.  And feeling normal in a dress is priceless.  I wish it would be more than a few hours at a time.

Who am I trying to kid?

I’m getting this funny feeling that somehow trying to be a girl is not all its cracked up to be.  I guess for me the issue stems from what you want to get out of it.  What I seek, seems unattainable.   I suspect that there are as many motivations for doing it as there are people who try.   In my case, I want to be what I can never be.  For a long time I’ve swept the fact that I look more like Homer than Marge under the carpet.  So what if I’m quite a bit big, ungainly and never in a million years passable.  But tonight the ‘so what’ has come home to roost and hit me like a hammer.  

What is my motivation to do this?  I find it hard to say it out loud for fear of being mocked.  But its not dissimilar to others I have read about: its being able to walk down a street with minimal fuss with as few people as possible turning their head.  It’s that someone who I love sees only the girl that I could be and would love me back, even knowing that.  That they would ‘get me’ in a way that no-one else does and that as well as everything else they would make me feel like the most pretty, beautiful creature in the universe.  I know that its stupid romance and many, even highly attractive real girls don’t receive that precious gift.  But against all circumstances, against all logic and against all realism, I’ve spent a long time hoping for it.

I’ve been going through a difficult time with my wife to the point where we could split over Rhiannon.    Being able to be me, really me, has been such a precious aim that I’ve been willing to sacrifice everything to follow it.  Willing even to give up a family for it.  But then sometimes I look through reality’s lens and feel that I’m never going to get my dream.  I know that looks are superficial, but how I look stops me in my tracks.  And even though on the inside I feel differently from the outside, I can’t see how anyone would ever spot it.

This is neither a plea for help, nor a self-pitying statement.  It’s a rambling that wonders whether a sacrifice is worth making if you do it and you still don’t get the thing you sacrificed for.  If all you end up doing is hurting the people you love and still being alone, then what’s the point?

Today I read a book.  Probably a mistake, but I found it heartbreaking.  A week or two ago, someone had blogged that they had really enjoyed and been moved by the book, ‘Almost Perfect’.  I downloaded it last night and finished it this afternoon.  It probably is designed to be uplifting and I’ve missed the point.  But truthfully it terrified me.  It’s a story of a t-girl who actually passes, who actually finds someone who sort of accepts her, who started their journey young enough to be a long way on the road to transition before puberty and nature ruins their body.  But even that wasn’t enough to stop her life being wrecked by this seemingly impossible dream.

Don’t get me wrong, I realise it’s a fictional account.  But in the context of my motivation and my dream of going out without much notice and finding someone who loves Rhiannon, it might as well be true because it feels like it is the reality.   I’m not sure that this post will see the light of day as I don’t want to piss people off or put people off.  And I could certainly do without any abuse from offended people.  But I wanted to honestly track my feelings here and if I can’t do that, then I should stop.  On some levels it feels like I’m just taking myself too seriously, but it goes back to your motivation for doing it.  For me it was never an easy thing to do, a passing phase, a turn on.  It’s always been much more and as much as I try, I can’t escape that.

But to cut to the chase – it has honestly made me wonder – who am I trying to kid?

From the sublime to the ridiculous...

OK, so some progress made on the decision.  It’s a bit of an all or nothing situation, but I think I’m nearly there.  As usual, blogging is is a great catalyst to my thinking.  Even if it is just telling myself that I’m useless at making decisions!  Its really odd how that works with me.

But that’s not the thought that grabbed me this morning.  The thought instead was one of pleasurable experiences.   This one may not be something that most people actually enjoy. In fact, on reflection, this also might have the effect of making you think that I’m weirder than you already do, but there you go.  The point is that I love shaving off my body hair!  There I’ve said it.

There is something really fun about the both the process of doing it and the result.  Lathering up with nice smelling shaving foam and therapeutically concentrating on removal.  Its really enjoyable.  I think it may lose its edge at some point, but I have been doing it for quite a while and not got bored yet.

Sometimes I Veet. Nothing wrong with that, my skin takes to it very well.  And the effect is long lasting.  But it feels a bit like cutting the lawn with a superfast mower instead of getting a perfect job done with scissors!

I’ve never been for a wax before, but have some back hair that is fluffy, non-gorilla like and completely impossible to reach without some kind of unachievable contortion.  I am contemplating booking in because I hate seeing it every time I get near a mirror and it ruins the effect of a backless frock :-).  So any advice on that would be appreciated.

But however I do it, the smoothness afterwards is just the best feeling ever.  Its not fair that for so long that sensation has been the reserve of girls, swimmers and cyclists.

As a final point: (a disclaimer) please accept my apology if this was far too much information to share.  Especially this early in the morning.  But as I said before the thought grabbed me.  And sometimes, for better or worse, you just have to go with it.