The Big Freak-out of June 17th
This morning, since my wife isn't home (taking care of her parents) and both my kids were staying with friends, I took care of our dog. I only do on rare occasions like this. It is ostensibly my daughter's dog, but she's 18 now and working a lot, which is an easy excuse to pawn the responsibilities onto her brother and mother. My son loves the dog, who is a basset hound, and so does my wife, but he is high maintenance.
My lone goal, besides making sure he doesn't die, is to avoid any accidents to clean up in the house. I like the dog, but animals aren't really my thing. So, unlike the others, I take him out twice instead of once at feeding time. We go outside, he does his business, we go back in. After he eats and drinks, I take him out again in case there is more poop imminent.
I also feel that he needs more exercise, so instead of me walking by myself today, I walked him as far as his short little legs could go. I know his limit, so he's satisfied and exercised, and pretty much passed out inside now. During the walk though, I wondered how it is for dogs. For a hound, there seems to be the instinct to hunt. I guess other dogs are like that too; again, I'm not a pet person so I can only guess.
As we walked, he was constantly sniffing, his face down in the grass. He's smelling, looking for God-knows-what. And I wondered: does he know why he is doing that? Or is it just pure instinct from generations-upon-generations of his family that came before? He has no need to find anything to eat. Is he feeling he NEEDS to do this, or maybe it's just fun?
All that leads back to me and last night. Ugh. It was ugly in more ways than one. It's left me really intellectually and especially emotionally, upset. I'm trying to sort through all my thoughts after what transpired when I had time to try to make myself look nice and it turned out disastrous. Luckily, there is no evidence of it, no pictures. All I have to do now is scrub my brain of the memories or something like that.
I'm not going to go into the details of what all transpired. It's a lot embarrassing, actually. Let's just say I did not achieve anything close to a look I wanted. I aborted the effort when it was obvious things were going sideways on me. It was downhill from there. I proceeded to get angry and frustrated, and very sad. I wound up staying up later than usual and was back awake earlier than usual.
Asked this morning by the same friends to whom I had vented my frustrations to last night as to how I am now doing, I replied that I feel "neutral". Which represents progress. Last night, I openly desired to not be transgender anymore. It did and still does, feel too difficult to achieve anything close to what I instinctually feel I need. The makeup fiasco came to represent my whole entire effort to be a better version of myself. Once the horses got out of the barn, only fatigue could corral them again.
I wished my soul did not have this yearning to match with my body. I constantly see all my physical flaws and only very rarely can I put them aside long enough to "do the best I can". I get to safely, without repercussion from family, try to put on makeup about 2-3 times a YEAR. This, of course, is not enough practice to gain any skill. I do not have the extra cash to buy better supplies. Or get someone to teach me. Using YouTube for tutorials doesn't work for me.
Why is this so important to me, so important that a failed effort can devastate me so much? Is it because, like my dog, instinctively I NEED to be able to do certain things like put on makeup? I have long since stopped asking myself why I am trans; it just is what it is. In times like this though, I go back to wishing it wasn't so. I need simpler, not harder. But I am compelled. And it's not out of some desire for fun. It needs to be, but it isn't. I am not sure of any of these answers at the moment. Time will help the ebb turn back to flow, as sure as the tides. It can't happen soon enough.
And so, where does that leave me? For today, I am still frustrated but less angry. I've decided to remove the temptation to try again soon by throwing out most of the makeup I have. It's old and not very good anyway. I'm trying to take myself down a notch to preserve my sanity. You can bet this will come up in counseling next week. As with the rest of any transition, I have no idea. It's not today and might not really be ever. I hope for at least something in between. Only time will tell. Right now, I'm going to use my time on things I can do, not the things I can't.
My lone goal, besides making sure he doesn't die, is to avoid any accidents to clean up in the house. I like the dog, but animals aren't really my thing. So, unlike the others, I take him out twice instead of once at feeding time. We go outside, he does his business, we go back in. After he eats and drinks, I take him out again in case there is more poop imminent.
I also feel that he needs more exercise, so instead of me walking by myself today, I walked him as far as his short little legs could go. I know his limit, so he's satisfied and exercised, and pretty much passed out inside now. During the walk though, I wondered how it is for dogs. For a hound, there seems to be the instinct to hunt. I guess other dogs are like that too; again, I'm not a pet person so I can only guess.
As we walked, he was constantly sniffing, his face down in the grass. He's smelling, looking for God-knows-what. And I wondered: does he know why he is doing that? Or is it just pure instinct from generations-upon-generations of his family that came before? He has no need to find anything to eat. Is he feeling he NEEDS to do this, or maybe it's just fun?
All that leads back to me and last night. Ugh. It was ugly in more ways than one. It's left me really intellectually and especially emotionally, upset. I'm trying to sort through all my thoughts after what transpired when I had time to try to make myself look nice and it turned out disastrous. Luckily, there is no evidence of it, no pictures. All I have to do now is scrub my brain of the memories or something like that.
I'm not going to go into the details of what all transpired. It's a lot embarrassing, actually. Let's just say I did not achieve anything close to a look I wanted. I aborted the effort when it was obvious things were going sideways on me. It was downhill from there. I proceeded to get angry and frustrated, and very sad. I wound up staying up later than usual and was back awake earlier than usual.
Asked this morning by the same friends to whom I had vented my frustrations to last night as to how I am now doing, I replied that I feel "neutral". Which represents progress. Last night, I openly desired to not be transgender anymore. It did and still does, feel too difficult to achieve anything close to what I instinctually feel I need. The makeup fiasco came to represent my whole entire effort to be a better version of myself. Once the horses got out of the barn, only fatigue could corral them again.
I wished my soul did not have this yearning to match with my body. I constantly see all my physical flaws and only very rarely can I put them aside long enough to "do the best I can". I get to safely, without repercussion from family, try to put on makeup about 2-3 times a YEAR. This, of course, is not enough practice to gain any skill. I do not have the extra cash to buy better supplies. Or get someone to teach me. Using YouTube for tutorials doesn't work for me.
Why is this so important to me, so important that a failed effort can devastate me so much? Is it because, like my dog, instinctively I NEED to be able to do certain things like put on makeup? I have long since stopped asking myself why I am trans; it just is what it is. In times like this though, I go back to wishing it wasn't so. I need simpler, not harder. But I am compelled. And it's not out of some desire for fun. It needs to be, but it isn't. I am not sure of any of these answers at the moment. Time will help the ebb turn back to flow, as sure as the tides. It can't happen soon enough.
And so, where does that leave me? For today, I am still frustrated but less angry. I've decided to remove the temptation to try again soon by throwing out most of the makeup I have. It's old and not very good anyway. I'm trying to take myself down a notch to preserve my sanity. You can bet this will come up in counseling next week. As with the rest of any transition, I have no idea. It's not today and might not really be ever. I hope for at least something in between. Only time will tell. Right now, I'm going to use my time on things I can do, not the things I can't.
I feel your pain.. Somedays, (especially if I haven't got enough sleep) the results just don't match my desires. However, after much practice, I've learned that less is more and to accept that I will fall far short of my ideals. I've reached a point where I can be passable, (as in not hideous) at night in 30 minutes, daylight takes much longer. Regardless.. accept your self and be at peace.
ReplyDeleteMake up was once a very big thing for me. I went to Merle Norman twice for a makeover and had foundation matched to my skin color. I learned about contouring and shading and all those good things that women worry about to highlight their assets and diminish their flaws.
ReplyDeleteI became moderately successful and creating a feminine face on myself. I spent a small fortune on cosmetics. I felt I was pretty good at it and it gave me confidence in present feminine when I went out. Then my daughter pulled the rug out from under me. She said, "Dad, when you do all that you just call attention to your face."
Due to testosterone poisoning, my face is pretty masculine and in truth, while I did soften it, it was still more masculine than feminine.
I learned the hard lesson that make people the world over preach; Less is more. Now I suffice with mascara and lipstick. You know what? I'm still accepted as feminine when I go out. As a matter-of-fact, women in the world seem more friendly toward me than they did when I was working so hard and unsuccessfully to erase all vestiges of masculinity.
It was pointed out to me that if Janet Reno could pass, than any of us could pass. (Bill Clinton's AG. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Reno)
I've also come to deride that passing wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. I'll take acceptance over passing any day. When you pass, you live in fear that someone will discover you and you know that when that happens, it will be a disaster. But when you're accepted, then there's no reason to fear and you become more relaxed and act more natural. As a result, you become more accepted.