As the days get shorter and we have a sudden reminder of impending winter, it comes almost as a shock to see nearly two months have passed since I went full-time. Of course, so much has been going on I haven't had time to think.
I think I'm not alone among transgender people at this stage of transition in experiencing a mild crisis of identity. You don't magically change on transition, you're the same person you always were. So you've had four decades of socialisation as a bloke, and that doesn't magically go away. I don't mean by this how you behave or how you look, but how your life experiences affect you. So you still feel like the person you were six months ago, and back then of course you were supposed to be very different.
I'm sure it'll pass. Better to think about it now than like some people mask it with an obsessive pursuit of transition milestones and have it stay with you for a lifetime in a ghastly closet of assumed stealth.
Meanwhile, inner residual bloke or not I have plenty to do. Pressing cider as usual at this time of year, a bumper crop this season. Getting on with shoemaking, casting a pair of foot moulds in plaster that seem to be taking an age for the residual moisture to come out. And things to do with my mother's illness. My annoying sisters are in the air, never conducive to low stress
Life goes on, eh!
You said it yourself Jenny, you are still the same person inside. The part of you that is due to nature is that which makes you feel the way you do about your gender. The part of you that is due to nurture you may find will get chipped away little by little in time but you won't lose all of the habits you've learned over the years. Some habits will naturally give way to your new life as a female. It isn't so much what you do as a female as opposed to what you have been doing as a male, it's more about the change of attitude and approach I feel. Females do most of the same things as males, they just do them differently. I wouldn't worry too much about your mild identity crisis, it will pass.
ReplyDeleteShirley Anne x
Indeed you are the same person, and I suspect you will continue to like the same things, just as long as you don't forget which way to tighten a bolt.
ReplyDeleteI remember feeling weightless for a long while, having abandoned or been abandoned by so much of my previous life, and with nothing but faint hope of better times ahead to show for it.... for some thoughts there are cider... :-)
ReplyDeleteYou're going into this with a good, realistic attitude, Jenny, and that's good to hear.
ReplyDeleteRemember that glass of hard cider you're saving for me!
Calie xxx