Essentially, I am magnificently sick of things being the way they are now. I keep pushing and pushing for things to get better, and they're not. They're simply not getting better. If you want to know why, it's because every single time I look in the mirror I can only think one thing, and that thing is: You're fucked. You are totally and completely fucked.
That's it. That's what I think when I get up and look in the mirror every morning, or when I'm in work, or even when I'm driving to work and I get a glimpse of myself in the rear-view mirror. When I see myself in the mirror over the sink while washing my hands in the bathroom, I think You're fucked. When I see my reflection in a car window, I think You're fucked. When I see my SHADOW, I of course go on to think this happiest of all the happy thoughts. You know, the one about me being utterly and fantastically fucked. Yes, that one.
Not surprisingly, I used to LOATHE looking at myself in the mirror, just because I thoroughly detested what I saw in there. It may sound funny, but I like looking in the mirror better now than I did before. When I look in the mirror now, I see the effect that the hormones have had on me, and that does make it easier to look upon any visage of myself. Still, I've been taking these hormones now for coming up on 4 years, and still, all I can think when I look at myself these days is... well, you get the picture. This is discouraging (to put it lightly), especially when you consider that there's not a whole lot that's going to make this situation any better.
Being the size that I am (6'4"), I'm just far too gargantuan for the hormones to even the playing field in any way. To complicate matters... I used to be rather heavy. I lost something like 70 pounds over the years, and I'm looking to lose some more weight (read: I'm still a bit overweight, making me even bigger than "gargantuan"). New weight loss, however, will at least make me look somewhat smaller. There's also the option of facial feminization surgery (or FFS), which would help me to look more as I feel, though where I'd get the 10,000 to 30,000 dollars for the appropriate surgeries is anybody's guess. Even if I did get the money, and had these surgeries, and lost weight, and whatever else, I still feel like it's never going to be enough. Yet I still go at this gender stuff full-bore, as I feel like I'm doing my best and giving my all in an attempt to simply be myself; even taking it to the point where it's meant chemically altering my body and spending ridiculous amounts of money while uprooting my life and the people in it. Fun.
These feelings I have, however, are a need... a craving... a longing... an obsession. They encompass everything I do at all times. It's all I ever wanted, and all I really want. It's the only thing that means anything to me on a personal level, and it's the one thing that I can never have. How do you live when that's what your life is about? The only thing that matters to you is the thing that you can never have. So, you spend the entirety of your life chasing this idea of it, what it is, what it means to you, hoping that it will ease some of the frustration, and self-hatred, and jealousy. You hope that it will help you to think straight, and to concentrate, and to just live your life without having these blinders of obsession on.
But the point to all of the above is that I'm never, ever, EVER going to get what I want out of life (i.e. to be unquestionably female), which really bites some sweaty ass, because nothing else in my life even matters to me in regards to what I want out of my life. NOTHING. It's not even CLOSE. I honestly don't even know what else I care about other than this. Now obviously I care about the people I love, but other than that, life sort of holds nothing for me. I have no hopes or dreams for myself other than to go through with all of this. Travel, sex, family, whatever... they have no meaning to me, and things of that nature offer me no solace. Especially when you consider that odds are very slim that I'll ever get married, or have kids, or anything like that. (Not only am I trans, which is a pretty big strike in the whole dating arena, but I have pretty high standards for stuff like this, so the list of potential partners for me is about all of 2 people on the planet; and chances are pretty minuscule that I'll ever even bump into them, since, you know, in the entire world there's just these 2 people... but I digress).
So, that's it. There's nothing else in life for me, because nothing on that personal level really matters to me... other than this. THIS is what's left. THIS. That's it. Just me and my fucking gender crisis. It's enough to make me scream for the entire year, starting right.................... now!
Okay, so I'm not screaming, and at times I think that maybe I'm just feeling sorry for myself. Maybe this is just how it all goes. Maybe I just forget about all logic and everything I know, and I say, "I'm a girl, I've always been a girl, I was just born differently," convincing myself to the point where I don't even question the notion, which may induce some blissful ignorance into my life. Maybe I just start acting in any way that's going to make me faux-happy, because, as we've already established, I'm never really going to be happy. It's tough to be happy when your whole life is built around the crushing premise of being something that you can never be and living a life that you can never live.
You can call it whatever you want, but I've long felt that I will never actually be a true, "real", female. I'll be some wannabe fabrication of one. I'll always have a secret. I'll always feel flawed and out of place, and these feelings crush me on a daily basis.
HOWEVER... as with most things, there's another way to look at all of this:
I feel pretty insane by "normal" standards. This is because, while going through the process of changing my sex, I keep telling myself, This is insane... there's no way to win here... this is a lose-lose situation; and I think these things all the time. Yet I continue to do this. I continue to move in this direction. Pretty crazy, right?
Then you throw in the fact that when you start down this path, all of this stuff that you thought about for decades starts to come to pass. Things get more real. It actually almost gets to be TOO real, because there is a sharp contrast between reality and what you've been dreaming about for years and years. The reality of this situation, as I understand it to be currently in my life, is that this whole process simply isn't going well at all. The further I go along with this, the more feminine I look; and I look a lot more feminine than when I started. Yet, even after all of this, I look like nothing but a guy. But do I stop? Nope.
Again... This is insane and there's no way to win here.
Yet, still I go on.
Crazy.
So, why am I doing this then? Why would anyone do this to themselves, especially when they think nothing but the above thoughts about the entire situation?
There's only one reason I can think of as to why I'm doing this. That reason is: because I am female. That's just what I am, even if no one can see it or no one ever sees it. Even if people do their best to ignore it and to see only what the cover of the book tells them. Maybe I'm going through all of this pain, annoyance, loneliness, frustration, and everything else, because I actually AM female and I'm simply trying to bring that out into the visible world so I can better live my life as one (hopefully), and live as someone who I truly am.
This is the only answer to the question of why I'm doing this that I have at the moment, and it's a stark difference from the philosophy that I laid down before saying that I was more or less neither sex, and that I was something else entirely. If I am not female, however, then why would I be trying as hard as I am to live my life this way, even when I know that it's a no-win situation to go down this path, and no one is ever going to see me how I see myself (even if I go all the way through the process)? It's cost me so much... friends, family, opportunity, money, stress, worry, and major portions of my life lost to depression and the overwhelming, quicksand-like malaise that goes along with it. This has cost me SO much, AND I think that going down this path is nothing but a futile effort for reasons I delved into above. So, why the hell ELSE would I be doing all of this if I wasn't simply someone who IS female? Who else but someone who was female would deal with all of this pain and shit to look more like a woman and live their life as a woman, even if it'll NEVER be right? Who would do that???
Well, the only other answer I can think of to this question is that I'm crazy. You can call it that, I guess. What I defined above certainly sounds that way. Even if I am crazy, I'm certainly not harmful, and I actually feel like I function a TAD too well in the world to be truly considered crazy, and what even defines "crazy" anyway? Who makes that call?
So, this is the answer I have at the moment. Either I really am female (albeit with a gigantic, male-ish body)... or I'm crazy. I'd really like to think that I'm NOT crazy, so what does that leave me with?
All the best.
