Here they are listed in chronological order.
My 40th Birthday
July 30, 2012
I think all of us go through those "Oh $h*#! I'm not getting any younger!" moments many times in our lives. I started experiencing them in my mid to late thirties. Many were just fleeting thoughts about where I've been and where I'm going; while some would cause moments of anxiety and panic. The one big anxiety/panic attack I had around my 40th gave me about a week of insomnia. During that sleepless week my mind kept repeating what I can only refer to as a "waking dream." This 'dream' started in my pre-teens or maybe my early teens and happiness usually as I am in bed trying to fall asleep. The dream would allow me to be the girl/woman I was supposed to be and usually happened by some 'magical method' while I slept resulting in the 'new me' when I woke up. Over the years I had many variations of this dream but they all ended in the same results. I would be accepted by society as a female. My solution to this insomnia/anxiety around my 40th was to start privately cross dressing more. This solution was a only a band-aid for a broken bone, but it suppressed my desire to transition for about another year.
The Birth of My Son
September 15, 2012
My wife and I were blessed with a healthy baby boy on September 15, 2012. It was during an unusual heat wave where temperatures reached over 100 degrees in some parts of the city. After the proverbial dust of labor/delivery and our hospital stay had settled and we were back at home trying to readjust our lives with having a newborn; a brief moment in time came when I was awake and my wife and child were asleep. It was the first moment of time I had when I wasn't needed by someone else. It was in the middle of the night and I couldn't sleep. This was strange considering how exhausted I was, but I didn't want to try laying in bed hoping to fall asleep so I went and sat on the couch to cruise the Internet and/or watch TV to try and induce sleep.
A dose of reality hit me as I sat there and I realized that I was a parent. My life had completely changed as I had known it. It was scary and wonderful all at the same time. Even though I had the TV on and my lap top open to some social media site, I was not really paying attention to what was on the screens. My mind was racing ... thinking and digesting this huge change that just occurred in my life. It was during this moment of self reflection that another "I'm not getting any younger" thoughts occurred along with another version of my "wake up and be a girl" dream, but this time it was slightly different. The end results of my thoughts didn't seem so far fetched. It would be challenging but not impossible. It's hard to find words to describe that feeling I felt, but it felt as if a self-built wall had come crumbling down. There were still many walls and blocks to go, but one of the mountains had become a molehill and was no longer in my way.
The Passing of My Mom
January 21, 2013
Nobody likes loosing a parent. Well, maybe a serial killer or murderer might, but they are not part of the general population and are not considered 'normal' by society. My father passed in 2001 but for the last 10 years of his life he and I were not as close as we were when I was a child; so his passing didn't affect me as I once thought it would. But moms are different then dads. I went through the typical feelings of loss when she passed but I also felt a sense of relief. Two sided relief. One side was regarding her and her quality of life, or lack thereof. The last five or so years of her life were not easy due to her health, so when she passed I felt that she was more content and happy knowing that she wouldn't have to suffer on a daily basis. The other side of relief I felt was similar to that wall coming down but it was more freeing, more liberating. Feeling that there wasn't really anything holding me back from my desire to be the woman I've felt inside me for over 20 years except for me and my own personal self-inflicted blocks or walls. However, it still took me another seven months to come out to myself.
During those seven months my mind would wonder back to the 'wake up as a girl' dream as well as the "you're not getting any older' thoughts. Finally, sometime around my 41st birthday I had watched a good number of different transition video's made by different trans women on YouTube over the period of a week or so and by the end of August 2013 when I finally came out to myself and accepted the fact that I am a trans woman and that transition was indeed what I wanted.
Coming out to my wife is another story, which I'll save for a future blog post.
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