The Woman Within

When things get seriously wrong and my obnoxious humor can no longer provide a band-aid of comedic relief to mask what ails me, I tend to withdraw and pull back into my hole where I am safe to deal alone with the daemons which plague my sentient and sub-conscious mind. For what I face is what I seriously hoped I would not, but knew deep within that I would have to come to terms with at some point. The realm of playtime has pretty much ended as I had unwittingly foreseen. Dressing up to go out has not lost it's luster but its meaning has changed. I'm not dressing up any longer to admire how I look in the mirror and enjoy some time as my feminine self. I'm finding now, it to be the necessary step in allowing me to be who I am inside and to relate to the world as I know who I am. The peace inside of being myself clashes with an ever increasing ferocity with the polarity of who I am not when I have to go back to play the male role. The relief of stress I felt when present

We just finished off a week with my wife's nephew, who stayed with us and enjoyed some of the offerings that we could share with him in our beautiful state. Although I had to work during the weekdays for the fact that with this corporate takeover I was relieved of all of my vacation time, Joanne was able to spend time with him during the day. Evenings and weekends we packed full of swimming, hiking, biking, kayaking and all sorts of adventures. I found that although I tried to take time away from my gender dysphoria in this way, it still haunted my inner being and I still would find myself breaking down at quiet times during the workday at home. It's the stress... the accumulation from so many sources... Mom is out of the hospital and doing somewhat better after taking a spill down the stairs... but her memory is still, if even more so, failing her after this event. It bothers me greatly to see an independent woman become so dependent upon my dad now - and my dad will not