The Road Ahead
I saw my therapist yesterday. It seems I see her between every six months and a year. I unloaded a LOT on her. Like a soap opera where you miss a half season and then tune in only to be inundated with a whole new set of issues, so this session was yesterday. There have been some huge changes: a lot of personal growth, some major paradigm shifts in my own sense of being as a woman and some discussions about what lays ahead.
The occasional thoughts of even considering the notion of going "back" to being who I was is so completely ludicrous in perspective from where I am now. Realizing I was a person playing an actor in my own "play of life" and being completely miserable at both intense and subtle levels throughout the past 45 or so years has been a revelation only visible from where I stand as a woman now.
As if a puzzle assembled incorrectly, so the pieces are falling into place to see the entire picture of the puzzle of my life manifest before me now. At this point, it is simply a matter of time to put all of the pieces into place before the last one is inserted and, like a light switch being flipped, the minutia of the paperwork will be completed and it will be done.
There is no fanfare in what I do, no congratulatory which can be offered that I would accept. It simply remains that I will be able, as I am finding I am now, to live what remaining time I may have on this Earth as the person I knew as a child I always felt, behaved, socialized, and emoted as. Those who knew me in this world prior saw a person that was always very different and detached from the gender she was assigned at birth. The years of ostracization, exclusion, differential feelings and emotive responses, being isolated, singled out, bullied and wrongly labelled as something and someone I was not are being replaced with a confident, outspoken, contented and happy woman. Just being able to feel that makes up for anything else that could be thrown at me as I chart my own course forward. If I am not truthful to my own sense of self, then how can I extend that without hypocrisy unto others in my life?
The adventure continues. I have several new frontiers I am finding myself crossing into right now...uncharted territory to be sure yet also realms and experiences which are so very affirming yet again in who I am. I still, at times, can't believe just how comfortable this all is. It's like I just started to live my life authentically to myself nearly a half century into it. I have very little idea, at this point, what tomorrow will feel like, but if it's anything like what I am feeling inside now, I'm ready for it. Bring it on.
The occasional thoughts of even considering the notion of going "back" to being who I was is so completely ludicrous in perspective from where I am now. Realizing I was a person playing an actor in my own "play of life" and being completely miserable at both intense and subtle levels throughout the past 45 or so years has been a revelation only visible from where I stand as a woman now.
As if a puzzle assembled incorrectly, so the pieces are falling into place to see the entire picture of the puzzle of my life manifest before me now. At this point, it is simply a matter of time to put all of the pieces into place before the last one is inserted and, like a light switch being flipped, the minutia of the paperwork will be completed and it will be done.
There is no fanfare in what I do, no congratulatory which can be offered that I would accept. It simply remains that I will be able, as I am finding I am now, to live what remaining time I may have on this Earth as the person I knew as a child I always felt, behaved, socialized, and emoted as. Those who knew me in this world prior saw a person that was always very different and detached from the gender she was assigned at birth. The years of ostracization, exclusion, differential feelings and emotive responses, being isolated, singled out, bullied and wrongly labelled as something and someone I was not are being replaced with a confident, outspoken, contented and happy woman. Just being able to feel that makes up for anything else that could be thrown at me as I chart my own course forward. If I am not truthful to my own sense of self, then how can I extend that without hypocrisy unto others in my life?
The adventure continues. I have several new frontiers I am finding myself crossing into right now...uncharted territory to be sure yet also realms and experiences which are so very affirming yet again in who I am. I still, at times, can't believe just how comfortable this all is. It's like I just started to live my life authentically to myself nearly a half century into it. I have very little idea, at this point, what tomorrow will feel like, but if it's anything like what I am feeling inside now, I'm ready for it. Bring it on.
Being authentic that is the key isn't it? That is what my therapist says. Why is it so hard to do that?
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