When one gets tired, one can slip up....

 

I remember how Fran was when she told me about how she decided to come "out" to the world.  She couldn't keep her male and female persona separate enough to avoid having the wrong person see her in the wrong presentation.  Today, I made a smaller version of the same mistake.  Although my mistake is not "fatal" it is a potential problem, as I emailed some paperwork to my doctor's office from my "Marian" account.  This will likely cause a few questions if the receptionist asks the wrong questions.

However, I am not too worried about a worst case scenario.  It will only be a little bit of embarrassment at first, then life will go on.  But this makes me wonder how many of us let our guard down a bit too far when we are tired.  When I used to cruise with FCP, I'd occasionally slip up and use the wrong voice when tired or overly relaxed.  The wrong voice can spoil any presentation in less than a second.  So, sending an email from the wrong account is a relatively minor thing to let happen.  Doctors are supposed to keep secrets, and I expect that the people in his office can be trusted to do the same.

Dressing

One of the problems with being transgender is learning how to dress yourself so that you blend in with other women.  I've made more than my share of mistakes in the past, and I have been overdressed more times than I'd like to remember.  But learning from our mistakes is the best way to learn how to blend in with other females.  So, I realized early on that there is only so much a transgender self help group can give me.

I'm not knocking transgender support groups.  We need groups of people with which we can feel safe. But Transgender people need cisgender women to use for our patterns of femininity.  For example, I learned that I could never wear a dress like the one above to a casual function.  Instead, I would either need a very casual dress, or to wear some sort of trouser based outfit.  Additionally, we need to pattern our speech patterns and conversation topics on those cisgender women often use - and those do not involve most sports.  (Yes, women participate in sports.  But sports are not the focus of most women's lives.  Instead, it is usually their family lives that they will talk about with other women.)

Once a transwoman gets to a certain point, she must go out and make those mistakes one learns from.  And I have made a lot of those mistakes since I've gone out as Marian.  But now, I have to figure out what my next steps will be.  Soon, I expect that I will be getting my ears pierced.  This is a small step, but one that may be noticed when I go out as Mario.  Each step forward towards femininity is a step away from masculinity.  How far do you want to go on your journey?  As for me, I'm still figuring out that question for myself.

 

I woke up and found I said nothing

 

Lately, I've been trying to find something to say for each day.  However, Blogger has a nasty habit of leaving the wrong day in the date field even after a publish date has been set for an entry.  As a result of this glitch (they may call it a feature), I woke up to find that nothing posted today - something I had to rectify with this short post,

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As I write this, I have a documentary about Jerry Lewis on in the background. The French love him as a performer - I don't.  No accounting for their taste.  But then, I feel that one sentence best covers their only two positive attributes: "They know how and what to eat."  Yet, I can say that Lewis put in one good performance in his career - the movie "Boeing Boeing".  And even more importantly, he did raise a lot of money for charity.  

Over this weekend, I've been struck with a marvelous lack of energy - and a revelation: I need external reasons to get up and be active.  This might be the reason I've tried to stick at this boring job I do during the week.  I miss having someone to be with.  But it's better than being with the wrong person.

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Today, I plan to take care of some errands to keep myself busy.  I'm not sure if I will do it in Marian or Mario mode.  Either way, I'm going to get some sunshine while I can do so.  And on that note, I'll see you tomorrow....

Until I find my new normal, I look both ways....

 

I often find myself thinking of mistakes I made in the past and what I could have done differently.  No, I can not change the past, nor do I regret many of the decisions I have made.  Instead, I want to learn as much as possible from my past, and make sure that I don't make similar mistakes in the future.

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When crossing a road, we are taught to look both ways before crossing.  Now, I look both at the past and my future to figure out what I want to do next in life.  For example, I looked at my most recent past relationship, and realized that I needed to place a higher emphasis on communication in a relationship, instead of just getting along too smoothly.  I also look at the future, and wonder if someone like FH would be what I need.  She is not shy about making her needs known to me, and can drive me up the wall sometimes while doing so - and I'm glad she can do this, given the failure of my recent past.

I also wonder whether I should stay in the workforce as a full time worker, and whether I would work as Mario or Marian.  If I were to get a receptionist or office worker type position, I want to work as Marian.  There is something I like about appearing as a professional woman that fits my image of myself as Marian.  Yet, I like the image of a technical worker that I was as Mario. Which path should I choose if both were to be open to me at the same time?

It's not easy making these decisions, as I will have to live with them for a long while.  But I am glad that I'm in a position to make these decisions, instead of being held back by fear.