Sometimes, I look back and shudder....

 

One of the issues I've had along my life's journey is what happens after I reveal my authentic self to a person.  Does the person run away?  Does the person show disgust?  Does the person take things as a simple matter of fact?  Or, does that person keep his/her real feelings quiet until the bubble of civility is burst by a dispute?

I told two women I once dated with very different results.  One relationship lasted several years before I found out that she was hiding her real feelings about me.  The other lasted only a couple of dates, as she couldn't deal with the TG part of my nature.  For the most part, it's an albatross around my neck that I have to deal with.

Sometimes, when angry, people's real feelings come out, as in the case of FH.  And though a friend told me that I should contact FH to give her some closure, I haven't done so yet.  She may be thinking that our argument was just a simple argument that people normally have.  But I feel that her total lack of respect for me soured any feelings I might have had for her.  As a result, she can read into my lack of communication what she will. 

With one former friend, I'll never be able to make an appropriate apology to her, nor will I ever be able to demonstrate my bona fides to her.  Such is life.  I have lost too many people in my life because I have given them cause to go away.  Sometimes, I'm glad to get rid of someone.  WDJ is a perfect example of this.  She never demonstrated real friendship.  And her last communication with me was confusing at best.

My true friends and loves accept me for who I am, regardless of how I present myself that day.  I guess that in the end, my ex girlfriend never really loved me, as I was a transitional relationship between a separation and a divorce.  Unlike FH, I never even had the courtesy of having a healthy argument during the relationship, where important problems could be aired out.  If I could have given her some advice, I'd have told her read this article:  5 pieces of incredibly honest dating advice.  Specifically, I'd refer her to the section labeled: "Would you be friends with this individual if you weren’t physically attracted to them?"  If someone doesn't meet the requirements for being a friend, why date that person?  And if you can't be a friend to a person, how can you love that person with a love that will last?

So this gets me to talking directly about myself.  In the past, I chose people as friends out of an emotional deficit.  When one grows up without friends, one will accept "substandard" friendships and relationships as a way of making do.  As I've gotten older, I've inadvertently pushed many relationships in this category away.  Could this have been subconscious?  Who knows?  But I never wanted to push one ex girlfriend away, even though neither of us could imagine a future together.  At least, I can now focus on finding a relationship with someone who cares about the whole of me, and not just a preconceived image of what a partner is supposed to be. 

Do I recoil from some of the things I did in the past?  Yes.  I never meant to hurt anyone.  But do I regret anything?  Only those things that hurt people without cause.  That one former friend in a prior paragraph is one of those I regret hurting.  But that's water under the bridge.

 

 

 

   .....

I'm over the hill, but I don't mind it much.

 

For all practical purposes, it's been 7 years since I had my hands on a mainframe computer.  My programming skills have atrophied since then.  Yet, I am tempted to throw out a few applications to do some old fashioned Cobol programming.  Would I be good at it?  I'm not sure anymore.  I threw away all of my old manuals, never thinking that I'd ever need them again. Why do I mention this?  Well, I'm starting to see ads for remote work that my old skills could be used for.  As much as I am a relic, there are jobs around the country which now beg for remote workers.  And I wouldn't mind being one of them if I could get hired for a job befitting my skills. 

Sadly, I do not think I could brush up on all of my old skills and fake it with the skills I only had training for.  There are better qualified people than me out there, and no one wants to pay the big bucks for someone who is as obsolete as I am.  So, if there's work for me out there, it'll have to be grunt work.  Do I mind where I'm at now?  Not really.  I was able to retire a few years earlier than I had planned, and I have had the opportunity to explore the world as Marian - something which has helped me grow a lot as a person. 

The other day, I went to get a coat altered, getting the sleeves taken up about an inch and a half.  Today, when I went to pick it up from the tailor, I got into a discussion with the seamstress - who likely didn't suspect that I was not a cisgender female, except for my size. We talked about her marital problems, and I talked about my widowhood - with me translating my late wife's experience with cancer into that a male would have.  As long as the person doesn't know I'm transgender, it makes sense to talk about my past as if I'm cisgender. But I will talk about being transgender if things call for it - there is nothing to hide.  It's too bad that I don't have a good excuse to patronize her shop, as I would love to befriend this woman in the same way another cisgender woman would in the same situation.  Alas, this will likely not happen.

I may be over the hill, and far from any important rat races. But the view from here looks as good as the view I had 20 years ago - for very different reasons.  I now know what I want from the rest of my life, and I'm investing the time to get it.  I just wish I had this wisdom while my wife was alive - she deserved to be with someone who fully appreciated her while she was alive....

There are times I think about the failures in my life

 

There are times I think about the failures in my life.  One of those failures was my inability to realize how much I loved my wife before she died, and not to say "I Love You" when she was alive. Another set of failures was related to my relationship with my most recent (ex) girlfriend. I never told her how much I cared for her before we broke up.  Nor did I sense we were growing apart, even though she was signaling just the opposite.  It's been about 6 months since we were last in contact, and she's just a lingering memory of things that shouldn't have been.

Occasionally, a person should ask him/herself - what would I do differently if I could live my life over again?  In my case, I'd have told my wife that I loved her very much, and do it often. When thinking about my ex, I wouldn't have gotten back together with her the first time we broke up, and I would have tried to have the type of friendship that I have with Vicki. I made a lot of mistakes with this lady, and I wish I hadn't spent the better part of 5 years with her in a romantic relationship, when we would have been better off as close friends..

But I don't want to dwell on matters of lost love.  

There is so much more that I'd want to change if I could.  To many, I could be considered a success.  I own my place free and clear, and I have enough resources to last the rest of my life if I am careful with those resources. Yet, I look at myself as a successful failure.  If I had been able to deal with anger issues earlier in my life, I'd have been able to build better friendships, have better romances, and have been much more successful in my career.  If I could tell the 21 year old version of me anything, I'd advise myself to find a good therapist before I got serious with any woman, and before I wasted time in my early career positions.  Although my life would likely have been extremely different from the one I lived, I think I would have been much more successful than I am now.  (And no, I don't mean just financial success.  I also mean that I'd have better and more fulfilling relationships with people.)  Yet, I have few regrets about the life I've lived.

When I think about my career, I was lucky to avoid going for the big bucks when I didn't have the maturity to invest in myself.  Once I developed the basic skills to make a good living, I didn't maintain a saleable skill set to preserve the marketability of my skills.  Yet, I was able to stay at a firm for 30 years, and earn a decent pension while I was able to do so.  This would not have happened had I jumped around for short term money, as I did at the beginning of my career.

If I had chosen to write this blog with the benefit of foresight, I'd have revealed less about some people in my life.  For example, I would have been much more careful about what I wrote - especially when it came to an ex-girlfriend and an ex-cruise partner.  (Long time readers of my blogs know who I mean when I mention them.) Regarding the ex-girlfriend, I would have been less aggressive about pursuing my interests. And regarding the ex cruise partner, the other day, she must have "butt dialed" me.  She didn't respond to an olive branch I sent her in response.  Just as well.  Vicki says that it was a mistake to send out the olive branch.  And she's probably right.

There is one other regret, and this regards a reader of this blog.  I only had the opportunity to meet her once.  Unfortunately, things got in the way for the two of us, and we were never able to meet again.  Sadly, she no longer lives near here, and meeting with her is virtually impossible. Hopefully, I will be able to see her again.