As I write this.... (a short post)

 

As I write this, I've been thinking of people I have known, wondering what they would think if they were around to see me now.  Most of my friends, family and acquaintances likely had no idea I am a TG. But I can say that for most of my life I wouldn't have thought so either.

My wife may have thought that this was a harmless little kink, as long as I didn't go outside while in women's clothing.  I wonder what she'd think now, as I maximize the time I present as a female and minimize the amount of time I present as a male.  The one time she objected to me wearing women's clothing was on our wedding night.  I think she wanted to be sure of her role in our relationship.

Before my wife and I got married, I kept a promise to my late friend Carol.  I feel that Carol may have been a lonely person, as I don't remember her talking about her friends.  She was the stepmother of a woman I once dated, and I am grateful that this woman and I never hit it off.  Carol opened a letter I addressed to the stepdaughter, and we ended up in contact with each other, building up a friendship that lasted until Carol died.  So, when I kept my promise, I brought my (then) future wife with me to Carol's grave for an introduction.

Bill was my best friend through college, and was the best man at my wedding.  I never felt comfortable talking with him about this side of me, and now there is no chance to do so.  Recently, his email address was disconnected (his private domain expired with no renewal), and he hasn't responded to any texts sent to him.  Given that he survived a brain aneurysm  a few years ago, I wouldn't doubt that another similar issue caused him to be totally disabled or have killed him.

Prior to meeting XGFJ, I had dated two women named Linda. One accepted the fact that I enjoyed wearing women's clothes, but there was no chemistry between us.  (It didn't help that I didn't have a CPAP unit yet, and was very noisy when sleeping.)  Would she have accepted seeing me dressed?  I'm not sure.  But I know that the other Linda would not have been able to accept this.  She was looking for someone more successful and more traditional in nature.

Strangely enough, I think that my mom would have been accepting of me as Marian.  But that's because I think she always wanted a daughter.  My father on the other hand would have had trouble doing so.  During the last few years of his life he was resistant to change, and even had a Trump sticker on his car's bumper.

Enough of thoughts of people from my past.  I'm living in the now, and visit my past sparingly while looking forward to the future.

Often, a mundane life can be boring

 

One thing I have noticed over the past few weeks is that when things are calm and I am living a mundane life, people can find me boring.  Isn't this what most trans people want for their lives?  Excitement and challenges are good and necessary.  But, being calm and relaxed is important too.  Balance is essential for a healthy life.

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When I switched to writing this blog, I lost 2/3's of my readership.  I attribute this loss to not including stories about the life of my former cruise partner and the "Sturm und Drang" in her life.  Yet, that's a good thing.  After undergoing painful feelings of loss and grief, I came out a better person in the end.  I hope she came out better as well.

In the beginning, life for a transgender person can be scary.  First, we have to experiment with being partially out.  Questions like "what will people think?" and "what can happen to me?" come to mind.  We fear our unknowns, and we are often paralyzed by our fears.  Gradually, we start tiptoeing outside and getting used to being seen.  We know our appearance is far from perfect, but we're experimenting with our new social identities.  At this time, we usually work towards having the skills to blend in and not be noticed (at first) as being transgender people.  We are learning who we are and who we want to be by being out in the world.  Yet, our identities are not yet fixed yet.

After a while, we develop confidence in our "new" selves.  We have learned the unwritten language of our authentic gender, and people know us as our authentic identity.  Some of us move forward to medical transition, others stay with legal and social transition, and the rest remain comfortable in gender roles that provide enough flexibility to present as their authentic selves.

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So, do I lead a boring life?  In some ways, yes.  In others, no.  One of my friends says I have the best of both worlds.  But I'm not sure of that.  I can never grow close to my children as a cisgender woman can.  Nor can I take advantage of male privilege in ways I find alien to me.  It's as if I am an immigrant in a new world.  Familiar, yes.  And yet, a little bit strange.  But I wouldn't change things for the world.

We're booking another cruise.

 

I'll give my readers one clue to where we'll be cruising next year: It's a land with virtually no military at all, but it is a valuable member of NATO.

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Recently, I saw a good price on a Northern European cruise which would maximize our time in Iceland. Although we'd only have one day in Reykjavik, at least we'd have more than one port stop in the Land of Fire and Ice. It is on a cruise line that I haven't taken for almost three decades, Holland America. The deal we're getting isn't as good as we'd normally get on Princess. But it goes where we want it to go. And that's the important thing.

There are details that still have to be worked out. One of those things is airplane reservations. We can't do that for several months. That gives us time to pay down our balance on this cruise. As long as we have everything paid off before the final payment date, we should be OK. Unlike our previous pre-cruise trip to London, we have no relatives or friends who live on the European mainland. So, we'll be on our own in Europe (outside of the cruise itself) for the first time.

I never realized how quickly RQS would warm up to the idea of taking this trip. Maybe she's also looking at doing at least one "Bucket List" trip per year. Hopefully, we'll be able to do a Hawaii, a Panama Canal, and another Alaska cruise before our health starts to fail due to old age.

Yet, I'm rambling on. We still have one cruise left to take this year, and I might find a way to take another trip if I have the money to pay for it. For now, it's time for me to live in the present, and not in the future or past.

We're having a heat wave....

 

The thermometer broke 90° today, and I was lucky enough to have been able to stay inside.  I feel sorry for the people who had to sweat it out on the NYC Subway today, as I was once one of those commuters.

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There wasn't much on the docket for today.  Yet, I got things done from inside the house.  First on the docket was a phone call with Vicki's financial advisor - and we got along well.  (I'm glad that this wasn't a zoom meeting, as I didn't want any trace of Marian to show up in the video feed.)  He will work up a first draft of a financial plan for me, and then I can review it.

Next was a phone call with the co-op president.  We discussed changes needed for the recent meeting minutes and for the quarterly newsletter.  I would have liked more time.  But my next appointment was at 8:00, and I didn't want to be late for my zoom meeting with our Texas friends.  I opened up the zoom, and it was a shorter meeting than usual - none of us that had much to say.

Following the Zoom, I chatted with TCL for a while, and then called RQS to discuss our events of the day.  There was a 2027 Icelandic cruise that I was interested in, so I forwarded a request to our travel agent for pricing information.  If the numbers are right, I will put a down payment on the cruise.  

Finally, I got back to the editing of our meeting minutes and our newsletter.  By midnight, I was done and ready to sleep.  Tomorrow, it will be both wet (rain) and hot - AARGH!  There is no chance that I will go down to NYC to see a pay as I planned for this week. I will be staying cool and comfortable on Wednesday, and RQS will be coming up on Thursday.

90° and getting even warmer!

 

It's several days before Memorial Day as I write this entry, and the thermometer already has broken the 90° mark.  Ouch!  What made things worse is that RQS had to go home and suffer with the heat on the NYC Subway.  AARGH!!

Neither of us wanted to get up this morning, but RQS had to make a 11:42 train.  So we both got dressed in loose fitting garments, and I drove her to the station.  Once I dropped her off, it was time for me to pick up some breakfast before going home.  And then I took a nap, as I woke up at "god awful o'clock" and couldn't get back to sleep.

Around 5:00, I awoke from my nap and started to sort out laundry to go in the wash.  This wasn't much to do, but I wanted to balance out the loads so that I wouldn't have missing socks or undies between washes.  As it is, I have a bag filled with single socks that needs to be inspected for matches found from singlets I've deposited in the bag over several months.

Now that the sorting was done, I decided NOT to do the laundry due to the heat outside.  Instead, I decided to stay in for the night and stripped off my makeup.  And then, I paid my bills. For the most part, it was a boring day - which most life experiences should be for trans folk.  If we can go about our business without people hassling us, I consider that day to be a win.

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You might ask, why do I often focus on the mundane parts of my life?  Well, I consider it a responsibility for trans folk to look at how normal life can (and should) be for us and document our normalcy for others.  Only then can we have a benchmark for when things go sour.... 

 

 

A visit to the Danbury Railway Museum

 

The weather forecast for the day was for a bit of humidity and for 90° (or more) thermometer readings.  Ouch!  And yet, RQS and I figured that we'd venture out to the museum and see what they had to offer.

But first....

We woke up to an alarm  that didn't want to stop.  Both of us were shouting at our "Smart" (?) device to stop, and it took 5 minutes to do so. After this, neither of us were in the mood to go to church as we had originally planned. So we chilled until 11 am, and then prepared to go out.

Both of us decided to get dressed in blue dresses today, and drive over to the museum.  We left my apartment around 12:30, and reached the museum shortly before 2:00.  Neither of us were really prepared  for the heat outside.  We had to air out the car a little before getting inside the car.  Thankfully, the AC worked at full speed, and we had a comfortable ride.

There were many artifacts in the museum building, including a couple of miniature railroad exhibits.  Yet, if it were only the model railroad stuff, it would not have been worth the visit.  Instead, there were other artifacts from the golden age of railroading that were worth looking at.    

But the real value of this museum came from the short ride through the rail yard, followed by a tour of the museum's rolling stock.

Our tour guide told us about the history of each of their pieces of rolling stock, as well as the history of the yard in which the museum's rolling stock is stored.  We also got a chance to take a ride on the yard's turntable.  (You'll note that there is a woman in a blue dress in 2 of these pictures.  That's as much of RQS as I want to show my readers for privacy's sake.)  The last stop of the day was the rail car in the last photo.  This was a treat, as it was an early example of a rail car used on the 20th Century Limited, the New York Central railroad's flagship train which ran from NYC to Chicago and back.

A little bit before 4:00, we left for home.  On our way back, we stopped at a local Chinese restaurant for dinner.  Neither of us realized how drained we were from the heat outside, so when we got home, we passed out for a couple of hours before regaining consciousness.

Almost Matching Dresses

 

Both RQS and I set alarms for us to get out of bed, get dressed, and go to the Danbury Railway Museum. However, one thing got in the way - the 10:30 alarm I thought I had set didn't go off, and RQS didn't get out of bed until 11:30.  By the time got moving, it was too late to go to Danbury, as the museum closes at 4:00.  So we watched some videos, and relaxed most of the day.

Once we decided to get moving, RQS decided to wear a red floral dress.  I figured that I'd join in on the same theme and wear the red floral dress I bought from Amazon last week.  Given the 80 degree weather outside, this would be a perfect choice for me - and it was.  To be safe, I brought my denim jacket (which I didn't need), but who knew how quickly it might get cool after dark.

Our first stop was at Pepe's Pizza in Yonkers.  Both of us were hungry, and we hadn't had their pizza in a while.  It was nice to be addressed as a female by the staff, and no one took notice of my less than feminine features.  (Having worked on my voice and my presentation over the past decade and a half helps me blend in as female when I need to do so - especially when I have to go to the loo.)  After we finished our meal, it was off to Lidl for some shopping.  And today, I got off almost as well as I would have done at Trader Joe's.  But then, I wasn't planning on buying much.

Going home as the sun was getting ready to set, I took an alternate route back to my house in order to avoid the harsh setting sun burning my eyes.  Taking the "scenic route" back home, I was able to take a path where my eyes were protected from direct sunlight. 

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Tomorrow, we're planning on going to church and then to the railway museum.  I hope we get to both.