Grieving my missing life

[KathyLauren]

My life has been pretty settled for a few years now.  Since my GCS, five years ago, there have been no significant milestones in my transition.  In the last couple of years, I've noticed some hip development and my breasts have become more homogeneous, but that's about it.

 

So, with life settling down to my new normal, I am starting to notice a new subtlety: I miss the female life that might have been.  So many things would have been different if I had figured it all out sooner.  (My egg cracked at age 62.)  Relationships would have been different.  My career path might have been different.  I miss those things I might have done, and those people I might have met.

 

It's not a big deal.  I live in the present, and my life is pretty good.  What I am feeling is like a nostalgia for what never was.  It is not going to ruin my life.  It's just a sweet sadness.

 

Do any other late bloomers feel this?

[Mmindy]

Yes, Kathy.

 

Even as slow as my transition is moving. I often daydream about where my life would have gone if my egg had cracked in my 40s rather than my later 60s. My wife is very tolerant of my questions. What if? Right now I live vicariously through the lives of my daughter, daughter-in-law, and older nieces. I'm very fortunate they let me hang out in their conversations. At best I hope they view me as the old woman I was meant to be.

 

Hugs,

[Jani]

I am a bit further along on this journey than you Kathy while being the same age.  Life is good right now.  I take the approach "do not lament the life not spent."  Its time we will not get back, nor can we go back to that life.  I look at it as preparing for the here and now.  

 

My wife and I had dinner with dear friends last week.  We had dessert and coffee back at their home.  We're sitting by the fireplace and my friend asks "if you could go back to any time in your life would you?"  We had a nice conversation about this but all of us said "no", we've lived those days and they didn't need revisiting.  We also all agreed we wouldn't change a thing.  My wife and I have had a couple horrible events in our lives but we have grown due to them.  It didn't come up in the conversation that I'm transgender but I truly meant that I wouldn't go back.  I am who I am because of my lived experiences. And so are you!  Plus you (most likely) wouldn't have your spouse.  I love mine dearly and she loves me.

 

TL:DR  Never look back.

[kat2]

9 hours ago, KathyLauren said:

I miss the female life that might have been. 

Kathy as someone that did transition young believe it or not it is much harder, lets try a little reversal, oh, its alright for you your pretty, the other side of this Kathy is you get far more attention and have to know how to deal with it, I have come across some pretty dominant men who just will not take no for an answer. So, you may say but, I am attracted to females? that doesn't matter if your pretty you still attractive to male attention.

Kathy number two, you meet the guy of your dreams, but his mum and dad want children, you have told your boyfriend but he forbids you to tell them your past history.

Girls talk more intimately  about body functions, since I had never been in a relationship with girls, some of the things that came up left me stumped, when was I due on? and so on.

Your walking through a connecting tunnel between to train platforms coming the other way I very large group of football supporters with cans of beer in their hands and you know you cannot scream for help, you know that if you turn around they most likely would run after you, its not all a bed of roses, indeed it does create lots of new problems.

[awkward-yet-sweet]

I talk about this with my friends, who are a bit younger than me.  Like, I knew I was different but I didn't start to figure out why until my early 30s.  What would it have been like if I had known as a teenager?  Would it have made more sense, or would it have made things more difficult?

 

I think some of it depends on your family and the time in which you grew up.  My younger friend is in her early 20s, born in this century.  She didn't really think much about the possibility of discrimination at school or in public, although her father wasn't accepting and her mother sort of changed her mind back and forth.  I think transitioning earlier was an advantage for her. 

 

For me, even if I had known I wouldn't have been able to act on it because of my family.  I thought I was a lesbian as a teenager, and I just had to hide it.  Only my sister knew.  And once I started to date my GF in my mid 20s, my parents rejected me when they found out.  So being trans would have probably led to me being thrown out much earlier in life, before I had anywhere to go or anyone to take care of me.  And I can't take care of myself very well, so I might not have survived it.