My Angel

My Angel,

My angel was heaven sent. Some say turn it over, let go - let God. Then there is talk of a master plan, a higher power, all loving and all knowing....yet sight unseen. That is faith my friends, most tested at times of greatest challenge. Well perhaps there are not many greater challenges in life that of a transgender person in transition. Well I am here to tell you, have faith....there are angels amongst us.

My angel was sent with purpose, assigned a specific mission. She was sent for me to fall in love with. To fall for completely, off the deep end into the dark depths of the heart and soul that many people never experience. She came at a time and place most unexpected and appeared before me, a lovely blonde haired apparition that simply reached out with a smile so warm, so inviting, so mesmerizing that I simply opened my heart, without question, and place it so willingly at her feet. She took good care of it, ensuring that the last threads of caution dissolved into a pile of dust falling behind us on the earth as we walked hand-in-hand through life, forever....or not.

No, this angel's mission, it's true, was to save my heart and soul, but not in the manner that I assumed. She was to make her way so deep into my heart that I could think of little else. I needed her like one needs air. Once accomplished and I was sufficiently vulnerable, He took her away from me, over and over and over again. Well my free will surprised even Him, that the depth of my love for her would allow me to hold my breath for days and weeks at a time when we were apart. But there was work to be done and He would not give up. So he took her away again, and again, and for longer periods....6 months of a single year and I waivered, but again my will persisted. Too soon though another year was upon me, facing another year with being alone for half of it. Finally I caved, gave up, cried uncle, began to turn it over.....and came to either find myself or completely and irretrievably turn to dust.

So I found myself, looking into the mirror one day and seeing what I had somehow blinded myself to for so long, the female version of me. And so it began, the days of the joys and angst of self discovery, all the while watching the tears of my angel as she recognized that her mission was coming to an end, a bit like Nanny McPhee. As I moved along the path of my journey of transition the ties that bound us began to slowly dissolve.....until one day, just another time apart, it would be different.....this time she wouldn't come back, except briefly to check on me with her own eyes and to say goodbye....tears would flow, hers and mine, then and now, as letting go, no matter how necessary it may be, is difficult if not seemingly impossible some days. But I was stronger, having been forced to find myself or die. Even so, I would resist, but my resolve was weakening. Like it or not I was beginning to see that I could stand on my own, and take a few steps towards independence.

I would venture out, not straying far from home at first but then farther as confidence grew. I was tasting the grapes of life for the first time, through clear lenses. There were successes and failures but in spite of the fear, I was able to recover from each. And then she was gone...silence from beyond the deep blue waters that separated us.

Then, just when it seemed I would drift, forever alone.....the second phase of His plan was put into action. He would send her human counterpart and I would recognize her instantly. My heart would immediately open, as if conditioned to the common features...those parts of my angel that I loved so much, shining through the morning mist to guide the way. The image took shape, finally, and clarity was achieved.

My angel, my Lynda was heaven sent to heal me, and then set me free so that I could be ready for my Linda to come into my life when I was ready. The similarities between the angel and the person were incredulous as is the most prominent difference. While my Lynda had reason to leave me, repeatedly, Linda does not. Both are gorgeous, strong and packed with worldly good sense. They are honest, genuine and loving. Yes, my Lynda's mission was to prepare me for my Linda.

In heartfelt sincerity and a degree of sadness that I will carry with me forever, thank you. You are the woman that touched my heart and let me feel what true love is, becoming the first woman that I would truly love....preparing me as it were for Linda....the last woman I will ever love. Be well my Lynda, for I will never forget you. I truly hope that you find the blissful happiness that should come your way for the years of your life that you gave to me, so that I could find that very same blissful happiness.

Lots of love,
Laura xx

Who get to take the blindfold off?

Who gets to take the blindfold off?

 

I was on the treadmill just now and sort of watching Covert Affairs on TV. I've seen it before but not enough to know the characters by name...but the blonde girl is really hot...but i digress. There is one guy on the show that is blind, or nearly anyway. well on the show he was giving a girl a glimpse into his world. He put a blindfold on her and helped her walk the sidewalk in DC. They got to an intersection and with a lot of help from him she managed to cross the street without getting killed. When she got onto the sidewalk and was safely accross she pulled the blindfold off and with a big smile she looked at him and said, "I did it!". Just then it hit her...he doen't get to take the blindfold off.

Welcome to our world, those of us who have transitioned and to those who will. Once you transition, you don't get to take the blindfold off. On bad hair days you don't get to be a boy....when you're makeup just doesn't look right, you don't get to be a boy. Transition, for better of worse, is just that. Living your life as the gender you identify with, not the sex you were born with, 24/7/365.

Transitioning isn't easy, but we don't want the sympathy of others. It just burns some of us when a CD/TV trys to tell us they know what it's like, what we're going through, or how to do it. Sorry, but you don't know, can't know, because you can take the blindfold off whenever you want. That doesn't make us better, or worse....just one more way to recognize our differences. CD/TV's want us to recognize them, fair enough....but please don't demean us and try and tell us you know how we feel or what we've been through. If you did, you'd be TS.

Transitioning isnt easy.... but I wouldn't have it anyother way.

Laura

Reality Bites...Part II

So I return to blogging to help avoid being too personal on Facebook.   I know I won't get the feedback here that I get on FB but blogging helped though tough times before so maybe it will again.

Tough times....hmmm.....they come on like the wind, meaning my mood changes like the weather.  I felt really good earlier, finished my last laser treatment and instead of coming home and putting on my nightgown I put on a pair of shorts and a tee shirt...then the fog set in and my mood dropped.  I won't even write here some of my darkest thoughts but suffice to say I am discouraged.  Why?  I have had a very successful and relatively easy transition.  My insurance pays for my endocrinologist and I get my  hormones and lab work done on base for free.  My job is safe and my co-workers and patients have accepted me, I still have my home and I am making friends...I really have nothing to complain about.....then why am I so very sad so much of the time?

Well that was a rhetorical question.  I know why I am sad so much of the time. I get my batteries recharged by being around people.  I so look forward to the end of the work day and then the work week....then I come home to an empty house.  I need love in my life, and I had it....and then I through it away.  Was it really worth it Laura?  Hardly matters because it is what it is.  I am a freak with mixed parts. Caught in 'no man's land' between man and woman....the land of the lost it seems.  I listen to my friends on facebook....they, like I did, get excited by small victories, like being referred to as their identified gender.  Not to minimize the importance of that, I still get that little boost when it happens.  On the other hand, most of them are alone...so what chance do I have.

Yes, reality bites...part II.

Telling Dad

This is the e-mail I sent my dad:

(edited and sent on 16 February 2013)

Dad,

Well as I said in my text, Paul informed me that mom had shared my big and albeit shocking news. First, there is more I want to tell you that I could never put in an e-mail. People write novels about their journeys (as we call it). If you want to read a really good one, and the first book I read on this subject, try “She’s Not There” by Dr Jennifer Finney Boylan. Dr Boylan is an English professor at Colby College in New Hampshire and her book is about her journey. I have come to learn that while the specifics are different, the general theme for all of us is the same. Early childhood indicators, years of attempting to repress our feelings, dysphoria for ‘no apparent reason’, certain degrees of success while apparently leading a ‘normal’ life, some period (often years) of consternation about ‘coming out’ and then anxieties and fears about everything from losing family, jobs, homes etc to being actually able to blend into society without ridicule and embarrassment to medical worries and the rather huge financial cost.....many, if not most of us, never make it all the way. I am one of the few that did. You always did say that if you were going to do something, do it right.... well I assure you....I did this as right as anything I’ve ever done; and once my decision was made, it came very easily, though not without my share of worry.

Ok, time to spell it out. I am, in general, transgendered. More specifically, transsexual. Transgender is an umbrella term covering all sorts of gender issues from closeted cross-dresses to transvestites/drag queens to transsexuals. There is much confusion in society about the differences between transsexuals and transvestites; sort of like psychologists vs psychiatrists. Those that know anything about medicine know the fundamental difference between a psychiatrist and psychologist is that the psychiatrist has been to medical school. Well the fundamental difference between a transsexual and transvestite is gender dysphoria. That is to say an emotionally disturbing emotional incongruence between our biological sex and our gender identity. Also, transvestites are typically gay men that are happy to be men but like portraying women in a role. Some do this professionally as Drag Queens. Transsexuals are not happy at all with their biological sex and often strive to change it to more closely resemble their gender identity. While there is currently serious debate about where this fits into the medical world, currently I have a mental disorder called Gender Identity Disorder (according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV) of Mental Disorders. In the DSM V it will be called simply Gender Dysphoria. Many would have it moved completely from the mental health disorders to a medical disorder, likely one of the endocrine system. Research has found that the only effective treatment is to transition to the identified gender. While counseling throughout transition maybe helpful to deal with the fallout, transition only initially requires mental health services to rule out other co-morbid conditions and then the treatment is all medical....for most of us endocrine treatment involving introduction of high doses of estrogen while including an antiandrogen to block the production of testosterone. The results, over a period of several years, is a gradual feminization of the body. For some, $$$ is often the key barrier, gender reassignment surgery (or more crudely a sex change operation) is accomplished. While even with surgery, once it has been completed, it is complete, hormone treatment continues throughout life. Thus the reason that, as the primary treatment is of the endocrine system, the belief that this is where this condition should be classified.

Now for a bit of my journey. I’ll start with a couple of childhood memories and then jump quickly to my current state. I remember in probably 3rd or 4th grade, so 8-9 yrs old, asking mom for a pair of girls tights. I wanted them, to wear, more than you could imagine. I must have known something was off by this request because when mom asked me why, I told her to keep my legs warm...she bought me boys long johns. I also distinctly remember, around the same age, telling mom that I thought I was supposed to be a girl. I remember wanting a GI Joe (I really wanted a Malibu Barbie but knew there was no way) but you would never buy me one....the persistent argument being that GI Joe was a doll and dolls were for girls. Really? I laugh now but really? How many GI Joes do you think were sold, and how many of those do you think were sold to girls. That tells me that you saw something wrong in me and tried to correct it in the best way you knew how. Around that same time, I think the summer after we moved to Roberta Rd, I road my bike everyday to Shelia Egan’s house. She lived on lower Oswald Ave and I had known her at Stearns. We used to play girl games like hopscotch or with her dolls. I remember one day her dad came out and said that I should be playing with boys, and suggested her younger brother Eric....I don’t think I ever went back there. It makes me sad to think about because she was a really good friend. I’d love to track her down and tell her my story but she is probably married and living who knows where. Anyway...they were some of the early indicators....looking back. Seems there was also some talk about taking me to a therapist when I was young but it never came about, that I remember. Growing up with the kids on Eleanor Rd was easy because boys and girls all did the same things. Gender didn’t make much difference. The girls played football and the boys played bridge. When dating started it was always very awkward for me. I didn’t think like the other boys. I was attracted to women, or wanted to be around them and have never been attracted to men. I think what I wanted was to be in the inner circle of women...in their space. But, even when you are dating a girl, you are still outside their world...so it was never enough. Cranwell was, well....just say I looked forward to Fridays when the girls from Miss Halls came to use our science labs. Dating in college wasn’t very fruitful but then I met Cheryl when I was home that first summer from Purdue. As with most girls I had dated, I wanted to marry them by the second date. Hence I scared everyone off but managed not to do that with her. She was pretty and we were good friends, though I don’t know if I loved her romantically. But it didn’t matter. My plan was to be married and I was. Whether it was to always be able to be around women or to help suppress my dysphoria and ‘do what boys do’ (get married and have kids) it’s hard to tell now. But in any case It did. I remember mom telling Cheryl, before our wedding, that I could be cold. That hurt when I heard she had said that but, she was right. I really didn’t feel anything unless a situation was intense. What I did was to quickly analyze a situation, determine the appropriate emotion and then the behavior that would have been consistent with that emotion, and behave accordingly. It was quite an act and, for the most part, I pulled it off. It was really tiring though.

Twenty years of active duty helped further suppress the female side of me but as retirement loomed and the internet bloomed, I began to let myself explore, especially after arriving here in 1998. It started innocently but eventually I found myself expressing my female side on the internet, in chat rooms primarily. There was some pornography involved, though that wasn’t the main point, that’s just what others saw and led to my separation and divorce from Cheryl. In the end though, the primary goal was to portray a female role within the perceived anonymity of the internet. I was in counseling after we separated (this was in 2002) and at one point, came to the conclusion that I was transsexual. I even remember that Cheryl was visiting me at the house on base (until 2003 the plan was always to get back together), I think in the fall of 2002, and I told her. I even dressed in female clothing to show her. I don’t remember her particular reaction but it wasn’t horror. Well I told my therapist but learned that this was a specialized area and she didn’t feel comfortable treating me but offered to refer me to a friend. We had talked about how much I wanted the love of a woman, someone to hug and hold hands with. Well at that time I had zero support. You didn’t even know yet I was separated, my girls didn’t want to talk with me, I was retiring from the AF with no good plan after and no idea how to go about the world as a transsexual. Heck, I didn’t even know how to be a single boy let alone a single transsexual. Well the following week I went back to my therapist with tons of doubt. She reminded me that she was no expert but suggested that maybe I wanted the love of a woman so badly, I was willing to become one. Well, I’ll tell you, that sounded a whole lot better than being transsexual so I bought it, and my feelings subsided....for a while. But, like throughout my life, they came back. I married Lynda in 2003 and felt ‘normal’ again for a bit, but within a few months my feelings were back. Over the course of our marriage I gradually began expressing my female side more and more....underwear, shaving my legs, then chest and arms, girls jeans, shorts and a pair of pants when we used to go dancing in England. Still I didn’t accept that I was transsexual, I just liked girls clothes. But, no matter how much of my feminine side I got to express, it wasn’t enough. I remember in England, at work during quiet times, researching the various sexual disorders trying to figure myself out. A couple of years ago I even researched self castration....though learning that there was no safe way to do that. Well my feelings became stronger and stronger and during times Lynda was back in England, I was back on the internet expressing my female side. I felt quite ashamed about this as I love her very much, but felt it was wrong. Over the past few years I told Lynda, in a joking way as to test the waters, that I thought I was supposed to be a girl. Over more time, my feelings grew until April 2011 when they were becoming overwhelming and I told Lynda I was going to go to counseling to figure them out and what to do about them. She went back to England in May for 3 months. By early July (a couple of weeks before she was due to come back), with the aid of counseling, I came to accept that I was transsexual...had Gender Identity Disorder. I had met another, local trans girl on the internet and she convinced me to come out (dressed) to a coffee shop in downtown Melbourne. Thursday evenings they have a gathering of lesbian, gay, bi, and transgendered persons (LGBT )...and I did. I will never forget the feeling of standing on the sidewalk talking with another trans girl in a jean skirt, heels and a female top...I described it later as having let the genie out of the bottle, and she didn’t want to go back in. Well Lynda wasn’t pleased but worked with me, came to a couple of counseling visits and even went out with me (I called myself Rachael initially just because I liked the name). Over the next few months I became more and more confident as no one had ever said anything to embarrass me. I was meeting, mostly on Facebook, other girls like me and many had cute stories about their names so I decided I needed to pick a name that had meaning for me. I decided, out of respect for you and the name you gave me, I wanted to keep my same initials. Someone had suggested picking a name popular when I was born, rather than now. Well again to the internet to look for popular girls names from 1955. Well there were not many L C combinations that worked and Laura Catherine just jumped out at me. So that’s what I started using. On December 13, 2011...via prescription from an Endocrinologist, I took my first estrogen tablets and the anti-androgen. By then I had done considerable research and was pleased with my prescriptions. I had obtained the referral from the Chief of the Medical Staff at the base hospital, who was terrific. My plan was to live my life as a boy during the work week and transition to living as Laura on weekends. It was great at first but over time the dysphoria during the work week became overwhelming and I knew I needed more. I needed to transition to living my life full time as Laura. Again, with the aid of the internet, I was able to learn that while federal employees were protected from discrimination for race, sex, age, religion etc....in 2010 the rules were modified to include gender identity. So, with the research in hand, I went to my boss and told her..she was great, supportive and gave me a big hug. From there we went to our Squadron Commander and he was also supportive. Finally to our hospital Commander who was nothing less than amazing. A female Colonel from Kenya, but raised in England, she gave me lots of time to talk, gave me a big hug and immediately drove across base to tell our Wing Commander, a Brigadier General. Well that was the last time I had to explain myself on base. The General made it clear that if he heard of anyone giving me a hard time he would be happy to meet with them in person...what support. I did of course tell my office staff who were also supportive. I am friends with some senior social work officers that I 'had served with and they are in some high leadership roles at HQ AF and across the world. Again, an amazing response. Finally came my patients. This was my most humbling professionally. Every patient, all given the choice, elected to continue with me after transition....almost made me cry (which I do a lot easier these days).

On April 18, 2012 (a year to within a day to my first counseling session) I went to court and changed my name, which is now, legally, Laura Catherine Perry. Lynda had given me a pant suit to wear and my supervisor (a Major, psychologist) came with me. It all went down without a glitch. There were seemingly endless documents and records to change but everyone had a process and I had done the prep work in advance. Social security, DMV, banks, military records – retired and DoD civilian ID, college records (had to order new diplomas to display in my office), professional license etc. It was fun though and I’ve gotten 99% of it done. Within a few weeks, with a letter from my Endocrinologist, I was able to get another new drivers license but this one has a female gender marker. I also have a passport in my legal name and a female gender. This is how we went to the Bahamas over 4th of July week this year, as Laura and Lynda (paid for by Lynda). Now I have been on hormones for just over 14 months and the physical changes to my body are in evidence. I have completed 18 months of laser facial hair removal and recently started electrolysis to remove the white hairs on my face that the laser didn’t get. I am tentatively looking at using some of my 401K money to pay for gender reassignment surgery, sometime in the next year....to the tune of about 20k.

Over the course of time I told others close to me. Paul and Judi were first of the family, guinea pigs if you will. Well when they took it well, Jennifer and Heather were next. After taking some time to absorb it, they have been great. Heather and I have been out together and I spent New Years in Mobile with Jennifer and her husband. Mom was next, after talking with Judi and Paul extensively. We all decided we would leave it to mom if/when/how you would find out. The only concern was for your health and no other reason. Between your emphysema and cardiac problems we were concerned about the possible result of such news. From what Paul has told me, you’ve been pretty calm thus far...so that’s good.

I even ‘came out’ to my Cranwell class via a Facebook group. Every responder from my class and others has been great as well. I kid them that I am probably the only girl that every graduated from there. But, that may not be true as there could well have been others like me, maybe even from your class.

This is the reason I didn’t come home for Christmas or Thanksgiving. I don’t look like a boy anymore and you would have known something was up, even without hair and boys clothes. If for no other reason than my eyebrows, eyeliner and lip liner are tattooed. (paid for by Lynda)

As you I’m sure surmised..things between Lynda and I are hard. I know she loves me but not sure she can live with me as a woman. Her kids all know and the ones I talk with, via Facebook, just want her to be happy. She extended her stay to try and figure out what she wants to do but really won’t know until she gets back and sees me, April 28th. She left on August 1st to attend Sarah’s wedding. I miss her terribly but have made a couple of girlfriends that I go out with on weekends and play a lot of golf so I am doing ok.

I could go on but my carpal tunnel is starting to act up so I’ll wrap it up.

No one would go though this for fun...we go through it, potentially losing everything and everyone close to us, only because the alternative becomes unbearable at some point.

I imagine you have questions, if not now then in time. I do want you to know I am happy, happier with myself than I ever thought was possible. Yes, I miss Lynda terribly and it will be a terrible loss if we split. On the other hand, as I love myself for the first time in my life, I am ok on my own and I know I will find someone that will love me for who I really am. I feel a whole range of feelings now and understand what it feels like to really live.

I would love to come home and see everyone, when everyone is ready to see me. I can send pictures when you are ready to see what I look like, Paul has several. You will still recognize me, I’m not wearing a mask. I just look more like the female version of myself.

Please know I love you and this has no reflection on you. I have come to see I was born this way and thank you for all of the opportunities you gave me. What I accomplished as a boy was only possible because of you and the life you and mom provided me.

I know this must be a hard thing for a parent to hear and to adjust to, especially because of my age. Well, while kids are ‘coming out’ younger and younger (see the article in the Eagle today), mid to late 40’s was the norm in my generation. I was 47 in 2002...If I wasn’t going through such turmoil at the time I may well have done it back then. Anyway, I know this is hard but I’m glad you know. This ‘secret’ has created a certain distance between us that I don’t like. Now that it’s out in the open I hope we can communicate more often.

With all the love in my heart,

Laura xxx

PS: Now you can understand those occasional slip ups with Laura’s IPhone or Laura in my email address. I didn’t always remember to change everything before I responded to you.

 

Losses that Outweigh the Gains

I hate to be writing this entry but I have to tell someome.  If you are listening, I'm sorry to burden you....you might just want to stop reading here.

So it looks like it's over.  No, the final bell has not rung but the gong is beginning to strike.  My marriage to the only woman I've ever loved is coming to an end because of my selfishness.  She asked me, no...she begged me not to go through with my transition, but I didn't listen. All I thought about was myself, my own happiness, without really considering the impact on her.  I knew the data on marriages survining transition, and it's not good.  The few that make it do so involve older people and out of love.  Well my beloved and I are 57 so I figured we had the older part down.   On top of that we loved each other so I convinced myself that we were going to be the exception.....we were exceptional people afterall.  We are educated, financially stable and international travelers.  We were to become international snow-birds at retirement, spending summers in England and winters in Florida.  Yes, we had it all figured out.  I was even looking for a government job back in England so she could be nearer her family.   I kept telling everyone how great she was being.  I mean she gave me the pant suit I wore to court on the day I changed my name and became Laura Catherine.  She paid hundreds of dollars for us to get permanent makeup for eyebrowns, eyeliner and lipliner.    As I think about de-transitioning I know the pain that will be involved to erase those tattoos. I have decided that I will do just that though if it means I can keep her in my life.  Even as I offer that it seems it's too late.

No..the love of my life, my true soul mate...is slipping through my fingers like sands through an hour-glass....and so are the days of our lives.  At 57, my life moving forward is empty, with no direction and no meaning.  I wanted it all, and wound up with nothing.  I gambled, and lost, more than I could afford.  No, life as I knew it, life as I saw it....is over.  Where I go from here is nowhere....all I see is darkness and loneliness and a life of misery.  I wonder if it's all even worth it. 

I had my chance.....I was one of the lucky ones to actually find, by a pure act of serendipiosity, the one I was supposed to be with....and I thew it away like it was a bowl full of marbles and I could just reach in and pick out another one.  Not this time, she is one of a kind.....life as I know it is over..... when I look at the life I will have I see darkness, emptiness and loneliness.  Lonliness....my greatest fear and I brough it all on myself.


Anyone have a big rock I could crawl under and drift off into a deep sleep?



I was sincerely,

Laura Catherine

A powerful piece....not written by me

Have the tissues ready.

holding on

I am sincerely,
Laura Catherine

Journal Entry: 07/21/2012 - Long Overdue Update

Ok, so I've gotten lazy about writing since my transition. Well maybe that's not entirely true.  Since becoming fully "out" and with no need to "hide" I have been posting thoughts on Facebook, reducing the need and personal value of writing here.  So why am I writing here now?  Good question.  #1: I'm feeling a need to write here and #2: Mea has been great about keeping in contact but I've not been nearly as good at keeping her up to date on my status.  So, this is a long overdue update.

To re-cap, I transitioned to living full time as Laura Catherine simultaneously with undergoing my legal name change on April 18, 2012.  It was an anxious but exciting period but after 3 months, just being myself everyday is becoming routine.  My confidence is quite high and still without being "made" in public, my concerns about "passing" or "blending in" are rapidly fading.  I do miss the excitement of transitioning on weekends but on the other hand, waking up as myself everyday is, well, priceless.

I didn't read through and don't remember the details of my prior entries so if I repeat something, well to be honest...so what? It's my journal. :-)  My lovely wife paid a good sum of money to the owners of the nail shop that we use to get "permanent makeup". So what is that?  Simply a tatto0 in places that makeup would normally go.  So, first we got eyebrows done, which also served to level mine and look much better.  On another visit for nails the owner made us an offer to have lips and eyeliner done that was just too good to pass up so those are done too.  Yes, all of this hurts as any tattoo would.  Eyebrows were bad enough and lips a little worse.  But the eyes? OMG....we are talking about paying someone to still a needle in your eye 10 thousand times.  It would be bad enough if you were kidnapped, held against your will and restrained so that the torture could be inflicted.  But, to pay someone good money and go through this voluntarily is well...enough to question one's sanity.  I may well be insane, I have gone from appearing to the world as a male to appearing to the world as a female.  My lovely wife though has no such excuse.....but then again maybe living with has driven her insane.....that is a very real possibility.  Now for the best part, each of these "tattoos" needs to be done in two visits.  Basic and then "touch up" once the first session has healed.  Well "touch up" appears a misnomer as it's worse than the first time.  I know understand how genetic women could undergo childbirth more than once.  While you can remember intellectually that something hurt, you forget the physical sensation....until, that is, that needle (or first contraction?) hits your skin and it all comes flooding back.  You're trapped tough because you know that if you jerk, that needle could well go astray and tattooing my eyeball was not part of the deal. So, now it's done and I like the outcome.  A little mascara and my eyes are done (with a little coordinating eyeshadow sometimes).  If I'm going "clubbing" I may add a little bottom eyeliner for more of an effect, but really don't need to. Here is a picture to try and show what this looks like but eyebrows will be the most noticeable....esp if you compare some earlier pictures.

"Permanent Eyebrow Makeup"

Ok, so what is next....I do have to say that, especially in view of the horror stories that are out there of people losing their jobs, homes, families etc, my transition was about as easy as it could get.  People at work (I am a Dept of Defense civilian, working for the AF) were amazing.  That's not just my co-workers either.  I have been with the AF, as a social worker, for nearly 30 yrs.  (This includes 20 yrs of being active duty).  In  my capacity I know lots of people and interact with everyone from the General that runs the base I work on to people in the AF Surgeon General's office and patients.  Everyone has been great.  Any naysayers out there have been silent, if they exist.  Ok, so they have to be nice because gender identity is a category protected against discrimination along with face, sex, religion etc.  But my patients, ones I had before transition and ones I've gained since then, have a choice...and everyone last one, old and new, has chosen to remain with me.  I don't know if new ones know that I am TS or not, though I expect some do.  Either way, they have stayed with me. Lucky for them actually because since unloading my "secret" onto the world, I have become a much better therapist.  It's like now that my mind is not cluttered with anxiety and conflict over a gender identity that does not match my presentation to the world, it is free to focus on other parts of life.  I am also much more aware of my feelings which translates to patients feeling more empathy from me.  So work is good.  My kids have accepted me and my youngest daughter and I (she lives locally) have been out together for dinner and a local club.  Had a great time.  I'm going to drive to Alabama to visit my oldest daughter over the Labor Day weekend.

So what else is new.  My wife and I took a weekend trip to Florida's Gulf Coast (It's much more lively and to us, better than on our Atlantic coast).  This was over the memorial day weekend so only about 6 weeks into my transition.  I was a little nervous about going outside of my comfort zone but needed to for my own growth.  Again, all went well, including sunbathing on the beach in a 2 piece bikini.  Another milestone.

First time in a bikini

Well I want to get this published so I'll stop here.  Maybe tomorrow I'll write about our Cruise.  :-)

I am sincerely,



Laura Catherine xx