For me …<\/p>\n
Reconciling my past as a male,<\/p>\n
With my present life as a female …<\/p>\n
Has been an interesting experience.<\/p>\n
It’s not like I forget my past,<\/p>\n
As it makes me what I am today.<\/p>\n
It is just that it seems so long ago …<\/p>\n
That Joe’s memories belong to a different person.<\/p>\n
I did not come to accept my transsexualism easily,<\/p>\n
I’m not sure any who suffer from such ever do.<\/p>\n
Then even after I accepted it,<\/p>\n
And had taken progressive steps in my transition …<\/p>\n
Surgeries,<\/p>\n
Disclosures,<\/p>\n
Implementation,<\/p>\n
In small ways …<\/p>\n
I continued to resist accepting who I was becoming.<\/p>\n
Even after I was fulltime …<\/p>\n
There were efforts of resistance on my part.<\/p>\n
Though consciously,<\/p>\n
I knew my being was female;<\/p>\n
And visually,<\/p>\n
I knew my appearance was female,<\/p>\n
There remained a bit of Joe inside.<\/p>\n
That I kept.<\/p>\n
I think I felt that if I let Joe go …<\/p>\n
It would be letting go of all of the positive memories he had,<\/p>\n
Loving family environments he experienced, and<\/p>\n
Friendships he treasured.<\/p>\n
I would be compromising the memory of him,<\/p>\n
Devaluing his life.<\/p>\n
So I tried to continuing doing some things of Joe,<\/p>\n
That people might recognize,<\/p>\n
To encourage them to give me a chance.<\/p>\n
At least upon self-reflection that’s what I’m guessing was going on with me.<\/p>\n
Not to mention,<\/p>\n
Maybe I was just afraid to let entirely go of Joe.<\/p>\n
Regardless,<\/p>\n
At some point in the past few months …<\/p>\n
I let go of him.<\/p>\n
A few months ago,<\/p>\n
It would have bothered me not to even recognize or remember when I let go,<\/p>\n
I’m sure.<\/p>\n
But now …<\/p>\n
It doesn’t.<\/p>\n
I just know I did and that it’s okay.<\/p>\n
Sometime in the past few months,<\/p>\n
I started to allow myself to just be me …<\/p>\n
Completely.<\/p>\n
I’m a girl now …<\/p>\n
So despite what Joe used to believe,<\/p>\n
There’s nothing wrong with me acting like one.<\/p>\n
When I think about it now …<\/p>\n
It’s a really weird feeling.<\/p>\n
As it almost seems like my transition didn’t transpire over three years,<\/p>\n
But virtually overnight.<\/p>\n
I suppose had I awoken one morning as a woman,<\/p>\n
I’d have probably acted in a similar way that I did while I was still hanging on to Joe:<\/p>\n
I’d have avoided overtly girlish things;<\/p>\n
I’d have acted Joe-ish enough to try to keep my same friends; and,<\/p>\n
I’d have kept enough boyish traits to satisfy Joe.<\/p>\n
In essence,<\/p>\n
I’d have tried to convince people …<\/p>\n
And myself,<\/p>\n
That despite my appearance …<\/p>\n
I was still Joe,<\/p>\n
Just different.<\/p>\n
It’s a statement I’ve said frequently.<\/p>\n
And it’s true …<\/p>\n
Though there’s much less “still Joe<\/i>“,<\/p>\n
And considerably more “just different<\/i>” …<\/p>\n
Than I realized.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I reflect upon my life,<\/p>\n
And marvel at how …<\/p>\n
It’s totally a girl’s life now.<\/p>\n
I’m okay with that.<\/p>\n
Really okay with that ! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For me … Reconciling my past as a male, With my present life as a female … Has been an interesting experience. It’s not like I forget my past, As it makes me what I am today. It is just that it seems so long ago … That Joe’s memories belong to a different person….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":139,"label":"General"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"Amy","author_link":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/author\/amy\/"},"comment_info":16,"category_info":[{"term_id":139,"name":"General","slug":"general","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":143,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":775,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":139,"category_count":775,"category_description":"","cat_name":"General","category_nicename":"general","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}