When you come to a dead end

I have gotten used to disappearing. People notice you less when they see you are relaxed in your skin and even my height is no longer so unusual as many women today are tall. As a result no one really pays me much mind which I love.

What I have experienced over my life is a slow process of immersion into a mindset that required that my extremely pervasive childhood programming when it came to gender be largely undone. The more successful you are at this, the more you relax into your authenticity and stop trying to dissect every thought regarding your inclination.

An analytical introvert like me always needed answers except after a while you run out of runway and reach a dead end. What you are left with is your own instinct which was hard for me to accept and it took me a while to realize that there was much validity in it.

Other transgender people (hello Deanna and Connie) would tell me they had stopped asking why and submitted themselves to feeling and, while I understood them, I couldn't viscerally partake in their confidence. The scientist in me wanted to know I wasn't deluded even if the rest of my life was full of restraint and an engineer's precision.

As I was walking home for lunch yesterday a lady from my neighborhood I had never met told me she had seen me walking and wanted to tell me how dignified she found me. She was so lovely; maybe mid-thirties she most importantly reminded me that I had largely stopped analyzing and just immersed myself in who I am.