The last three weeks have really been life changing, and have really made me stop to think of how I lived life before transition and how I want to live my life after transition.
For so many years I hid a large part of who I was. I ran from things, from people, and, many times, from life in general. It was a very destructive pattern that I was caught up in. Physically it manifested itself in doing such self destructive things as smoking and medically dangerous things like high cholesterol. I was really headed down a very unhealthy path, one that, likely, would have left me ill at an early age and prevented me from really enjoying the later years in my life. Of course, I was not really enjoying the early part of my life either as I struggled with my gender identity.
Since coming out last year, so much has changed about how I life my life. Within weeks of coming out, I quit smoking for good, my cholesterol plummeted as I began eating better, and I looked forward to the future. I still did not know what it had in store for me, but, no matter what it did, I knew it could be no worse than the life I had lived before.
Now, I have reached a point in my life that I never thought I would reach. I never imagined that I would be able to transition. And now I have. I am finally able to live the life I have always wanted to live, and to actually live the life that I have. In the process of examining the life the lies ahead for me, I realized how much I neglected myself for so many years. What I mean by this, is how little interest I took in things. I would express some interest, in say hobbies or music or other activities, and then I would abandon those “interests” in favor of pursuits that would not get e too involved with others. There were things I did and took an active interest to help those around me, but I found that often times those were being done to occupy time and space, and not out of a deeper joy and interest in those activities.
So, where does that leave me? Well it really leaves me in a place of wanting to really find and pursue my passions. My primary passion is my children, but I also realize I need time for me, time to really become the woman that I have always been meant to be. I want to spend time doing things that don’t just take up time, but, rather, do things that truly enrich my life and my life experience. To find things I am passionate about and pursue them.
It’s an amazing thing to find a new passion for life, to reach a point where I expect so much more of myself because I know now that I can do so much more. I no longer have to hold myself back, I can finally pursue my full potential. Just prior to and during the first few months of transition, I sought to continue in my career and this kind of stagnant same position kind of future. As I moved through transition and began seeing a brighter future, I decided that I deserved so much more. I then began to pursue career movement in an upward direction. As a result, my career has moved forward, and I got the promotion I sought out. This showed me how much better my future could be.
Now I guess I am examining my past looking at those things that I took up and abandoned. Looking to see that I did because because I had a passion for it and what I was just kind of trying. I want to revisit those things I loved but left behind. When asked what I like to do, I want to be able to speak passionately about my hobbies and interests. Now that I am passionate about my life, and I want that new found passion to shine through. This is a whole new way of thinking. I now longer want to hide from life, I am ready to live it.
