Slow Down - The Runaway Train

Slow Down. I keep hearing this from people. Well not all of them. Just those who are not comfortable with my being trans. Oddly enough one of them is not my therapist. She thinks my pace is fine. She made the comment that many therapists often tell their trans patients to slow down. But this hearkens back to an old promotion from a broadcast television network to get folks to watch reruns that they had not yet seen. "It's new to you."

And there is the rub. This is not new to me. It is almost 40 years old. It is decidedly un-new. It is in fact old news, positively ancient. So how do you square that with people who think this is something you just recently arrived at. If anything the only recently arrived at bit is that you have accepted this about yourself and possibly that you are preparing to, or have done, something about it.

What is not known to the external observer is how many times you have played out your "what if" scenarios in your head. Meaning you have mentally played out what it is to be a woman. Who you are, what your day to day is, what you do, how you do it, how you look, how you think about all of that. This has been worked time and time again. Mentally hashed, rehashed, overhashed. I know this might not be the case for all neo-tranwomen, but for me, I know it is true.

What is missing in this is the real life experiences to back it up, validate, tune, and adjust those ideas. Which is part of trying it on. Of course trying it on means doing something in the physical world. And what I think happens sometimes is these fully formed thoughts manifest themselves as a physical reality and their completeness shocks the observer. And so you get, Slow Down. As the response.

I am not saying for an instant I have this all worked out. Far from it. There are lots of things I need to work on and practice. Just because mentally you have hit a home run off a Major League pitcher 1000 times does not prepare you to do the same in real life. But at a minimum you will look good swinging and missing the ball. Now if i could just get proficient at eyeliner it might not take me an hour to put makeup on. Wouldn't that be nice.

An example for me was my first time out in public as Sharon, and only my second time dressed in 30 years. I went to group. When I arrived, they did not know me, despite the fact that I had been there before in drab. One girl said it took her 20 minutes to place me. I got compliments, my dress, my manner, my makeup, my look in general. I was perceived to be exactly what I wanted to be. A middle aged woman (Ok a forty something woman). Which is exactly what I am. Certainly on my inside. And so all I did was make the outside match. I showed who I am to some friends, they said, wow, and then they said, Slow Down.

I have tried to talk about this with my wife. It is not going to happen. She says she wants me to explore this side of myself, but in reality, not. There are a lot of constraints on "explore". I have yet to tell her I go to group dressed en femme, although I am pretty sure she knows. She does not want to see me ("yet" as she says). I suspect it is not "yet". The correct time frame is "never", if she can help it. Because seeing me conveys the inevitable result of forever. This is really hard, because even though I still feel she has been my best friend, in this part of my life, she is a stranger. And I am excluded from talking about this with her. Because it causes her too much pain. I tried to get her to talk to me about it. But she said, Slow Down.

So what does Slow Down mean? Depends on who is saying it. For me it is make sure you do not do something hurtful, destructive or stupid. For others it means, make changes that make them comfortable. If your change makes them uncomfortable then it is too fast for them, and they want you to Slow Down. Unfortunately they are not the ones who derive benefit from the changes. You do. So regardless of what you do, you are likely going to cause them some discomfort. So in that case Slow Down means, what pace can you tolerate making them uncomfortable.

For me, in my head, I am there now. If there were no social stigma, no economic repercussions, no potential loss of friends and family I would be FT tomorrow morning quite happily. But for the benefit of the rest of them, I will Slow Down. Mind you, Slow Down is not remotely close to "stop".