I know… a third of the year has already gone, and it’s not normal to start an entry about my wishes for 2008 in April.
But I’m a great believer in planning my life, even if very often I might feel disappointed if things don’t go as planned. I still try to plan ahead, though, in spite of that. It gives me a goal, something to aim for, and so here go my wishes for 2008.
I’ve managed to find a few old pictures from my past sessions. The one to the left is from June 1999 if I’m not mistaken (the old pictures tend to get undated). It was labelled “Vices” and I was still struggling with what I wished in my life on the new millennium. At that time, I was regularly dating a girlfriend (who now lives with me and is my close, loving partner) but I still managed to spend some time off just on my own — going to a hotel, bringing all my clothes and makeup, and enjoy being Sandra for a few days. Not full-time — since the room maids would always insist in cleaning up every day — but as long as possible. In my mind, I had no idea how the relationship with my GF would turn out, but I deeply thought about what I wished to do: work like crazy, get a job that could be done without physical presence (it was harder back in 1999; it’s so easy in 2008 that I spend 80% of my time at home, doing everything remotely, and fascinated how easy it is — even if I tend to work way longer hours than in 1999!), buy a home where I could have my clothes in a closet and not in bags in my car, and start really to enjoy myself as Sandra for as much as I could.
Things, naturally, didn’t turn out that way. The dot-com bubble made me lose all my money (and even my home, my cars — everything) which I thought were secure in the bank (they weren’t — banks lost as much money as everybody else) and I had to start from scratch, like so many other people. That’s ok; I was never attached to material possessions (it was never one of my goals in life!) and I’m not afraid to go back to zero and start again.
The relationship with my GF turned out fine, and she accepts my urge to crossdress, even if I’m not allowed out of our home. But it’s quite a difference! She might not be overwhelmingly enthusiastic about my crossdressing, but she is definitely encouraging, tolerant, and totally open minded about it. Now we even enjoy, once in a while, shopping for makeup (we’re so differently sized that shopping for common clothes are out of the question). I believe she’s happy that I was very honest with her and shared something very deep about myself, which she’ll carry in her heart with love as being special — it’s a side of me that only she knows about, and my deepest trust in her that she’ll handle the “secret” well (which she does indeed).
And although it came sort of unplanned, I do indeed work most of the time at home. So, some things in my plans for 1999 turned out fine; others worked for a while, but external changes made the plans go awry; and finally, others simply didn’t happen (I do crossdress way more than back in 1999, but definitely not as much as I wished!).
So, for 2008… my short list for things that I think that might be possible, knowing perfectly well that some won’t happen.
- Go out as Sandra again. Oh, I don’t mean hanging out in bars or going to wild CD parties. The ones among you that have chatted with me online know that I’m not into it. Crossdressing is not a way for me to get laid, or get a partner, and, like some CDs, “being my female self” is all the excitement I need (and gosh, how exciting it is!). So I’m just planning to do what I did back in 1997 or so: step out of the door, cross the few yards to the place my car is, drive around for a bit, return home. That would be all. Probably by night — or at least after sunset. If I’d be very very bold, I might even go out at a lone spot and walk a bit in my heels, but very likely, I won’t dare. I’ll let that happen in 2009 or 2010 🙂
- Do a full depilation. Well, not a permanent one — except for the face perhaps. I did some hair removal on the legs once — it was nice to see them not growing back in days, but in weeks — but I did it at home, with regular supermarket products. I’d love to do it on aprofessional way. Guys getting their hairs removed is sort of fashionable again and it doesn’t raise many eyebrows as it did a decade ago, so I might really think about doing it. Shaving — sorry — just doesn’t work. After three days, you’re back where you started. As for the face, after almost 15 years of having a beard, I was tired of explaining people that I cut it wrongly over the weekend and had to shave it all off and let it re-grow — people were starting to believe I was behaving silly, since this happened every other weekend. So now I got rid of my beard. But sadly it grows too quickly for my taste, and always leaves a shadow, so I need to use a pretty strong, opaque base (I use Vichy’s “Dermablend” for that). So the face hairs have to go out. Permanently. Fortunately, it seems that doing it on the face is far cheaper than I thought, so I should give it a try… for the rest of the body, well, regular depilation has to do — I’m still not comfortable, in the summer, of showing up hairless on the beach. Since I do little crossdressing in the summer months (too hot for my female clothes!) it should be enough. One step at the time!
- Getting my old wig styled professionally. I still have a decade-old wig of human hair, when I could afford those luxuries. It was lovely when it was brand new. With the time, it grew all unruly and has a lot of spliced hairs — and also lost a lot of hair due to frequent washing and combing. So it needs a modern restyling and some cutting — it’s a wig that was planned to be styled, but I’m really no good at that (and neither is my GF, so I can’t ask for help there). I will also probably need a few more wigs, too — my blonde one is slowly getting unusable as well — but I’ll go with synthetic again. It’s so much easier to wash and style, a brush will do the trick.
- Get a new corset. I’m, literally, “out of shape”, and my decade-old corset simply doesn’t work any more for me. I used a simple waist cincher for years — it was enough to hide the tummy — but then moved on to the (old) corset, which I used to wear only occasionally. Now it’s the only bit of clothing that is mandatory. Still, I’m getting old and flabby, and the corset is simply too small to get me “into shape” (literally). It even looks strange — I know, it’s quite noticeable on some of the full-body pictures and movies. Corsets are expensive, though, and a cheap corset simply won’t work — it has to be sturdy and strong. It also needs to have the male body in mind — with a longer torso. So this will require some Internet searching. I’d appreciate your tips. Mind you, although I used to by a lot from the US, during the past few years, thanks to a tighter control at the European customs, it’s way harder to get “strange items” through customs. I tend to pay quite a lot of taxes on US products — when I’m able to get them out of customs at all. So I’ll stick with European companies (which are more limited in their choices) and keep the fuss at a minimum.
These will be the four simple things I’d be happy to do over 2008. If I do them all, I’ll consider it a victory, but I won’t be disappointed if I don’t do any of them. I’ll still enjoy myself 🙂
For 2010, I’d love to be much bolder. I haven’t had a vacation in years, and I hope to be able to take a whole month off by 2010 or 2012. This will require a lot of talking with my GF, but what I reallywould love to do is to be a woman for a whole month. Why a month and not less? Well, if you plan for that time, I could afford to do things that I can only dream about. Get hair extensions — which last about a month — and style them appropriately, having them glued to my real hair, and enjoy living and sleeping, 24 hours a day, with my own, long hair. Get gel nails applied professionally — it doesn’t make sense to do these for just a few days, since they last long — instead of using the fake ones that you glue in the morning and take off before going to sleep. Do a full-body depilation (as said) for a month. Glue my silicone breasts to my chest — I did that a few times, and trust me, it’s a completely different sensation when they become “part of you”. I don’t know if my limited wardrobe will manage to carry me across the whole month, of course, so I might need to buy some more things. But being fully dressed as a woman, I might even feel courageous enough to go out and shop that way.
“Vacation as Sandra”, done that way, is a recurring dream that I have for years now. I’d love to plan to make it true one day. And, well, the cute part of it is that so long as I have Internet access, I can continue to do my work full-time without a problem. My only real fear is that I might enjoy it too muchand don’t want to go back… it’s a risk which I’m not yet prepared to take.
Like the mountain climber that spends decades training and honing his skills to one day be able to climb the Everest, I’m working towards building up my self-confidence to do that one-month vacation, and it would certainly be the high point in my entire life on this planet. But — if it never happens — I’ll be content to dream about it!
