This week has been, for me, incredibly intense. For the first time, during Carnival, my wife explicitly allowed me to go out in plain daylight to visit a friend; a few weeks later — now completely outside the Carnival season — also for the first time, she also let me go to a party at a LGBT-friendly bar with a group of friends. As I wrote earlier, I thought these events were ‘exceptions to the rule’, and not a pattern.
But I can say it was a page change — the end of one chapter and the beginning of a new one. Today I decided — admittingly in a provocative way — to asking her if I could pick her up at her university by midnight (she’s in the night courses), fully dressed. And once again she did not say no. She only commented that this was the second time this week that I got dressed. Then again, next week things will be complicated, so she really didn’t forbid me to dress again. Furthermore, she reminded me that I was going to have to make several trips (from home to university, then commute back home during the peak of the rush hour traffic, get back to university and once again drive back home — driving a total of 100 km) — but the problem was mine if I was willing to do all these trips; she would be fine with it.
This time, I had not Carnival as an excuse. I even had no excuse ‘to be with friends.’ It was merely to go out dressed and pick her up (it would actually be the first time she’d drive with me dressed up). And despite all this, she did not say no!
I was dizzy with so much freedom.
You can imagine how I feel: perfectly euphoric, absolutely free, thanks to a huge weight that dropped off me. Finally, after seventeen years of suffering, now I can enjoy what little good this life has to offer. I feel like a prisoner who was unfairly sentenced to life imprisonment, but suddenly, after decades behind bars, a lawyer pops up and proves her innocence and finally manages to release her from prison! Here’s a whole new world to explore, with which the prisoner could only dream while looking through the prison bars in her cell — a world which has now become real .
That’s what I feel, and much more than that: I feel capable of anything! I feel that the world no longer has any constrains! And to celebrate this new phase, I wanted to go to the mall with a friend, go shopping together before picking up my wife…
But then I reflected a lot on this.
And I recalled how almost all my ‘veteran’ CD friends — who have gone through this phase of sudden freedom many years ago — recommend moderation. To do things little by little — just take baby steps. Or, in the words of my own wife, ‘not try to cram all my teenage years in just a few days.’
I think the main reason for these recommendations is to avoid the tendency to take unnecessary risks (a behavior which, incidentally, is typically male, so any self-respecting crossdresser should avoid it). And I have to confess that that’s what I most wanted to do: take risks. The neighbors saw me on the street? Tough for them. People laugh at me in the supermarket? Too bad for them. A group of kids start making fun of me at the mall? Glad to be of assistance in providing entertainment! Why should any of that bother me, if I can be as I want, where I want?
But the truth is that this behaviour is not rational!
I was almost at the point of putting a picture of myself dressed as a woman on my male Facebook profile. Just to provoke my friends. I wouldn’t add any comments: let my friends think whatever they wanted. If I were asked if the photo had been retouched in Photoshop, I would tell them, ‘yes, it was’. But I would not volunteer any details on what had been retouched! Let them speculate, shocked or not with what they see. Then I thought, well, maybe I wouldn’t post a full body photo, but perhaps just a snapshot from my face. And after that I thought even further, well, it could be only a picture of my eye and nothing else — with makeup and false eyelashes. Would anyone recognize me at all?
But what would be the purpose of this sudden exposure to the public? Shock the world? Show myself as being ‘superior’ to my friends and family, telling them that I could now do whatever I wanted and not worry anymore about what they think of me? Examining this sudden urge more carefully, there was no logical reason to provoke them. Thus, the only rational decision was obviously not to change my male profile and leave it as it was…
Similarly, even if I fancy to go out every day, just because I can, and do wild things, because I’m allowed to — that attitude is not rational! I have, therefore, come down to earth and rethought my priorities…
So, I will return to a more or less ‘normal’ routine, in which I might only go out maybe once or at most twice a week. Maybe I might leave my home earlier, probably spend more times with friends, and maybe stay away from home for longer stretches — but stick to comparatively safe places, with the comfort of a large group.
And, of course, I have stop wasting so much time on Facebook. Or, rather, I’ll revert back to spending about the same time I used to, before this sudden change of my wife’s views: an occasional visit now and then, especially on days when I’m dressed, but no more than that.
My life has to continue, despite the recent changes!
A kiss to all of you, and don’t get me wrong if I seems more ‘distant’ again; I’m not, I’m just imposing myself more moderation!
