Sorry for all the bitching, guys.

Life is great when you’re starting out on this path, and all of this is internalized and theoretical, and you’re seeing all the changes you’re about to make and how comfortable you’re going to be with yourself and how much easier things will be, at least psychologically, in social terms when you get to the other side.  People seeing the real you and all that.

But the difficulty of this lifestyle really hits home when you start taking it out of writing and out of your head and out of your personal life and putting it on display and then sit back and watch how people gel with it.  Generally, at least at first, and at least in my experience, people DON’T.  Even the ones who say how supportive they’re going to be forget to even make an effort for a long time in the beginning, which really hurts, even when they don’t mean to hurt you.

The point of all this isn’t complaining, not for the 5th post in a row.  The point is saying that the honeymoon with this lifestyle is over for me, my head is out of the clouds and it’s all getting to be real life, down to the nitty gritty.  I can’t honestly post any more philosophical, “I think I’d be this way in this situation” bullshit.  Now I’m seeing what it’s all really like, and it’s harder than I thought it’d be.  Now I’m really going through what all the other FTM’s do, and I kinda just wanted to say, I’m sorry.

I’m sorry for being even the slightest bit pretentious and ever thinking I really knew what I was talking about, and I’m sorry for getting all emo on you guys the second it started getting real.  Looking back, it looks like I’m all  enlightened and high and mighty right up until I tried to come out to people and apply what I’ve learned to real life, and then I crumbled and pulled into my turtle shell and did nothing but bitch and moan about how hard it’s been.   It’s really time to man up, in every sense of the word, pull on my big boy pants and get through this with my head held high and my dignity intact.

So I’m gonna get back on the warpath again and start posting about things that really matter.  Like STP’s.  And drag king contests.  And youtube videos.

Ok, maybe those things don’t matter THAT much, but they’re a hell of a lot more fun and interesting to read than “OH GOD WHY ME?!”

And sometimes, I think that’s what it’s all really about, you know?  The articles and videos I’ve seen by my fellow FTM’s that really affected me and made my life better weren’t very often the ones that dragged me down and went on about how HARD something was (unless, of course, we’re talking about a certain anatomical- okay, that was just a cheap shot, sorry).  The ones that helped me along were the ones that made me smile, gave me something to laugh at, and reminded me that, hey, life isn’t really all that bad after all.  I want to be that person, the guy who encourages all the little bro’s along the way and really makes them feel better about themselves and helps them look to the future.  I wanna remind people that things’ll be better some day and we’ll all get through it, together.

(warm melty cheesy ending.  like a Kraft’s commercial.)

…

OH!  I still need to figure out what I’m doing for my coming out party.  I want to put that in the next post, I guess.  The point is, I wanted to bring a lot of the people in my life together in a light atmosphere and say, hey, guess what, this isn’t a tragedy, it’s even something to celebrate!  Follow me on my journey.  Into a land of magic and wonder, Charlie…  *wanders off to Candy Mountain*  NO! *comes back* I mean, I don’t know.  It seems like a good idea, just something to sort of mark a point of no return and gently show my friends that, yeah, this is it.

Did any of you have a coming out party for your close friends, and what did you do?  I’m looking for do’s and don’ts, even if your own personal advice in the way of “don’ts” is “Don’t have a party!”  I don’t know protocol for this sort of thing or even if there is protocol.  Oh, it’s also going to be around my 21st birthday, so that’s a whole other level to mess with.

I’m off to go look for inspiration on coming out parties!