Many, many moons ago, a very wise man (my therapist) suggested I keep a personal journal. I found the idea a bit silly and asked if he meant the sort of journal where I would write things like "Dear Diary, today the little red-haired girl smiled at me from across the room"? He said that was exactly the sort of journal he was referring to, that it would help me work through my thoughts and feelings, and would prove very beneficial. Although it was many, many years ago (practically the dark ages), I remember it like it was almost yesterday. I wanted to be cured of my transvestism (used more like a blanket term back in those days), blood letting and leeches did no good, and if my neighbors ever discovered my horrible secret, they would chase me out of town with torches and pitchforks.
So I started writing a journal and have continued doing so to this very day. I have found it therapeutic, extremely helpful, entertaining, and enlightening. From time to time, I review entries in this journal. For example, in December I will often glance at entries dated December from years past. Sometimes I make strange discoveries, like finding I feel completely different today than I did about some event ten years ago. Sometimes I come across really important items that I had lost track of or forgotten. It's even helped with personal relationships with family and friends over the years as my life sometimes plays like a soap opera.
I'll write about important things, work, family and friends, church, mundane things like where I live or visit on a daily basis. My journal also contains records of my actual dreams, my "crossdreaming", crossdressing, etc. It's been fun, educational, and very helpful to me and I always encourage others to try it.
So I was recently reviewing an old journal entry from about a year ago when I also came across an entry in Jack Molay's awesome blog about masculinity and femininity. My ex-girlfriend always accused me, Kelli, of being hyper-feminine and very girly-girly. I was shocked when she told me because although I like all things feminine, I had always tried to be just the "girl next-door" type. I've known crossdressers who were into little girl-type clothes, extremely frilly and lacy-type clothes, square-dance clothes with lots of petticoats, etc. I just wanted to look pretty in jeans and a shirt, and wanted to do so with as little effort and work as possible (latter part of that statement is still very much a work in progress). It took me a long time -- probably because I was born male -- to realize that there is a very broad area of play on my scale of feminine to feminine.
I think if and when I attain a level of satisfaction in presenting myself as Kelli, no one will notice. I want to look just like any other woman you see in the mall, at the grocery store, working in an office, etc. In my current attempts to reach this level, it is fairly easy to see that I am actually a guy although I have passed on several ocassions. Still, I dress and do my best to act like a normal woman. That is the area on the feminine to feminine scale that I try to cover.
My ex-girlfriend was a wonderful person, sweet, funny, and pretty. I found her to be all the woman a guy could ever want. I would consider her to be a normal woman, fitting perfectly centered in the feminine to feminine scale. However, she was at least a couple of inches taller than me, several pounds heavier than me, and to her surprise, stronger than me. Had we gotten married, she would have carried me over the threshold. I never thought of myself as looking weak or a "sissy", but looking back at the two of us standing side by side, she was definitely the masculine one in the relationship.
I always felt bad about that because I realized I was the one that was throwing the whole feminine to feminine scale off balance. While I denied acting hyper-feminine, I have to confess to acting feminine. My girlfriend by herself was feminine. My girlfriend next to me was masculine (or less feminine than normal). Me by myself was fairly masculine. Me by my girlfriend was less than masculine (or more feminine, which I could take as a compliment).
It's all somewhat illogical and confusing. It was also not fair to my ex because as I said, she was a wonderful, beautiful woman.
Masculinity and femininity are obviously sliding scales. That point was finally driven home to me in a dream one night. In the dream, I had to travel to a foreign country to meet a king. Before meeting the king, I met with people from his court who advised me on protocol. My basic manners were good enough, but my mode of dress was all wrong. My Sunday suit and tie just wouldn't do, so one of the staff gave me a royal gown suitable for my presentation to the king. I was pushed behind a dressing screen and told to put it on. When I started to put it on, I noticed what it looked like and started to complain. It looked like a white, one-piece nylon dress with a skirt that came to about the knees.
The staff told me there was no mistake and to hurry. I said there was a mistake as the dress had a skirt. The head servant said in that country it was their version of the kilt, and not to worry as that was not the entire suit of clothes. I put on the garment, matching tights, clunky shoes that had very high heels for male shoes, and left the dressing screen.
The staff were unanimous in their approval and proceeded to finish dressing me. I was given a white, powdered wig and a makeup artist came and lightened my facial skin with powder and makeup. A wide, black belt cinched me in at the waist, jeweled adornments were pinned to my chest, and a black bolero jacket finished things off. I asked to see a mirror just as another person who was about to be presented to the king entered the room. He was huge, well over six feet tall, with a bodybuilder physique that I thought was going to tear through the royal clothes he was wearing. His outfit seemed to be identical to mine, but the staff did not have a mirror at hand and I was unable to see myself.
We were both presented to the king, and afterwards escorted to a waiting chamber next to the throne room in case the king had further need of us. I and this huge bodybuilder guy sat in a couple of chairs with a dainty little tea table between us and quietly made small talk. A few other folks were in the room and I began to notice them and how they were similarly dressed. I noticed a young man and woman sitting across the room from us and started to smile at them when I realized something horrible -- the young woman and man across the room were actually our reflections in a large mirror. This guy was so big and beefy and I was so... uh... me... uh... not big and beefy, that from a distance we looked like a man and woman.
I awoke from the dream and wrote it down in my journal as it was definitely one of the stranger dreams I have ever experienced. Still, I think I learned something important from it: If I'm ever going to completely be Kelli, it would really help if I lived someplace that was predominantly populated by big beefy bodybuilding guys. I think future girlfriends and/or wife might appreciate that too.
Kelli Y
