I reached out to my friend and reader, Linda, for some prompting on blog topics. She was kind enough to provide me with plenty of material, so here is the first such post, our little Q & A. She has Q’d me and now here I am A’ing her.
One of your objectives is to encourage others: if you can so we can. However, you appreciate that no two circumstances are the same. A wife who knows and tolerates is a rare privilege. (Do tell us more about your wife’s views? Would she write a post?) A town close by large enough to not encounter anyone who knows you or intersects with ‘his’ life. To cite just two, lol.
There is quite a bit to unpack here. Let me work through it. Absolutely, my main goal is to demonstrate that we can in fact go out and be who we wish to be. But is also to show that we have to follow some simple common sense rules in order to do so. I acknowledge that I am unique in many ways. While I have never passed (each complement received is specifically because I do NOT pass), I blend quite well. In the best case scenario, no one thinks, oh that was a woman that just walked past me. Probably, I am principally not noticed, the other person’s mind simply processing my presence was if I were anyone else walking by.
Indeed, in any facet of life, in any situation, no two circumstances are the same. Life is loaded with risk, day in and day out. It always existed, but seems to be on steroids now with our immediate information age and the power of social media. Social media is a lit match to the tinder that is the fabric of life and our personal safety.
I have acknowledged here and do so in my life daily, every second of the day, my good fortune to have an accepting wife. Without that the whole possibility of Kandi would not even exist. I am not sure what Kandi would be or how I would navigate life with that eating at me, but I am fortunate in that regard. Also, as I have stated, most would not trade life issues with me for the gift of an accepting wife. There is a saying, if we all packed up our troubles in a suitcase and left all these suitcases in the middle of the room, with the ability to take home a different suitcase, most would grab their own suitcase and leave the room. Not sure I would.
I have talked before about The Angel Known as My Wife. As hard as this is to believe, my dressing is a non-issue. It’s just considered a part of our lives. One thing I try to do is to not make it an “in your face” kind of thing. To my wife, going out dressed is no different than my going to run a race, it’s just what I enjoy doing. She knows I have a blog, but it’s not a big deal to her. I would not even consider asking her to write a post, preferring to just allow things to be as they are. If it ain’t broke, why break it? We have enough challenges in our lives, which includes as I have mentioned, our daughter’s anxiety problem. These frequently result in hour plus phone conversations with my wife about something she is obsessing on, routine and mundane things we don’t even realize, she obsesses about. OCD. Help is on it’s way, we hope, but like everything else, it takes time. Throwing things on my wife’s pile of concerns and/or worries, wouldn’t be right. This is my gig.
The final point on this initial “Linda Asks” post, everyone seems amazed at my ability to go out close to our home without being discovered. I can attribute this to many things. You would have to know me in male mode and put two and two together. It certainly would not be that difficult, but you would have to have the time to do so, have the thought process to even make that mental calculation, have a suspicion about me, and most importantly, you would have to pay attention to someone other than yourself.
Most people are focused on themselves and what they are doing. I frequent places I know friends do not. I know this now through significant personal experience. The density of people that would know you thins out the more you move away from your home. It is very infrequent for me to run into someone I know in male mode, let alone in “disguise”. To the best of my knowledge, I can count on one hand the number of people that I know otherwise, that I have seen when out dressed, now out hundreds of times in thousands of different places. Could it happen? Absolutely. If it does, I already have in my mind how I would deal with it and explain it to mitigate any “damage”. Frankly, there is no damage possible, just opening the Pandora’s Box of questions to answer. We just don’t want to have to explain why, since I cannot explain why myself. There is no shame for either of us, just the desire for our continued privacy.
Thanks Linda and much, much more to come. Not sure I answered the questions, probably rambling on, but I hope I made some sense here.
