[Jett]

This is a subject very near and dear right now. Something of what I went through recently, if you can call a period of two years recent. Now I grew up with a high degree of "butch/masculine" tendencies, there is no doubt to that, it was a natural part of my life from day one, likes, dislikes, behaviors, mannerisms... a natural part of my personal progression, direction and growth, still is.

What's not natural, is the stuff you "learn" later, unwanted life events that change you and leave a bit of sludge each time they touch you, that build up and bog down your movement... and pretty soon you're lurching through life with all this crap you carry. It can be a personal trauma/s, or something you see or even when you're young it can be just a word/s, cuts just deep enough to leave a barely visible scar you didn't even see until much later when actually looking.

I think for me, this all kind of bubbled up slowly and I felt like I was in a constant struggle to define internally my gender "identity" for myself, reconcile the pieces that felt fragmented but every time I claimed the female/woman "piece" I literally cringed... pulled back and looked for "something" else, something that didn't make me cringe so much. Through the years, the conglomerate of directions I went with identity, spoke more accurately about who I was than any one days/years idea/feeling or paragraph. I'm very fluid, to that there is no doubt... so one day I had to ask myself- wtf am I doing? Why am I cringing? I didn't always feel this way, I had to look back to things, events in my life that occurred between who I was when I was proud and embraced of every part of me... and forward to who I had become... and exactly how I had learned to be ashamed and hide "it".

I really have no desire to talk right now about the particular events and things, only that I think it's sooo f*cking critical to living a happy, authentic life, that we r-e-a-l-l-y do examine ourselves, those cringes in particular, with a very critical eye. For myself it was a very long process, I desired strongly to experience and express what I knew I was strong and beautiful inside me but always did a smack-down when I felt that desire. You can't be doing that and be truly happy, you can't love yourself while you are simultaneously hating on parts of you. It's taken literally years... to let the little bits of those parts of me in one at a time, inside and outer things... one at a time... going forward slowly, even having to back up a bit at the end until I reached a place of balance and comfort.

I didn't take a different path then was meant for me, just a more difficult trek on that path when trying desperately to side step parts of it. I have deep regrets, I spent over 2 decades progressively stifling and hating on an amazing and beautiful part of myself, maybe the most beautiful complete part even. I feel like I missed so much that I didn't allow myself, moments, experiences... but quite honestly I can't blame myself... for me personally there's just no way until I'd moved far enough along to look back and see the whole picture. I am just extremely grateful I've reached this place of healing and have a new chance... I think many females/women of all types never do.