Sometimes I wonder: a lot of my life has been about choosing the harder path, always picking the thing that won't be easy and needs a lot of work and concentration. These days I ask myself how much of that was about trying to avoid accepting or even thinking about being trans. Not doing the hardest project makes everything else look easy, just like a distraction, even fun, no matter how hard.

There were a lot of good results from all these choices, but I wonder how my life would have been if I had accepted myself earlier (or even been born a cis girl): easier, harder, what choices I would have made.

But the result is good, now, this person I am.

@Eve I feel this, so hard

in my case my mental inability to concentrate (hyperfocus isn't the same thing) or do certain tasks kept frustrating me, shunting me down less 'respectable' paths of just scrambling to catch up, getting interested in new challenging projects as ways of not thinking about previous failed endeavors

that's not too unusual but I wonder how much easier it'd all have been if I had worked out the internal struggles first?

but: yes, I like the now-me.

@kelly it's such a happy thing when everything starts to align and flow freely. It's also amazing how some changes make it clear just how much of ourselves we were missing earlier in life (well I only speak for myself but I gather we are in the same boat with this 😘)

@Eve we seem to be! also I've found that feeling more myself, even if I'm not conscious of the difference on a behavioral level, tends to attract more positivity*, friendship, opportunity... I mean it's not magic, but it FEELS like magic still

I do wonder how much earlier I could have known this feeling, but then, those years got me here.

*my spell check didn't know the word 'positivity' which means I've never typed it before on my computer which maybe says it all, haha

@kelly yes this happiness is totally contagious both to other people and to other parts of life, such a great thing 🙏💜🙏

I also regret a lot of time that I could have had, but in those years there were other things that were great and that I'm also proud and happy about. I can't regret them, and I also can't let myself regret them, that would be unfair to other people and to my old self, who was just doing the best that self could. I'm just happy to be here now, whole.

@Eve this is also why I believe positive (even 'unrealistically' positive) portrayals of trans people in media is important-- I had none, growing up, and it wasn't until I saw trans people in my adult life, living and being happy, that I even considered that was even possible for me in any real sense. I could have started incorporating these thoughts into my growth so much earlier!