Linda and I continue our dialog…….
Your post about contacts being ephemeral was poignant and I have heard others say the same. I can think of three I shared a few long meaningful emails and two just stopped abruptly, circumstances change. I see lisagirl.net has now disappeared almost without trace although luckily I just caught her last post which explained. Someone was telling me yesterday how fickle two good friends in the distant past had been when back in touch since. I have come to think that is just the way many people are, such ‘friends’ being of the moment and we are not owed anything when striking up an interaction on the web?
I guess there is not much of a question here, but ran with it because it helps reinforce something that I have observed. Being who we are is difficult enough. Struggling with gender identity, either through simply dressing or by transitioning strikes at the core of who we are as people, how we view ourselves. I do want to make the point that my post was both about virtual as well as real life contacts or relationships. Many, many real contacts I have made died on the vine for various reasons.
Layering on top of the internal struggle is the world and all it’s challenges. We have spouses, significant others, children, family and friends. Do they accept us for our need to express or become this side of our personality? How do they view us? Do the very nature of our relationships change? My point is that looking only at ourselves, there is a lot going on. That is the case for every one of us, even those that seem in control of things. I am sure you think I have the challenges associated with crossdressing beaten. Nothing could be further from the truth. I still have self-doubt, still sometimes wish I could just walk away from all that is Kandi. Some may push back on that statement, saying I gain great joy from being Kandi and that is certainly true. But without the specter of needing to be Kandi, I may the have been able to derive that joy in other ways, as myself. But who knows, they are the cards dealt me.
I won’t spend too much time on the world in general for our community. We all know the issues there. Our community itself is also very splintered, many times we are clearly our own worst enemies. Support is very much lacking even within our ranks, so to speak.
Add to all of that trying to maintain relationships with others like ourselves, with their similar and/or very different set of challenges. It just makes it tough to connect and if you are able to, that is indeed rare. I’ll use my relationship with my friend Sherry as an example. We get along very well, have many similarities. But connecting is difficult as she is in a DADT relationship. Therefore time windows for her are specific, rare and limiting. So I have to have the same opening in my schedule to be able to get together. While I have almost complete freedom in terms of going out, I still have to work, I still have the desire to spend time at home with my wife when she is not working, I am not a night owl while Sherry is. So we don’t really see each other all that much, despite the fact that we live a few miles from each other.
It is not all that common for someone to be 100% comfortable with all of this. So they try to stop, they purge, they pull back, they resist, they deny themselves contact with the community, whatever they feel they need to do. Life circumstances change, a spouse gets sick, or a relationship ends. Life itself is a swirl of circumstances, issues and challenges. Add this and guess what? We will remain consistently inconsistent in our general ability to connect with each other.
So I do my best to shine a light, offer positive reinforcement, allow others a platform to express themselves and live my life. My life with its own hurdles and challenges. My life with the many blessings that I have been given. My life with my ability to generally assimilate into mainstream society when presenting myself as female. It is my life and I try like hell to make the most of it. In terms of establishing relationships with others, whomever they may be, I’ll keep trying but will expect nothing. That way, I am never let down. Flying solo is still my favorite modus operandi. It leaves me in complete control of my outing and allows me to best dictate when and where I should be, drawing the least possible attention to myself in a negative way. Being extroverted, it’s not that hard for me to strike up a conversation with anyone.
Oh yeah, was there a question in there somewhere?
from Kandi's Land https://kandis328772669.wordpress.com/2019/09/24/linda-asks-contacts-within-our-community/
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