(letter to a friend) Heartsmile!

Hi L That's what I call it when something makes me smile inside, it was like that seeing your message in my inbox here :)
I know all too well the place you find yourself. What begins as a pleasant diversion becomes a burning question of identity. As time goes by, we stack the scales with reasons why on one side, and why not to pursue our selves on the other, looking for something to tip the scales and tell us which way to go. It reminds me, oddly enough, about an old Popeye cartoon. While chasing his nemesis Bluto, Popeye comes upon a very small bedouin tent; when he looks inside the tent it is bizarrely huge and spacious, but when he looks outside again, it's still just a small tent. All the concrete reasons we set up to try to make sense of it all mean nothing, because it still just is.
I know the precise moment when I knew that I had to pursue the person I'm unfolding into. All those concrete reasons I'd set up to deny myself had finally been stripped away. Still, I struggled for nearly 3 months directly with the question of whether to transition or not. I often wonder what it was that finally tipped the scales for me, I'm still not certain. But I woke up with a bolt one morning around 3:00 AM, finally seeing with clarity of vision what it was I should do. The only thing I've come to surmise is that I finally knew what I wanted, with no excuses or justifications one way or the other about what others wanted.
It sounds so selfish on the outside, because it is all about one's self. I think I realized the person I thought I would be taking away from my loved ones would cease to exist anyway if I didn't let myself be.
Two years later, there are still things I lost from transition that give me great sadness, but I have no regrets. It just is what it is.....
M

I've probably iterated all this before, but what the hey. No, it's not to Lori, lol!