A letter to my younger self – Aged 35

Hello you!

Yes, just those two short words have a special significance to you now, don’t they?

Who would ever have thought that someone would walk into your life out of nowhere and have such an effect on you in so many ways?

I just goes to show, we never know what’s around the corner.

You’re finding life extremely hard right now, I know, and I wish I could impart the clarity with which I see things all these years later.

Firstly there was “C”, that half-Irish girl who turned your head the moment you saw her. So open, so easy to befriend, sensitive, and so in touch with your thoughts. If only the two of you had ever had the chance to have that conversation you were going to have after you confided in her that you always felt you should have been born a girl.

How different things might have turned out had that ever happened. I’m sure she would have led you along the path of your own enlightenment.

Then of course, “A”, who will always hold a special place in your memories and who I still think about so very often all these years later. “Hello you!” still cuts to the quick.

(Spoiler alert) It’s such a shame that the dreams you held about her could never be realised but, then again, you were so mixed up in your feelings that you couldn’t see the dichotomy of the situation you were in.

I see it now, so clearly.

On the one hand you were deeply in love with her, and probably always will be. She opened the door to your understanding that you knew and respected the female form and how sensuous and marvellous it is but, of course, she also unwittingly fed heavily on your dysphoria about your own body. In the way she looked, dressed, behaved … her very essence was all that you had ever wanted to be, and yet could never be.

That blue cocktail dress you had wanted to have made for her as a surprise should you ever attend a suitable function together; that wasn’t just so that she would look amazing in it, it was how amazing YOU wanted to look. But you didn’t realise that at the time. Well, actually you did, but it was being processed at a level too deep to be recognised back then, and that’s what led to you not being able to cope with the situation.

Like so many transgender people you were hiding behind an over inflated persona of your bodily form in order to mask your true self, and all the while your most heartfelt desires were being thrust at you every time you saw her, or even thought about her.

(Second spoiler alert) That’s one sure recipe for a breakdown, or several.

I hate to tell you this but right now, and certainly for the next few years, you’re not somebody I would want to know.

You, my friend, are a complete arse! And a not very pleasant one at all.

I guess it’s not entirely your fault, because you have no coping mechanism for the situation you now find yourself in, but strutting around like you’re the most important person on the planet really doesn’t impress people in the slightest.

You think you’re big? … Well you’re not. You’re a facade.

You know the way you look at that Donald Trump and can see right through him? Well here’s a clue. Many years from now a lot of rational people will feel the same way about him because they’ll have seen what he’s really like, and right now I’m guessing a lot of rational people are looking at you and similarly thinking “Just what goes on in that head?”.

I always like to have some good news for you when I write and, thankfully, there is some.

One day you will come to realise how out of control you’ve been, and have yet to be, but it’s going to be a long and bumpy ride before that happens.

In the meantime do try to go easy on the booze.

You, aged 67