A Love Most People Cannot Have or Understand

It is quite possible that readers here have been puzzled by the content recently, apart from a few really good girlfriends who know what I am going to reveal today. It is time to tell a love story from a new perspective; for me anyway.

People in the trans community seem to me to have something in common beyond the obvious. We are in a unique position to experience feelings and situations that the average person never gets the chance to understand.

It is a bit scary sometimes to look around at my male contemporaries in the community where we live, and realize that my internal map resembles them a bit like Angelina Jolie resembles Groucho Marx. Halle is way too young and vital to be living in an old guy body. More than two years ago, I started the renovations needed, so the old body is in pretty good shape, if I do say so myself. You will have to take my word for it, for now. I might not always share everything, but wouldn't lie to you.

At any rate, in spite of her fifty-something body, this girl is happy and very open and filled with love and a sense of wonder. More than anything, I wish to have some fun. It might seem like a Cyndi Lauper song, but yes, the girl wants to have fun. Reveling in my sense of wonder, I dreamed of and found magic.

The leap forward in the magical content of my life as Halle arrived in the form of a long distance love affair. The object of my love (who I will call 'C') and I have corresponded for a very long time. Our relationship grew as most do at first; through a common bond. We are both genetically male and both have experienced the disturbing effects of having a feminine component to our feelings and thoughts. We tried out female to female correspondence and that ran its course. 'C' made a fair girlfriend, but I don't think his heart was in it. He is comfortably male. I am not. We agreed to switch over and our correspondence changed over to reflect two men corresponding. This did not work well. It actually amazed me how stilted my letter writing became. It was forced and well, it was and I was boring.

There, I said it. As a man, I am very, very boring. Further, my heart is not into pretending to be a man anymore.

Agreeing to try corresponding with our stronger personalities, C's male and my female, we found a stronger basis for conversation, but even more, where there was interest, then respect and care, there soon became love. He became one of the trusted few with whom I have shared photos of the real me. He knows everything he wants to know about my life, and I his.

There is fun, along with that sort of understanding and care for one another that comes from our unique and shared feelings and experiences, but there is more than that and until a better word comes along, I will think of what we have as magic. Together we are sexy, and passionate. My heart soars when we share our passions, our dreams of our lives and yes, of one another. C is a very good writer, and perhaps I will, with his permission share some of his fiction with you here.

I do not need a parent to remind me, the way I reminded my daughter when she fell for a man online, that there are dangers to virtual love affairs. First of all, we are both married (well, as a man I am married, but that is hair splitting), and that is not likely to change, so I am in fact "the other woman" and 'only' a virtual one at that. I am also cheating on my spouse, if only in my heart, and really, what other sort of cheating is there? There are so many impracticalities to this relationship and reasons why it should not have happened. C and I both know that.

As I wrote above, our situations are unique. It is hard to find 'normal' ways to discuss what is going on. I cannot expect my spouse, who loves 'her man' to acknowledge, let alone love, the woman she is living with, can I? Yet without some validation and love, even an internal woman cries out to be someone and to exist for someone else in the world. If more than anything else, who I am right now is that woman who wants more than anything to be loved as a woman, then the dishonesty of having an online love affair really is a very small thing compared to the dishonesty of hiding my truest and best nature from everyone I love in the real world. This conflict is threatening to tear me apart. I understand the drive to transition oh so well today. Life can be very wonderful and very cruel too.

There is no way I will leave this post on a downer. I wouldn't trade my present conflicts for the boring life that was facing the confused and self-loathing guy five years ago. No matter how the future plays out, this is my best of times.

This message bears repetition. There is magic in our love for one another. How often does anyone experience magic in their life?

C is Halle's first lover and he is wonderful.