Clearing

I am moving. So i have been sorting everything out determined that for once stuff I have lugged from once place to another and from one storage unit to another storage doesn’t happen again. I have been house sharing so my private space has been comfy yet limited. It meant some of my stuff was in the shared part of the house. I am moving to  space that is only a little larger than my current space so there is no need for lots of stuff to fill it. In fact I want it to be uncluttered.

I started to think about why I had so much stuff. There have been several times in my life when I have storage units full and untouched for years without ever going near them. So clearly I do not need what’s inside them! Both my parents have died and their home was emptied by me. Having been through the war and a long period of hardship afterwards they never through anything away… ”it might come in useful sometime”. My father in turn had emptied his parents’ house and adopted the same principle. The result was I had attached some sentimental value to items that had been around for my entire life and gave a kind of stability. That was in Grandpa’s house, then my father’s and now in mine.

In my case, living a lie meant I was never at ease with myself and I realise now I wanted “things” round me to be as they should be, as they always have been. It would make everything alright somehow. Of course it doesn’t, but you don’t know that at the time. I transitioned full time quite a while back now, yet in the back of the wardrobe was one of my old suits and a black tie (in case I needed to attend a funeral). As the saying goes ffs! Not anymore all gone.

I have found living as myself means I need far less props. I am content in myself so there is no longer that need. Yes, I have anxieties however this time they are not about who I am. I was talking to my youngest son who has been working through relationship difficulties and looking at himself following the breakup of a serious relationship in which he had not treated her particularly well. He said he didn’t need a girlfriend right now, and that he had realised his relationship revolved round his girl being a “trophy”, Because he was with her he could hold his head up high since she was a looker and they looked good together.  Now that he is so much more content he doesn’t need to be validated in that way anymore. It applies to me now I have grown, am  growing, into the real me I don’t need all these things to make me feel validated. I am me, I can let go of the past now and live  with what I need now without having to present in any other way. 

In the conversation with my son he said that he didn’t have any problem with my transition. What he finds difficult is why would anyone want to wear clothes of the opposite gender? I agreed, I had been doing that for years and it was awful. I now wear clothes for who and how I am. It feels normal. He wouldn’t get that as he already wears appropriate clothes according to how he identifies and he could not experience the feeling of how that felt as he was not transgender.