My new pink sandals are so much fun!

It’s funny.  I never really thought of myself as a foot fetishist.  I certainly have qualms about wanting a “foot job”.  Maybe from some sweetie with really cute feet, but even then, I can certainly think of better things to do… So I really don’t think my pleasure derived from shoes has anything to do with sex.  I’m just not into feet that way. I think I just like shoes. I mean in so many clothes, women have soooooooooooo ooooo ooooo much more of an option.  So many styles.  So many colors.  So many options, like dresses and skirts, that men don’t even have, period.  If you’re a woman, it’s fun! Given that alone, it’s really no wonder that some men crossdress.  Women do it every day and no one even thinks about it.  Women can wear simple slacks, or shirts, so when they sneak in a man’s shirt, who even notices?  Women can wear anything!  Men, on the other hand, have so very little to choose from. But there’s something special, something that truly makes us happy, when it comes to shoes. Today, my happy shoes are some pink sandals with a low-ish heel that I got on clearance.  I had to order them one size too large because my size was already sold out.  But luckily they’re strappy things that (after adjustment with a leather punch) fit tight enough, and look just peachy.  I love these shoes.  They just make me all sparlky inside. Before these it was my white go go boots.  God those are some fun boots. I mean all sorts of fun things to wear make me happy.  But still, there’s just nothing like a new pair of shoes to brighten my day. I wonder why…

So I had a good long talk with my wife.  She shared what was bugging her.  I shared what was bugging me.  I even told her about considering hormone therapy, about looking for friends on Adult FriendFinder (even though I’m still strictly platonic on AFF, it was bugging me not being honest enough to tell her), and about my “other” blog.  (AKA this one.)

She’s always known that I was having gender issues, but I don’t think she truly honestly gave them as much credit until we’d talked the other night.  And at first it scared her, because she thought I might be looking for a way out of our marriage.  I tried hard not to laugh as I reassured her that if that’s what I’d wanted, her health issues alone, our sexual issues, our money issues, I’d had plenty of previous opportunities to make up an excuse to leave her.  I love her.  I’m doing my best to give our marriage an honest chance.  That reassured her.

And she reassured me.  She actually surprised me by saying she expected me to cheat on her.  That kind of caught me off guard, because I’ve been extremely commited to her.  It took me a moment to realize that she wasn’t criticising me.  She was criticising herself.  She knows fully well that there are parts of the marriage she’s not meeting my needs on.  And basically we came to the conclusion that so long as what I do doesn’t bring anything home to her, and doesn’t change our relationship, that I still snuggle with her, respect and support her, treat her as an equal in our journey through life, and give her madly outrageous orgasms when she is in the mood, then what I do outside of the marriage are just … extracurricular activities.  She doesn’t mind.

Of course I don’t know if I trust that 100%.  Maybe she thinks she means it, but if I did anything, I’d certainly take it slowly until I know she actually is okay with it.  And that’s a big if.  I don’t want sex just for sex.  I want to be with my wife, the woman I love.  I want to make her happy.  I want to be happy with her.  I want us to connect.  I’m not even certain that I can have sex with someone else without it hurting my opinion of myself.

Which, actually, is kind of odd.  Because I believe in polyamory.  I believe that people can love more than one person.  In different ways.  Even in the same ways.  Sometimes a good relationship needs more than two people to fill in all of the gaps and make it solid for everyone.  I honestly believe that.

And I honestly believe that there are plenty of people that can just have sex for the sake of sex.  That it’s just physical pleasure.  It’s fun.  Damn sex is fun!  Having sex with someone doesn’t mean you’re going to leave your spouse for them.  It can be on the emotional level of playing a video game.

But just because I respect other people’s rights to these views, and believe in them, doesn’t mean that I hold myself to the same values.

Basically, my way of coping with having sex again after rape, was to tie my act of having sex tightly into an emotional expression of love.  I understand that in theory there are plenty of other reasons for sex.  I just can’t bring myself to allow myself to explore them.

Psychologically speaking, it’d probably be good for me to reach a point where I could.  If I don’t do greivous damage to myself in getting there.  And maybe if I could find a good therapist, I might get there safely.

But that’s pretty much all theory for me.  Been there.  Tried that.  Couldn’t even find a therapist that impressed me as actually caring or for that matter, just understanding.  There’s an intellectual level at which we can read and know about things, and there’s an emotional level at which we understand things.  Try as we might, we can never replace one for the other.  You either understand, or you don’t.  You’ve either been there yourself, or you haven’t.

In a very weird twisted way, it’s this very reason that brings me to believe that even “evil” acts, can, in fact, be used for good.  And that, in a way, they’re necessary.  You can’t truly understand something until you’ve gone through it.  You can’t truly empathize with someone who lost a loved one until you’ve lost a loved one yourself.  You can’t fully emotionally support someone who was raped unless you yourself were raped.  You can’t really understand how someone felt when they were robbed unless you were robbed.  If you don’t have a wellspring of actual experience to draw from, try as you might to be earnest in helping, you lack a very integral tool to help.  And so, in a sick twisted way, doing bad things to people makes these “victims” uniquely qualified to help other people victimized in a similar way.  It’s an opportunity and insight that no Harvard degree can give you.  It’s a strangely necessary part of the human experience.

And no therapist who hasn’t actually been there themself can honestly reach in an provide that level of understanding necessary to achieve healing.

Anyway, I’m kind of rambling I guess.  The point is, the wife and I both have our issues.  We don’t know how they’re going to affect our lives or our future.  All that we do know is that we love each other and don’t want to lose what we have.  We both want to keep what we have.  And we’re both willing to try to be flexible.

So even though we didn’t really “solve” anything, we at least re-affirmed our commitment to one another.  We got our slates cleared.  We’re willing to be open-minded and give things our best shot.  And we still love one another.  So at least in that, we both feel better. 

Then yesterday, I guess in support of who I am, my wife took me out shopping to a local goodwill store, to shop for women’s clothes for me.

I greatly appreciate her enthusiasm and effort.

I mean I could theoretically find some of her clothes to wear.  In some ways we’re pretty similar in sizing.  (In others not.)  But there’s two problems with that, at least for me.  The first is that I don’t have her same sense of fashion.  We have very different tastes on that front.  But still, I could find some things.  It’s the other thing that matters more: that for some reason it creeps me out to wear her clothes.  It’s some personal stigma.  I guess I feel like if I’m just raiding her closet to play dress up, that I’m not really taking myself seriously.  This is about me, finding myself.  And to do that I guess it’s greatly important that I put my own energy into my own wardrobe, that it be a representation of me.

So, we went shopping.  At a goodwill store.

Unfortunately, the store pretty much was the worst goodwill store I’ve ever seen.  And having grown up and been relatively unwealthy most of my life, I am certainly not unfamiliar with this kind of shopping.  And I’ve seen bad.  But I’ve never seen that bad.

And it wasn’t just the dirty atmosphere, as if no one gave a damn enough to take pride in the place.  It was also the quality of the merchandise, which looked to be about the bottom of the barrel of goodwill, which is a truly unimaginable experience until you see it.  And added to that, the organization of everything was just as unimpressive.  Nothing was organized by size.  It was organized by color.  Yes, all grey tops, in a row, in no particular order of size whatsoever.  On the next rack, all black.  On the next rack, khaki pants.  On the next rack, a completely random assortment of skirts of every size, shape, and color … with no organization to them whatsoever.

And you know how hard it is to find that missus XL / 20 or that plus 1X / 16W when things are organized.  But an entire store where absolutely nothing is organized by size?  In any way?!  Good freaking luck!

So that was, of course, greatly disappointing.  I have no real wardrobe to speak of.  I certainly don’t have the money to just buy one.  It was really the only chance to experiment and add without a serious monitary commitment.  All shot to hell.  Because in spite of our nation’s failing economy, apparently the people around here are just to self-important to care?  That itself is pretty depressing.  I mean it’s one thing to jilt a silly crossdresser.  I can live with it.  Not happily, but I’ll most certainly live.  It’s another thing altogether to jilt pretty much everyone locally who is suffering through this mess that Dubya has created.  That ain’t right.

So such are the days of my life.

Well, I’ve cleaned and vaccuumed the living room, cleaned the bathroom, done the dishes, done loads of laundry, and gotten some shopping in.

I’m feeling a little better.

I also had a talk with my wife.  Not about anything in particular.  Just how we’re both pretty much battling the world right now and getting nowhere.  How we’re like the only good things in each other lives right now.  It didn’t really get anything solved, but at least we both admitted how shitty we’re feeling lately and how we’re so exhausted by life that we’re barely even connecting with each other anymore.

So then we purposefully had a real live dinner at the dinner table together.  With a ham steak and corn on the cob and cheesy mashed potatoes.  It helped.  We might have even gone and made love, but she’s got some medical problems that keep her out of the mood.

I’m still barely checking my email.  Mostly just clearing the junk and ignoring the rest.  Except for talking wiht my realtor about taking my house off of the market.  Not because I want to keep it.  (Though it would be nice to find a job there and move back.)  But because the economy has dropped like a rock and I’m just never going to be able to sell it at a price that I can afford.   No use wasting her or my time.  Close up shop.  But other than that, I’m just kind of ignoring the world.

I almost feel bad that I haven’t even really visited anyone’s blog lately.  Maybe today I’ll feel better and get on that.  Or maybe not.  I dunno.

But at least I haven’t offed myself yet.  I’m trying to keep a positive outlook.  I just need some time to recouperate.  Maybe a little escape into some video games wouldn’t be so bad.  So long as I keep myself under control.

You know things are bad when you’re not even masturbating.  I know, that sounds weird.  But I like sex.  And when I can’t get sex, well, anything is better than nothing.  So I probably tend to do it about daily, give or take, when the wife isn’t feeling amorous.  But lately?  I can’t even remember the last time I did it for myself.  And I really can’t remember the last time I did it with my wife.  I’ve been so out of sorts, even the simple pleasures of life have been eluding me.

Which is probably why I’ve also had such a hard time getting into the mood to cook lately.  I’ve lost my love for life, so I’ve also lost my love for food.  When I’m feeling well, I love to create.  I love to experiment.  I love to cook.  Lately?  Hot dogs.  Sandwiches.  Blah.

I’m definitely not better yet.  But I’m not as bad as I was.

For what it’s worth, world, I’m sorry that I’m ignoring you.

I should slap myself.  I just spent $130.89 on a cluster of women’s clothes at Target.  Online. I don’t really own much in the way of daily wear women’s clothing, and that’s been bugging me a lot.  So I finally bit the bullet and just went for it.  There were a number of things on clearance at Target and some other fair sales, so at least I got a lot for my money.

Originally I figured that I’d look at Walmart, because I’m being frugal.  (Cheap.)  But their online shopping was so … horrid.  So I decided to try Target.  That wasn’t bad at all.  They have some nice features in their online shopping.  And there was a free delivery thing going on.  So free delivery plus sale and clearance prices … I was really only just looking but it was too hard to ignore.

Sizing is, of course, a concern.  I hope things fit.  It’s hard enough when you can’t try clothing on because you’re shopping online, but then add to that the compication of being a man ordering women’s clothes to wear because you’re crossdressing.  It’s not as much fun as it should be.

For that matter, can I really call myself a crossdresser?  I mean I’m not doing it for fun.  I’m a womam trapped in a man’s body.  I’d transition if I A ) wasn’t married and B ) had the money.  Sometimes I consider starting hormone therapy anyway.  But I don’t live my life as a woman.  I live as a woman hiding in a guy costume.  So does that make me a crossdresser, a transgender, a transsexual, or just fucked?

You know I had this weird thought last night.  The wife and I were talking a little about the surgery because we caught some TV show where transgender was brought up.  She can’t understand why any guy would have a perfectly good penis lopped off.  I guess I can’t blame her for that.  But at the same time, I don’t really get mine.  I mean it’s nice to have the pleasure it brings, even if at times it feels like some weird alien thing and not the flower I’m meant to have.  But in day-to-day life, when I’m not having sex, the damn thing is really just annoying.  It’s constantly shifting into uncomfortable positions.  I have to shave around it to keep the hair from getting pulled when it moves.  It likes to jump up to attention at the damndest of times.  It’s really a pain in the ass.  If I could still have great orgasms during sex without it, I’d be incredibly happy to be rid of the thing!  It makes me really doubt that whole “penis envy” thing.  I mean who would want one?  Maybe if you could store it in a box and put it on when you want to have sex, but not if you’re stuck with the bloody thing 24/7.  That’s just a bother.

I wish I knew more about the side effects of hormone therapy.  Will I get more emotional?  What happens to my facial hair?  What happens to my body hair?  Does my wee willy shrink or stay the same size?  Do I lose my libido?  Does my body shape change any?  Will my male-pattern-baldness reverse itself any?  Is there any risk of getting sick or something?

I mean I figure some of something must happen, or else there’d be no point in doing it.  Sometimes I really think about it just to see if it frees my emotions up a bit.  Not that I’m not already a “sensitive male”, but all my life I’ve felt like my emotions were … dampened.  Like they’re trapped behind a wall.  As a teenager it really started to screw with my head.  I’d keep asking myself, “Shouldn’t I feel ____ right now?”  And then I’d wonder if I was a bad person for not feeling that way.  Eventually I just sort of got used to it.  Stop poking the hornet’s nest and you mostly stop getting stung.  But so is hormone therapy just an emotional thing, or does it change the body significantly?  As much as I’d enjoy any change, my wife would probably get a bit unhappy if my penis shrunk.

And is there a middle-point where I could stay man enough to keep my wife happy on that front, but look a bit more womanly so that I’d actually have a chance at passing for one?  I’m not sure that I’d be completely happy living a double life, but living someone else’s life is even worse.

I guess I’m just rambling now.  Anyway, I’m really looking forward to having some nice ordinary clothes to wear around the house.  That’ll be a treat.  I got a two skirts, a dress, a couple of tops, some shoes, and some leggings.  Some of it is even enough that I think I could cover my body hair well enough to go out without shaving from toe to neck and still look fashionable and girlie.  If I had a wig.  And a lot of makeup.  I’m actually kind of surprised that I didn’t buy any panties this time.  Hmm…  I wonder what that means.

The wife may hurt me for spending that much money.  Heck, I may hurt myself.  But sometimes there’s that balance game between priorities and I think on an emotional level I really needed it, so it became a priority.  And judging by all of the money I saved, maybe the universe is on my side.  It’s funny.  Day by day I’m either striving to be happy, or struggling just to hold myself together.  It’s a roller-coaster and I feel like a wreck waiting to happen.  And for the first time in my life, I’m not sure how to fix myself.  I’m hoping that aknowledging the woman in me by doing this will help.