The Right Life....

  The right life. Is there one? I have always seen myself on a path just next to the one everyone else is walking on. Separated by nothing for I could see the other path and the people on it clearly. Alone on mine I wander. Outcast by God and doomed to a fictional life that was never meant to be. The wrong life.
   Why? I use to and still do ask myself and God this simple question. Why was I born in the wrong body? Was not the hardships I was going to have in life not enough? Did I really need a Gender Identity thrown into the mix? Did I need to be denied the other path and most importantly to me a family of my own one day?
  A family of my own. I would love to have children of my own flesh and blood. That can never be. Due to Hormone Replacement Therapy I am sterile, and I will not go off hormones for the few weeks it would take to become fertile again. There is no guarantee that is possible anyhow. At this point it is Reassignment Surgery or bust. I cannot live any other way. I never could the lifetime of depression I once faced was proof of that.
  My depression. My family nor my doctors never could figure out what was the cause. I remember so many different anti-depressants over the course of many years to help with it. None ever worked and a couple only masked it. I was hospitalized the first time at about the age of five for suicide attempts. Deep down I knew all along the cause of my depression. I was different.
  Different. It took many years to put another term to that word. When I found the term Transgender it hit home  immediately, and just as quickly I denied it. I was Mormon this couldn't be! It meant upsetting my family and at the time my family meant everything to me. Aunts, Uncles, cousins, and Grandparents they all meant the world. They were my world.
   My world came crashing down on me years later. Everyone started having families of their own. Something I never really had and never will. We all drifted apart. I think I drifted even further as my Gender Identity plagued me during all this. What could I do about it? I had nothing to work with and didn't know even where to begin.
  I knew I must find my right life. Living the wrong one all those years had taken its toll. I sought and finally found help. Everything still seemed so hopeless however.
   Hope. I finally had it when I took my first dose of hormones. My depression of nearly thirty years lifted immediately. It didn't take any anti-depressants. It took the simple pills that would help me to become the woman I know I was meant to be in the first place.
   I do not know how my family will see all this. I have never been taken seriously within our family circle. I think that is what really hurts. It's not whether I will be accepted or rejected. It's whether or not they will even take the time to listen in the first place. To them I am still the hyper little boy clutching Grandma's skirts. I doubt they will say anything until they see me wearing a skirt of my own. That is when they will comment and from past experience I doubt it will be pleasant.
  When coming out as Transgender you eventually learn that people surprise you. Many have. A couple have been family. However I can't help but draw a line on many of these people. I have known them too long and they're reactions have been predictable for sometime. Still there is room for growth and understanding and perhaps I may still be misjudging them.
   So am I still living the wrong life? No. At least not entirely. I am getting at least as much of the right life as I can get. One can only go so far when they have been born with the wrong body. I still see myself on this other path. I do not know if I will ever get off it and on to the other one. The right life. Is there one? No not for anybody.