It’s true — As a crossdresser I miss the lockdown.
As life slowly returns to normal and we remove the nails that we used to nail our front doors closed it’s time to re-emerge into the sunshine of spring in North America. How wonderful to get out more, and smell the sweet aroma of horribly expensive gasoline as people start to drive back to work and travel once more.
As crossdressers, trannies and other seafarers on this gender fluid sea, it is up to us, of course, to add to the aesthetic beauty of spring and the reawakening of the human race. Choosing a nice spring outfit, colorful and light, we can wear the clothes that bring back the joyful nature of this most fecund of seasons. You can use my Pinterest board on Spring Style to help you — https://www.pinterest.ca/fionadobson22/spring-crossdressing-style/ . And with good taste and subtlety and a little care we can do so without looking like complete tossers.
So, as we go forward grasping the pulsating stalk of this spring flower, we can step proudly into this new time. It’s not the return to ‘normal’, whatever that was, but it’s something different. Something we can appreciate more than once we did.
One thing that I am forced to consider, having watched any number of post apocalypse movies having grown up in the shadow of impending nuclear war, is that this idea of a return to ‘normal’ — so often reflected in such movies as people climb out of the rubble to rebuild the new world in the image of the old one — is that the ‘normal’ we left back in March of 2020 was not so normal after all. At that time we’d just seen an insurrection at the Capitol. We had white nationalists openly parading in the streets and a delusional former president having a tantrum and expecting Americans to change his nappy.
As we emerge we can see the spectre of war in Europe returning, and all that goes along with that. In other words, there is no ‘normal’. There never was. We live in an evolving world. And yet for us, who for many years have suppressed such a large part of our personality, this should come as no surprise. After all, we’ve always had to ‘carry on’ in spite of what we see around us. We’ve watched trans freedoms eroded, we’ve experienced our own internal wars, the struggle to live with the peculiarities of gender identity and psychology, and for many of us the continual denial of who we really are.
For many people the lockdown was a time they could cut out some of the chaff of life, and wear whatever they liked while working from home, and by the way you can’t tell what the others in the Zoom meeting are wearing out of frame.
With a smaller social ‘bubble’ than usual some of us were forced to weed out redundant contacts and connections. The contacts that are only there because they always were, doing the activities we do because it’s what we’ve always done.
I remember conversations in my previous marriage that went something like this:
Former Wife: “Let’s go to Jeff’s this Easter.”
Fiona: “But I don’t want to go to Jeff’s this Easter.”
Former Wife: “We always go to Jeff’s at Easter.”
I don’t even like Jeff. No one likes Jeff. And I especially don’t like the other guests, mostly because I think they like Jeff. So where is the logic in going to Jeff’s? Having a smaller but better group of people I consider my close friends is one part of the lockdown that I thoroughly enjoyed. After all, I need time to service my members — yes, seriously! The lock down allowed me to trim out parts of my life that were no longer important to me.
In this period as lockdowns and mandates become a thing of the past, we can start to adapt to this new world. In doing so it’s a perfect opportunity to trim out the things we don’t want to re-ignite. Perhaps if we loose a few of the negative aspects of the life we left behind. Personally I have done a few things you may wish to emulate.
1. I’ve gone through my contacts and lost at least 30% of people who I just don’t need swallowing up my time. Like most things that are worthwhile, friendships need to be worked at and maintained. If I am the only one doing the work then they can slip away.
2. I’ve stopped watching the news more than 2 times a day. Seeing Putin bouncing Trump on his knee so vigorously he ejaculates isn’t the way to get my day off to a good start. I don’t need to see the latest horror story about how awful life is — I know it’s not a picnic. Yet somehow we step forward in sheer stockings and panties and get on with it, don’t we? I just don’t need that stuff polluting my head 24/7.
3. I’ve maintained the healthy physical activities I enjoyed during the lockdown. I’m getting more out of these today, post lockdown, than I ever did before COVID. They give me joy and provide structure to my life that I enjoy.
4. I’ve rearranged my working style around this slightly smaller life and I find it works well for me. Working from home and being disciplined about limiting my work hours to allow a better work life balance has been life changing.
So, there’s a few ideas for you. It’s going to be different for all of us, but tossing out the bad, and maintaining the good is probably not a bad thing for us all.
😊
Fiona
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