Overnight, I dreamed I was packing to attend a transgender convention. My mother was helping me pack and offered to lend me anything I needed.
Throughout the dream, I kept refusing whatever items she offered because I already had those items in my wardrobe.
Finally, she said with a knowing smile, “I bet you don’t have any of these.”
And with that, she revealed a storage area in the back of her closet that was full of girdles from the 1950s and 1960s.
That got my attention and as I began perusing the girdles to decide what to borrow, I awoke from my dream.
The dream interests me because I never confided in my mother about my crossdressing. I am sure that she knew, but she never brought up the subject.
Almost to her dying day, she often asked me if there was anything I wanted to tell her. At those times, I thought she was just trying to make conversation, but in retrospect, I think she was offering to lend a friendly ear.
I so regret not confiding in my mother. I believe my life would have been different if I knew my mother supported her “daughter.”
Hi Staci,
ReplyDeleteIt's so haunting to think about what our mothers' knew and thought. My mother died when I was in my late teens and although we never discussed it, she HAD to know I was wearing her clothes every chance I got. But in 1965 or so, in an Irish catholic family, you just didn't discuss anything, let alone cross-dressing or transsexualism. But, what if ...???
Trish
Staci, I really feel for you. My mother was very supportive during my gender transition as she is now, in the early days of my life as a woman. When I "came out" to her, it was as if some things about my life that she knew, and other things she'd suspected, began to make sense. Sometimes I wonder how things would have been had I "come out" to her about my crossdressing earlier in my life.
ReplyDeleteStill, I consider myself a very lucky lady.
I think now of something someone told me a long time ago: You have the family you're born into, and the one(s) you make. The latter might be whom you marry and the children you have. Or they might be the supportive people you find. You can't replace your mother, but you can find (and you probably have found) people who can offer, at least to some degree, the kind of support you might have had from her.
What about your father. I told my mother. Never my dad. I don't know if they discussed it. Probably. I begged her not to. If she did it didn't make him any more sensitive to me. I think now that I'm adult and have my own family I could stand up to him, but I worry the stress of it would hurt him. he had a heart attack a few years ago. I'd like for him to tell me it was alright, but I know that if he did it would be I love you anyway, not I'm glad I got to meet my other daughter.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous --- I am sure that my father knew, too. He may have caught me a couple of times, but I don't know for sure because he never mentioned it. And there is a good chance my mother told him what she suspected. In either case, I believe that my father would have been as supportive as my mother.
ReplyDeleteTime and time again I tried to speak to my mother about it. She knew, she had caught me more than once, completely dolled-up. But always it was NOT a subject to be discussed (we were a very catholic family!)
ReplyDeleteWhen my mother died, several years ago, she left me a note. Not only leaving me any of her clothes that I wanted (saying I had equal rights with my sister on it), but also letting me know that she was okay with it, and was sorry that she never had the courage to get to know "her other daughter."
I wish things could have been different.
Many believe that the departed can and do visit us in our dreams, to make ammends, or let us know things that they were never able to while alive.
Perhaps your dream was such...