Staring into the abyss as I contemplate the point of no-return

Crossing the gender rubicon

I am scared. Maybe I want to be a baby because I am scared to death about my own future.  Maybe I love the domme so much because I want someone to take care of the things I fear.  Maybe?!  Definitely.

My divorce seems closer.  I am receiving a little money for some work I did in the past.  She wants it.  That is forcing her to the table.  I can’t tell if she is tired of the legal nonsense we are living through. I want a divorce, but there has to be some level of fear to sever this connection forever.

What else?  The assets we have are scattered all over the place.  I mean the world.  I didn’t notice it so much because in partnership you have someone else there to divide the labour with.  I don’t have that anymore.  And it seems I am going to get the mess of dispersed activity to clean up in the settlement.

There is not a silver lining in this.  She is taking, or at least is trying very hard to take, the business that we created together and is a viable long-term source of income into the forever future.  Over the past few years I have stepped away from that business to do things as an employee of others.  Employment provides a false sense of security.  When you have a job, you think it is okay to spend money, because you don’t think you won’t have it the next day.  When you are selling assets to cover spending, the calculus is very different.

As a trans woman I am discovering what I already knew.  The corporate world is going to be an extremely tricky place.  So much so that I don’t know that I even want to try to navigate it.  What’s provoking this thinking?  I had a dream job offer revoked after I disclosed I am trans [ah the joys of remote interviews—but I am sure their fantasies of me didn’t include me in a dress].

In a nutshell, here is what happened. I used to run a company that was a large, successful division of a global outfit. I led the sale of this company to another owner, and got fired shortly after the sale, despite a phenomenal track record. As if in a fairytale, this company came to market again through a competitive bidding process. I advised the eventual winner. The promise to me was a role on the board. A lucrative and prestigious position. We discussed what they wanted me to help with. But they didn’t know I was trans, and I thought, ‘if there is one outfit that will take me and let me be out, this is it. Well, I disclosed, and they decided they didn’t want me after all. On the one hand, I am crushed. On the other, it helps to be forced at times to follow your path.

The parallels to BDSM are very evident to me. Being an employee is like being a slave. It is very comfortable and seductive, but we surrender our freedom. As a trans woman, my own slavery is slipping away, as my slavery was tied to shame at being a man. In the background, my phone is pinging, as I am discussing becoming an apprentice to a dominatrix. It isn’t that I am compelled to be a sex worker, but rather that sex and sexuality are such critical parts of how we find the strength to transform ourselves. Everything in my life is in motion now. Everything.

So, I am scared.  Even though I have started a successful business before.  Even though I have invested in and successfully developed real estate for a long time, I also make mistakes, enough to know that there is no sure thing.  And that scares me.  Because I figure I can do one more business.  I have only that much energy left.  And I fear what would happen if I run out of cash.  No safety net.

Scary.

What I would really like to do, write, is not going to be lucrative enough.  I make a bit of money from writing and could surely even double or triple that income if I got serious about it.  But it would still be nothing close to the lifestyle I am used to or want to have—probably not even subsistence wages.  And that’s before supporting the children.  Taking a couple of buildings/apartments and renting them out, even on a nightly basis, is not going to deliver the kind of profit levels which approach a decent standard of living.

I don’t have an answer to this.  I am just scared.

Being trans and fully committed to transition, including a surgical intervention which will formally put me out of commission for any work for 3 months, takes many employment options off of the table.  Stepping into gender dysphoria and coming out has produced joy, incalculable joy, but also momentum.  Momentum is its own kind of inertia…the outcomes are inevitable.  

And I know that this means that I have to more to fear.  I fear destitution.  I fear homelessness.  I have experienced these things before.  Already growing up there were moments where we were not keeping the wolf from our door. Ironically, my father lived through those moments when he was a child.  They ricocheted back to me through the divorce of my parents, which took place when was still a baby—okay, I was four, but given that I am still a baby now, who is going to be technical about it. Learning to trust the universe is the hardest thing of all. God has a wicked sense of humour. We live in a dark comedy.

I muse from time to time whether my flirtation with destitution is a bizarre way to manifest these fears.  Self-destructive patterns.  Messing things up so I can have an excuse to live in a way that I already fear.

As I see it the only thing that can work going forward is to let go of fear.  To embrace even more the path I am on.  To go all the way.  But there are times when the path seems very dark indeed.

I am torn about having facial surgery. I have a beautiful face. It is neither male nor female. But it could be more female. I don’t like being seen as a man. Worse. As a man in a dress. The signs of age in my body and face were character as a man. As a woman they are not.