A Cross Dresser's Hiatus, or A Lipstick Sunset

To describe my relationship with cross dressing I have employed oceanic metaphor. Terms like tides, currents, surges and waves are peppered throughout these Voyages en Rose. One of the first things I wrote back in Nov 08 was that I was going to yield to the current, anxious as I was to find out where I washed up.

Great and lasting metaphorical platform in hindsight. Tides and currents reverse. Surges recede and waves calm. And so it is now with me. I am washing ashore in a quiet place. I always suspected that there were cycles associated with my dressing, but never really examined the issue too closely.

First indicators of the receding Pink tide appeared about 1 month ago when I started finding writing more difficult. I did not have easy access to the sort of brio and wit I am usually able to bring to work I am enjoying. More recently I have felt my desires to dress start to drop in frequency and intensity, gradually and surely. This last week I have not dressed at all in fact. Additionally, my ponderings on the topic are a little demurred, a little less demanding of my attention.

Now that having been said, I have been working on losing a cold for the last couple of weeks. I have been a little busy with and perhaps stressed by work. I have felt increasingly unhappy as well about not having found the nerve or the occasion to share this all with my wife of 13+ years. I think these things are contributors too, but I suspect that at best they have only accelerated a natural rhythm.

As evidenced by my blog activity, I have been living through a high and rich tide in recent months. In October of last year, I retrieved my stash of pretty things from the attic where they had been 2 years alone in the dark. I took some bolder steps out, made my surfaces a little more pretty and polished, and became much more comfortable with the feminine voice within my whole self. I have, in doing all of this, experienced deeply satisfying feelings of connection with the Petra parts.

Additionally I have made some wonderful new friends in worlds real and virtual, en femme and in drab. CD’s, TG’s, GG’s and a small handful of hetero and gay men who simply wanted to talk, and didn’t mind sharing time with a guy in dress. Not once have I felt threatened or unwelcomed anywhere I have gone.

I have come around to understanding that Petra represents much that is good and likeable about me. I think that she amplifies attributes and attitudes that I naturally possess but that do not display well or have perfect pitch in guy mode. I am convinced that I can and should let more of Petra show up in my everyday connections with people, regardless of how I am dressed or how interested in dressing I am. I think that I will be, in aggregate, a nicer, smarter, more sensitive person if I do not suppress Petra’s perspectives and experiences.

My current malaise may vanish overnight, but I do not suspect so. I hope, actively hope, that if the tide is on the way out, that it will not go too far out, for too long. I want to be swept up in it again, more comfortable with its power, more curious about where it will take me, and more honest about what it means to me to people who should know.

To you, dear visitor, may I say thank you. I expect Voyages en Rose will be a little less interesting, or at least a less frequently updated site than you deserve. Go, find and favor bloggers who write about things that are important to you. Many of them are linked and updated in my blogroll on the right. Believe me, people who write really want their work to be read.

No drama or big findings here my friends. Just a natural course of things. I will be sure to post up here when something of quality comes to mind. In the meantime, happy dressing and happy everything else to you.