Brick Wall

I have not posted in a while.  There is nothing exactly new in my gender journey as the shelter at home orders have taken my Tanya time down to zero.  I'm not exactly out to my family.  My wife knows about this side of me and our agreement is that I can keep my stash out of site and dress when she and the kids are not around.  So, yeah, they are around 24 x 7.

Now do not get me wrong, I completely love my family and we are having a mostly lovely time just hanging out with the four of us.  Mostly?  I have two kiddos under the age of 10, so yeah "mostly" applies here.  And I would not trade my family's health for anything; yes anything.

Other than the family being home all the time, my life has not really changed.  I worked from home full-time prior to this COVID-19 stuff and I have very few hobbies outside of the home.  So honestly, this mostly not all the different for me.

I am missing three major things during this COVID-19 brick wall: 1) Dressing, 2) Shopping, 3) Exploring public times.

Dressing : This one is pretty obvious, I have had zero time for dressing in the past seven weeks.  I miss it; clearly.  I've known a few soul sisters who will dress late at night when the family is asleep, but I choose not to.  Between little kids and pets, there are too many risks of things going bump in the night to wake someone up, and so I don't want to risk that.  Although my state is looking to loosen things up, I wonder when I'll have the house to myself for a couple of hours at a time.  I look forward to that - A LOT!!!

Shopping : I would often extend a run to the grocery store with a quick trip into Kohl's department store for a pass through the clearance racks.  That's not happening now and who knows when that will be might return.  The other shopping that I love doing is finding deals on Amazon and having them shipped to an Amazon Locker location.  Since I don't have any "free" time to cruise to the lockers, this shopping is shut down.  And to be honest, with the unknown germ factors out in the wild, that feels on the riskier side of life.  Can you imagine having to explain to the Mrs just how I caught this virus - oh I was picking up a package...

Exploring public times : AKA going out into the world DRESSED!  I had been out three times in 2020 already and was building up some confidence and making the baby steps a bit bigger each time.  Again, there is no telling when scheduling will allow me to get back in to this mode.  I am presently up 10 pounds (thank you delicious bagels!) and I need to reverse course on that to make feel better about how I would present anyway.  I had such high hopes for being out in springtime as I could wear chillier weather clothing to cover up a big more for confidence reasons.  Perhaps I'll need to wait until fall as this chick does not have shaved legs to get out and about in shorts.

I remember the first Sunday after the stay at home stuff started and I was attending my church service from my couch.  My mind briefly drifted to wondering how many soul sisters were attending church all dressed up and presenting like they would love to be doing so in person.  I was thinking how lucky they must be!  As an extension of that, if I were single I'd basically be full-time with the shelter at home orders!  I'm sure it's not that simple or enjoyable.  Living alone at such as a time like this must be incredibly lonely.  My heart goes out to the extraverts and single people who are craving connection to friends and family.

One other random thought I've had with regard to going public right now or in the near future is I wonder if a cute face mask would help one pass any better?  If your hair and eyes were spot on, would this be enough to appear more femme than needing the full face exposed?  This is not a well thought out concept, but a thought my brain has returned to a time or two.

I've been keeping myself occupied by posting additional photos on Flickr from previous photoshoots and asking for suggestions from my friends as to what they want to see more of.  This has been fun and given some new life to the photo archives.  The latest thing that I took a stab at is creating my own YouTube channel.  In the past year or so, I took a video or two with each photoshoot to have eyes on how an outfit looks in motion.  It's been eye opening to be honest - I've found more than a couple outfits which I should never wear in public as my gut shows too much.  In a static pose in the just the right position, you can minimize that - but being in motion shows off any flaws.  I'm NOT posting all of the videos I've taken.

Link to my YouTube channel

For a post about nothing much, I see this one has added up.  I hope this post finds you happy, healthy, well supplied and sane!  I pray that you, your friends and loved ones have not gotten sick nor lost their jobs through these times.