Perchance She Sleepeth

By Amanda J.

In1898, a narrow gauge railway linking the towns of Lynton and Barnstaple in Devon, South West England, was opened.  By all accounts, it was a rather special railway travelling 19 miles through a particularly picturesque part of England.  The sort of railway that, nowadays, holidaymakers flock to in their hordes eager to experience the sights, sounds and smells of a steam railway adventure.

Sadly, it was not to be.  By 1935, The Lynton & Barnstaple carried its last passenger.  In those days, of course, steam railways were everywhere and not the novelty they are now.  People rode the L&B not for enjoyment but to travel between the two towns and, by all accounts, it was not a particularly convenient way of making that particular journey and it was loss making for all of its 37 year life.  Closure was therefore inevitable but the day after the last train arrived at its final destination, someone put a wreath on the buffer stops at Barnstaple Town with the following message written on a postcard attached – ‘perchance it is not dead, but sleepeth’.

-o-O-o-

As I think I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been in a hiatus since May.  First my son returned home from university for the summer break.  Whilst he has now gone, my daughter returned home from an overseas adventure in July for an indeterminate (possibly indefinite period).  As neither is aware of my little secret, firstly because I’m quite happy that they do not know and secondly as Mrs A is adamant that they should not be told, the stash has remained resolutely hidden and the inner woman has had to bide her time.

The funny thing is that, despite all of that, I’ve been fine.  I’d be lying if I said that I’d not experienced any urges to get my femme on; I have but they have tended to dissipate as quickly as they arrived.  More than anything, I’ve come to realise that, overall, I’m quite happy as I am and life as nature seemingly intended is quite acceptable as it is.

Let’s face it, though, there’s something quite special about looking in the mirror and seeing the person you’ve always wished you were smiling back particularly if, as in my case, you’ve always felt you got a rough deal in the looks department.  It’s a feeling that’s difficult to describe to anyone who’s not experienced it and understood without the need for any further explanation by those who have.  The stresses of life just seem to disappear, replaced by a feeling of absolute bliss and I’ve often asked myself the question ‘why would I not do this?’.

And I’ve certainly had those thoughts over the past few months as I’ve looked at photos of my feminised self with a combination of awe, pride and disbelief.  Seeing ‘her’ is just something I never tire of and yet the will to take the steps to bring her to life has all but deserted me.

Now, while I implied that I have been in an enforced hiatus since May, that’s not completely true.  Whilst I can honestly say that I’ve not felt, for want of a better word, a pathological need to transform, I have thought about it and missed the experience that, prior to then, had been a regular occurrence, sometimes several times in a week.  And so when the opportunity to engineer a night away from home on my own for an entirely honest and justifiable reason, it seemed too good an opportunity to pass over and so the overnight booking was duly made.

With the big day looming, I decided that carrying a couple of black plastic bin liners stuffed with everything a girl could need was perhaps not going to give the best impression as I walked through the hotel lobby even though whoever saw me would have no idea of their contents (I use the word ‘lobby’ loosely here – Travelodges, a UK budget chain (also sometimes uncharitably referred to as Trannylodges due to their convenience for covert dressing adventures!) have little more than a hole in the wall behind which the receptionist sits and, if you’re particularly lucky, a vending machine selling snacks or hot drinks).  I therefore scoured the local shops and found a large holdall which I bought for the princely (princessly?) sum of £20; the good news is that it accommodated the contents of all of my bin bags with room to spare – the bad news is that it weighed a ton as a result.  Anyway, carrying it into the hotel was an opportunity for me to reinforce my ‘man’ credentials further distancing ‘him’ from the blonde floozy that would walk out an hour or so later.

And so it was, in the safety of my hotel room, that I set to work uncovering the inner woman once more.  As an outfit, I wanted something feminine but casual and had bought a knitted sweater dress for the occasion.  Paired with my chunky heeled ankle boots with my favourite coat over the top, I thought it would give the vibe I was looking for.

I never tire of the ‘big reveal’ when I approach the mirror and see ‘her’ looking back.  At a basic level, it’s affirmation that I am who I am and I feel a deep connection with the woman smiling back at me but as I’ve managed to acquire a degree of competence with the makeup brush, it now enables me to judge whether I look acceptable enough to face the outside world.  And over the past 18 months, the answer has always been yes even if I have decided on a particular occasion not to follow through.

And with the blonde in the mirror giving the go ahead, I packed what I consider to be essentials – car key, room key, credit card, glasses and spare fake nails – into my handbag and, with a deep breath left the room and walked down the corridor towards the aforementioned ‘lobby’.

I feel quite sad when I read forum posts by girls who are paralysed with fear at the prospect of not ‘passing’ and what I experienced on my way to the lobby proved once again that most of our fears are groundless.  A young woman was walking towards me  and absolutely nothing happened.  She didn’t do a double take or anything like that; she just went through the door ahead of me and held it open for me.  It’s one of life’s great paradoxes that being completely unnoticed and more or less ignored feels so good!

Anyway, I made my way to the car and drove to a local supermarket without incident.  However, as I was browsing the clothing, it became apparent that the heels on my boots required my ankle to bend beyond its comfortable limits and so I then did what, to me was the unthinkable.  I bought a pair of flats and changed into them as soon as I had paid for them!   The walk back to the car was far more bearable than it otherwise would have been and I decided to look for somewhere to have dinner.

Now, as a regular reader of Kandi’s Land, I’ve often felt a tinge of envy when one of the other contributors has shared her experience of eating out and I decided that I was ready to join that particular club myself.  I decided to look for one of the chain restaurants but, being in a strange town, I had no idea where to look so ended up driving habout 20 miles searching for somewhere suitable.  And sadly, whilst I did eventually find somewhere that could have been suitable even to the point of getting out of the car and approaching the entrance, all of the self-doubt (that I thought had been long since banished) resurfaced and I got a bad attack of cold feet and aborted the mission!

Fortunately, thanks to the golden arches and their front of house ordering screens, I wasn’t going to go hungry and whilst McDonalds doesn’t really compare to the establishments that my co-contributors have graced with their presence, I did have the, er, ‘balls’ to eat on the premises and not scurry back to the safety of my car straight away.  And, as with my experience at the hotel, no one stared or made comments.

And so it was that I returned to the hotel, once again walking through the lobby without any qualms (and I did change back into my heels before making the short trip from the car – we have to suffer for our art).  And having changed into something a little more glamourous just for the hell of it, I spent the rest of the evening contemplating where all of this had ended up.

I’ve done a lot of thinking since I got back but I’m still no nearer to understanding what is going on.  A subsequent weekend when I had the house to myself which would once have provided a golden opportunity to spread my feminine wings saw me dressed as ‘him’ for the whole time.  Another opportunity for a night away from home in a couple of weeks’ time is being passed over.  And any thoughts of crossing the gender divide disappear as quickly as they arrive.  In short, I seem to be quite happy in my male guise and if ever I needed reassurance that transition would be a very bad idea, this is it.

What’s strange, though, is I don’t feel any desire to walk away from ‘Amanda’ and everything she stands for.  Even though things on that weekend away didn’t pan out as intended, I spent a lot of time in front of the mirror transfixed by what I saw.  As I said, I have no idea why things are the way they are but I have had a few thoughts of possible drivers.

The first is the sheer exhaustion of DADT.  For many stuck in the closet as I once was, that sort of arrangement seems to be a dream come true – spousal blessing to do what we want as long as they don’t get to hear about it.  And yet it places two huge responsibilities on our shoulders – the first is to honour our wives’ wishes.  If they say that they don’t want anything to do with it, that’s what they mean.  They don’t want to find evidence of what is going on or have their lives disrupted by it and we have to be meticulous in covering our tracks.  And the second responsibility is to understand that there are limits and to stick to them.  I know that whilst Mrs A has given her blessing to my activities providing she doesn’t get to hear about them, she would be horrified if she knew that I had walked out of our house fully dressed or contributed to this fine blog.  And that nagging conscience inevitably plays on me when I do spread my wings.

The second is best summed up as ‘what now?’.  For the most part, I’ve achieved what I set out to achieve and as the abortive restaurant search proved, I don’t feel the need to push the boundaries further, at least for now.  A year ago, the desire to be out and about interacting with sales assistants was overwhelming but, having done that several times, the balance has now tipped back in favour of understanding the risks of being seen leaving the house and curtailing activities as a result.  Bucket lists are fun but as I ponder what I’d put on ‘Amanda’s’ bucket list, I realise that all of the entries are ‘nice to haves’ not ‘need to haves’.

The third stems from the question as to which side of the mirror does ‘Amanda’ really belong?  Is her reflection merely affirmation of what I feel or is her reflection the be all and end all?  Here, I think the answer is that it fluctuates and, at the moment, it’s the latter.  And if it is the reflection that is the be all and end all, what’s the difference between that and looking at a photograph?  If I want to see ‘her’ all I need to do is to pull out my smartphone; no need for a lengthy transformation process and the meticulous track covering afterwards.

Fourthly, and perhaps most controversially, I find myself increasingly uncomfortable with the direction that the whole trans issue seems to be taking, thanks to the antics of a very small but very vocal minority.  As my last 50 posts here have probably demonstrated, I’m a bit of a thinker and am starting to realise that I’m now treading on a very fine line between enjoying the freedoms that our liberal 21^st century society affords us and overstepping the mark.

And finally, I’ve just come to realise that I’m comfortable with who I am.  Go on any forum and it won’t be long before a poor soul who believes that transition is the answer to all their problems is encountered.  I’m sure that many of us have been in that position at one time or another – I know I have – but the reality is that despite the feelings of bliss and thoughts that life would be so much better if we crossed the divide on a permanent basis, transition only resolves one issue – gender dysphoria – and won’t solve money, career or relationship issues.  In fact, it’ll probably make them a lot worse!  And I’ve come to realise that one of the strongest drivers for my CDing has been boredom and a lack of motivation in my male life.  As I’ve turned that side of things round and got on with all of the things that had previously been put to one side, things have got an awful lot better.

I started this post with a short account of the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway and the message on the postcard which in its own small way, left the door open for the railway’s return.  There was a time when I would have interpreted the way I feel at the moment as a ‘cure’ and purged everything but I learned the hard way (on several occasions) that that achieves precisely nothing and so the stash remains hidden, waiting for the day when it is once again needed.  Drawing parallels between my own situation and that of the L&B, I called this piece ‘perchance she sleepeth’ but, in reality, there’s no element of doubt as I know that this is only temporary, I just don’t know for how long it’ll last.

And the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway?  After its 1935 closure, the track was lifted and the assets sold for scrap.  And apart from a few former railway buildings which passed into private hands, little other than photographs remained to inform future generations of its existence.   Until 2004, that is, when a short section of the line just under one mile in length  was reopened (with plans in place for the future reinstatement of a major part of the line).  Did the words on the postcard represent a sneaking suspicion that the disappearance of the line was just temporary or mere hope that that would be the case?

I’d be lying if I said that, like the anonymous soothsayer with his (or maybe her) postcard, I wasn’t hoping for the best and I have to confess that I have a sneaking suspicion about how things will pan out.  I don’t want my feminine side to wither & die and I know from all of my outings over the past year that there’s something indescribably special about the implied acceptance from the public at large not realising what lies beneath the (hopefully) feminine exterior or the overt acceptance of being served with a smile by a sales assistant or barista who knows full well what lies beneath.  Or even just being able to relax alone in my room without a care in the world in the knowledge that whilst my chromosomes would assert that this is not what nature intended, my heart is happy to lose itself in the compromise I have created for a few hours.  More than anything, it would be a shame to go to all of this trouble not to willingly capitalise on the opportunities it presents.

So I’ll draw comfort from my prior experience of lulls and in particular from the rebirth of the Lynton & Barnstaple but somehow, I don’t think it’ll be 69 years before Amanda sees the light of day once more.

I’ll keep you all posted!