So… Who is Barbara Richards?

Well, if you’re a T Girl, you already know pretty much all about me.  I live in a different state, perhaps.  And I’ve held different jobs, for sure.  But our story is basically the same one.

If you’re not a T Girl, our story is pretty much this…

I sneaked into my older sister’s bedroom one day when I was seven or eight.  I tried on one of her dresses to see how I’d look.  Mmmmmmmmmm… and I fell in love with what I saw!  I didn’t do much else for a while, until I got into high school… or was it junior high.  I’d rush home from school and put on my mother’s things.  Bras.  And panties…  And slips…  Soft flowing nylon things that seemed to caress my body and legs.  Then, skirts and sweaters and dresses.  Smooth creamy lipstick.  I did everything I could think of to make myself pretty…  And I was too!

I was a cute guy in high school.  What most people didn’t know was that I was a cute girl too.  I dated just like everybody else and reaped my share of rewards too.  After all, I was a pretty cute guy and my male hormones were bored out and in overdrive. I even got a few extra perks too.  So, Carolyn, if you read this you don’t have to wonder where your lipstick disappeared to anymore.  Oh, and Diane, you can stop wondering where your leopard print panties went to.

Then, I went to college at the University of Maryland.  I minored in Business Administration and majored in girls.  I’ve been in love with girls my whole life. And I’ve never missed a chance to get into their pants.  Either by slipping them off… or by slipping them on.

I’m very easy to please.

And then came the Army and a one year all expense paid trip to beautiful Viet Nam. I’m not being facetious.  Viet Nam is one of the prettiest places in the world.  But you do have to keep you eyes open for snakes.  They have some really nasty ones there.

That was a happy time for me.  I was doing something that I believed in and I was being very macho, or hardcore as we used to say in those days.  But it was a sad time, too.
All those people… And for what?

It’s funny…  I never dressed the whole time I was in the Army.  I’d think about it from time to time, but I never really got the urge.  And that’s kind of a pity too.  When I came home from Viet Nam I weighed 120 pounds.
I could have slipped right into a size 6.

Isn’t that always the way.

Through my twenties and thirties and forties, I went through so many cycles of purchase and purge.  I’d go for shorter periods or longer periods of time without dressing, or even wanting to.  Then, the urge would come to me in its own seductive way and grow stronger and stronger until I’d buy a bra and panties or a babydoll nightgown and dress up.  I’d buy a garterbelt and stockings and then a slip and then a skirt and a top, and I’d dress up whenever I got the chance.  Then, after a while, I’d begin to feel guilty and sick and perverted.  I’d resolve to stop and never do it again and I’d take all my things and throw them away.  Some time would pass and then that familiar inkling would become an urge, and then I’d need to dress up and feel pretty again…

Dressing was always something I did in private and alone.  Actually going out in public was never more than a wild fantasy.  When I was single my girlfriends never knew and after I got married neither did my wife… until she came home unexpectedly one day and caught me. What I’d lived in dread of all my life had come to pass.  And what a relief it turned out to be.

My wife loves me very much.  But when she first found out about this part me she was very upset (smile… that’s a nice way of putting it).  As hard as she tried she simply could not understand why I did this.  She accepted the fact of my crossdressing, but she was totally uncomfortable with it.  Then, she began to ask me all sorts of questions and we talked.  It was very difficult for me at first because I had kept this part of me hidden all my life and I felt very threatened and exposed.  She explored links to Transgendered Significant Other pages and asked more questions and we talked more and more and more.  She has come so far in understanding and has gone from accepting and tolerating the fact to being truly understanding and as supportive as she knows how to be.  She is still not comfortable with seeing Barbara and I don’t try to push her too far too fast.  Now I am learning patience and I’m working very hard to be less sensitive and more open to her and sharing myself more completely.

I am so very lucky to have her in my life.

In 1997, I had a nice personal breakthrough.  I realized that being transgendered is me.  I have blue eyes.  I have brown hair, what there is of it… and part of me loves looking and feeling pretty.  I have no idea why.  But the nice thing is that "why" doesn’t matter.  I live every day of my life with masculine feelings and feminine feelings.  I’m me and I’m transgendered, and that’s that.  And then, for the first time in my life I accepted me completely and unconditionally.  And I gave myself permission to be me.

Early in 1998, I was looking in the mirror one day and I realized that it would not be too much longer before I would see an old lady looking back at me.  Old lady was never the image I had of me, so that’s the day I decided to be as pretty as I can be while I still have a little something to work with.  I will be an old lady some day, but when I am I’ll remember the days when an attractive younger woman smiled back at me from my mirror, then took herself down to the mall for some shopping and some lunch.  Cool summer breezes on bare legs and the warm kiss of the sun on my cheek.  And I’ll smile.

Now, I’m discovering me all over again.  It’s a wonderful adventure!  Every day I learn a little more about being a girl, every day I grow a little, and every day I experience the joy of becoming.

~*~

If you’d like some more in depth musings you will find them here.