Starlings,
I dressed up for Halloween for the first time this year. Well, not the first first time, but the first time as a woman. It wasn’t even my first time wearing a dress as part of a costume, but it’s different when you present feminine full-time. Before transition, wearing a dress was the focal point of a costume: Hey look, guy wearing a dress, isn’t that wild? Now I know I’m a woman, and wearing a dress is unremarkable to everyone else.
It’s still remarkable to me. Even after a year on HRT it’s still a pleasant surprise to look in the mirror and see a woman staring back at me, and dressing up reinforces all of those feelings. My Halloween costume was sort of generic this year, just a few accessories on top of normal clothing, but dressing up still feels like something special. Once I had everything on and I checked my look in the mirror I felt gorgeous.
There’s always a surreal quality to that feeling. I’ve had the sight of beautiful women take my breath away several times, but taking your own breath away is a unique experience. To look in the mirror and see a beautiful woman there in the glass and recognize yourself and think oh my goodness that’s me… There’s nothing quite like it. I wonder if someday that feeling will feel unremarkable or routine; if someday I’ll look in the mirror and think “well I look lovely today” without reflecting on how I never imagined I could feel that way about myself. I don’t know, but today is not that day.
Yours truly,
Daphne⭐