Farewell 2025

 So that was 2025.

To be honest, I won't be unhappy to see it go, though I worry, both globally and domestically, what it bodes for 2026.

I can't remember how 2025 started but it definitely ended on something of a mixed note. L had a couple of days out in the week running up to  New Year that gifted me some much-needed Susie time, although in both cases a late start and a mid-afternoon return precluded the opportunity to get out, even for a quick walk. Unfortunately L had a bad fall at the end of the second day and arrived home shaken and in obvious pain and spent the evening and most of the next day, New Years Eve, nursing a bruised knee and side, which rather put a damper on seeing in the New Year. 

  

(err, yes. One day when I'm feeling a bit braver I might try explain the thing about the overly girly white tights. Part of it comes from growing up as a teenager in the 60s and the Mary Quant/Biba thing at the time.)

Make do and Mend.

I picked up the belted polka dot dress above as a charity shop markdown just before Xmas and only noticed later that it had a slit almost up up to the top of the thigh on one side. That seemed just a bit too racy unless you wanted a flash of stocking every time you sat down, so I broke out the sewing kit and reduced it to a more modest mid thigh slit.

I've had the blue dress for as long as I can remember. Originally it had a high collar which was getting a bit too tight so earlier in the year the repair kit came out again and I removed the collar and converted it to a V neckline which felt far more comfortable.

***

Up to that point, though, much of 225 had felt like it had been stalled in a holding pattern as far as Susie time was concerned, especially compared to the 2024, with the buzz of euphoria after taking part in  Witney Pride for the first time as Susie and revealing that side of me to a number of work colleagues (admittedly in the relatively safe space of the company Pride Network). L also took several extended trips during 2024, gifting me a number opportunities where I could spend several days at a time (in once case almost a week) as Susie, during which I took full opportunity to get out as much as possible, including a visit to Blenheim Palace.

 

In contrast, opportunities for similar extended periods of Susie time or getting out during 2025 have been few and far between. 

There was one in early February where I released my inner domestic goddess. I enjoy cooking and the opportunity to let Susie take over (even if it was sadly only for one) was too good to miss. 

***

By May I started to realise Susie's stash was starting to take over more than half the closet and an ever-growing pile at one end of the spare room, resulting in a cull  of 'unsuitable' clothes, shoes and boots (some of which I'm now starting to regret) and two or three black bags being donated back to the local charity shop, releasing space which has inevitably started to refill, despite a self imposed moratorium of buying any new frocks. A resolution that lasted at least a couple of months, but which I technically broke by buying an white lace jumpsuit (not actually a frock) when I saw it marked down in a sale. Unfortunately the lure of sale racks, and a quarter of an hour wait near a charity shop where every item is marked £3 or less while waiting for the bus home from work hasn't done anything to keep Susie's stash under control.

Interestingly, both Lynn and Sue, who I shared this photo with remarked on what they saw as a nice combination of the shoes with turquoise tights even though the latter were definitely grey when I fished them out the bag and put them on. Obviously a trick of the camera, but I had to agree which set me off on a hunt for a pair of turquoise tights. 

Age, infirmity and illness (both of us) and weather managed to conspire against any extended Susie time through much of the second half of 2025, although my photo gallery shows one local outing to a local park during September. 

(L mentioned we'd just completed our 640th jigsaw puzzle - she's been keeping a count since lockdown - which will give you an idea of the busy social whirl we lead at Susie Towers, which otherwise largely revolves round Saturday coffee mornings and the monthly book and collector fairs at the local church. Not that either of us are particularly religious. We started as volunteers for the monthly book sales some years back and it's now become a bit of a focal point for our social life in village.)

***

Partly as preparation for an increasingly deferred retirement (something I really must sort out in 2026) I reduced my work week to four days with one other day set as working from home. That at least gave me a few brief periods to dress for a couple of hours at home (albeit with one eye on the clock) if L went out during the morning, something I came to thing of as 'microdosing'. (She would often phone before lunchtime to let me know she was on her way back, so I don't know how much she was aware of how I spent those mornings. I suspect so, and this was a way of avoiding any embarrassment for us both.)

A Visit from the Tit Fairy?

Things sort of settled into a holding pattern in the second part of the year, although a referral for a walk in X Ray after I reported chest pains send me back into the clutches of the NHS, something I have managed to avoid for years, and eventually to a diagnosis of high blood pressure and a course of of pills to try and bring it down. 

One unexpected, but by no means unwelcome, side effect of the latter appears to be a little more squeezable flesh up top than I've been used to. Unfortunately some of that spare flesh also seem to have migrated to my tum, which I'll have to watch.

Take care, and I hope you have a happy and fulfilling 2026.

Two in the morning

 

I reach over over and switch on the lamp.

“It’s nearly two in the morning for Christ’s sake. Two questions: who are you, how did you get in and what are you doing here?”

OK, three questions. Perhaps I shouldn’t have had that last glass of wine.

But once I am able to focus properly I already know the answer to the first one. The other two are going to take a bit more working out.

I look over the girl standing by the door as she tugs nervously at the hem of the too-short dress and fiddles with her hair. She looks both scared and elated at the same time and probably just as bewildered as me. I recognise her of course. She’s younger than I remember and wearing far too much makeup. When did I stop using blusher? The wig – a cheap and overly shiny Halloween blond bob – is a giveaway. And the too-thick eyebrows. She hasn’t quite found herself yet. She will. My heart goes out a bit.

“Are you ...me?” She looks a bit shocked. Understandable I suppose. It’s not every day you meet your older self. Then again it’s not every day that you take your first brave and tentative steps outside the house dressed to the nines late at night, hoping that no one will notice you or, worse, call you out as anything other than just a woman out walking, but also wanting to be noticed and seen as a woman. I need to point out the paradox of that to her, but to be truthful I’m still half caught up in that mindset all these years later. I decide to take the initiative. “I think we need coffee, don’t you?” She nods. Can imaginary visitations from the past even drink coffee? I suppose we’ll find out. She may well be wondering just the same about me. To be sure, I’m not sure which of us is dreaming who. If indeed one or both of us are dreaming this. I pop into the bathroom on the way to the kitchen and check myself in the mirror. When did my eyes start to get baggy and my jaw drop? It’s hard to tell under under the amount of makeup the younger me is wearing. Has she even found out about contouring yet?

I place a cup of coffee in front of her. At least I know how she likes it. I wonder how much I should tell her about what’s to come. Will it make a difference or change anything, and if it does what would mean for me? Will I still be the same ‘me’? Or will she (or even I) remember any of this afterwards, or experience a Men In Black memory wipe once she leaves? This is what a lifetime of reading science fiction does to you. Not that I’m tempted to go around stamping on butterflies. Especially the one sitting across from me, barely out of her chrysalis.

I wait for her to speak first. After all, I already know and share most of her story.

“How long?” she asks.

“From you to me?” It's August 2024, so just a couple of weeks over 9 years”.

“You look older obviously, but more confident and sure of yourself.”

“Compared to you, or how I remember being you, yes, I’m in a fairly good place at the moment. It’s not perfect and it’s not always been an easy road, but we’ve got through it. Finding friends we could talk to and confide in was a first step, even if only online, and a set of labels (trans, bi-gender, gender fluid) that finally fitted how we felt. And starting to learn not to worry – or indeed give a f**k – about what other people might think when they see you, and accept that if they have a problem then that’s theirs, not ours. That was really liberating.”

“So do I go out more?”

“Oh yes. Not properly for a while yet. There’s a bit of a rough patch to go though first, and then the world will get and feel very strange for a couple of years, but once you’re out the other side of that things will start to look up, especially as you get more confident about yourself and your ability to blend in. One of the keys to that is to pay attention to what other women are wearing and try not to draw the wrong sort of attention. That short dress and those heels for instance - especially when out unaccompanied after dark. I know,” I hold up a hand to forestall her. “You’re worried you won’t pass unless it’s dark. Don’t be. You don’t. I don’t. We’re tall, my posture and walk is wrong and I probably give myself away the moment I speak. We’re still working on that. But you know what? No one really gives a toss. And if they read you and peg you as trans, so what? There are some definite advantages to being older. You become socially invisible. Most people don’t give you a second glance or seem happy to treat you as you present. You won’t get many wolf whistles as a 50 plus woman, but a cheery ‘love’ can give you a buzz for the rest of the day.”

“Although,” I add, jealously, “you do have better legs. They won’t look quite that good again”.

“Maybe”, I muse, “I should visit you instead so I can have your body and my confidence.” She has the grace to look alarmed. “No, we’ve both seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers. And not without a good dose of jealousy, although neither us ever understood quite how the heroine ended up swanning around the desert in that in that gorgeous evening dress after being taken over. Perhaps even aliens have an inner drag queen.”

“On the other hand I have gained a bit more flab over the last few years, so with a bit of help I can almost fake small tits and a bit of cleavage. We’ve always wanted to have breasts, through experimenting with those pills wasn’t such a good idea.” She smiles, nods.

“But please, for our sake, don’t make a habit of going out dressed on your own late at night. It’s not really safe.” Perhaps I should warn her of the scary feeling of being followed late at night, feeling someone still behind you whichever way you turned, but she’ll learn soon enough and it’ll put a stop to many more night time jaunts,

“And at home…?” The question hangs unspoken.

“No, that hasn’t changed. But we’ve learned how to compromise, and give each other time and space to do our own things, even if this is one thing we still can’t share. I still wish, of course, though not without much real hope. It would be nice (big understatement) to be accepted rather than merely acknowledged and tolerated. Birthdays and Christmas can still be tough. Outside the house, though, I can be a bit more open, less guarded.”

“Do other people know about you/Susie/us?”

“A few. It means not always having to pretend or cover up any longer any, which is a relief.”

“How many? Who?”

“Sis initially, then big brother. Not mum though.” I don’t say what provoked that first drunken coming out. It’ll be too much to cope with. I’m not sure I can reply on the MIB memory wipe thing, and there are some thing you shouldn’t know in advance, especially family bereavements.

“Two or three people in fandom who we’ve known for years. I think you can guess who. Then three people on the new Pride Committee at work when I first joined. Rather more now since I attended the last Witney Pride March as Susie. The family don’t know about that one yet, though.”

“You did what?!”

“I thought it was time I lived up to the slogan on the company’s Pride t-shirt -“Bring Your True Self to Work’. OK it wasn’t work exactly, but we had a banner and a place in the march as one the sponsors, and a stall at the event. Although nothing’s been said about it since.”

She’s starting to fade a bit and go transparent. I can see part of the wall behind her. Her coffee remains untouched.

I’m aware I’m talking to much. But there's so much to tell her. To reassure her.

“Listen”, I say. “It’ll be alright. I’m -you’ll be – happy. Or if not happy, content. Just stay away from TERFs and right wing politics and media. Not that I need to tell you that. There’s an anti-trans backlash coming. It won’t be pretty. But real people will have a lot more important things to worry about than whether the unusually tall woman walking along the canal path or in a park, shopping or waiting at a bus stop is trans or not. You’ll do all of those in time, and more. Though you still need to be wary of teenage girls in groups. On their own there’s no problem, they’re usually too busy looking at their phone to even notice you, but in groups of three or four they seem to develop a collective t-dar that can result in odd looks or giggles that can be a bit unsettling. Older women, though, are quite happy to chat to you at a bus stop or in a queue without giving any indication of anything amiss.”

“T-dar?”

“Sorry. Trans radar. It’s a term I picked up from a friend. You’ll develop one of your own because we are constantly watching people around us for clues as to how to try and fit in. You can’t help it.”

“You’ll have good days. Euphoric ones even. Ones you’ll look back on and remember fondly. You’ll have a bucket list of things you want to do as Susie and see a lot of those ticked off. Days out in the park, visits to art exhibitions, museums and church sales, tea rooms, shopping.”

I open the phone and scroll through folders of photos of Susie out at different times and places.

“Wow. That’s quite a lot. I see what you mean about dressing down when out. That little red number would attract all sorts of unwanted attention.”

“Outside of our private fantasies, yes.” We haven’t changed that much it seems, though it now requires a longer stretch of imagination from my perspective than it would from hers. In 2015 she could still get away with something that short without her internal critic muttering something about mutton and lamb.

“And as someone pointed out recently, as a group we are notoriously prone to self documenting. But then so is almost everybody else now on social media. Posting photos is a mix of holding on to and preserving the good times as well as looking for a bit of validation or reassurance. Plus, it has to be said, an element of narcissism.”

I point the phone at her and take a quick snap.

“That’s strange.” She’s not there. Not in the photo anyway, although I can still see her sitting across from me even if I can see most of the wall behind her now. I’ve heard of camera shy (try getting non-Susie me in a group photo) but this is taking it to an extreme. Struck by a sudden thought, I turn the camera around a take a quick selfie. No, I’m still there. I wince a bit and delete it. Not that this really proves anything. Dreams have their own peculiar logic. If this is a dream. I can never remember my dreams anyway, except as short disconnected fragments. And aren’t ghosts supposed to be scary and bring dire warnings rather than appearing as nervous figures from the past looking for reassurance? Or is it me that’s looking for reassurance, that while not perfect, things have actually turned out to be OK after all, or at least something I am reasonably comfortable with? It’s nearly three am now and my brain really isn’t up to this.

She’s almost disappeared now. I wonder what will happen when she’s finally gone. Which of us will wake up and remember any of this?

I can still just about see her. I’m tempted to give her a hug before she goes but I don’t know what would happen or whether it would freak her out. And then it’s too late.

“It’s nearly two in the morning for Christ’s sake”, I hear someone say before the room floods with light.

*****

This was partly inspired by an article written by a friend of mine about an imaginary conversation with her younger self in a dream. Then though my Tumblr page is long deleted my account seems to be still active and sent me an email to remind me that Susie turned 9 on the 18 July, around the same time I started this blog, and the two came together and set me thinking about what had happened in the time between then and now.

xx

S

Crowning glory

In  her blog A Girl in Disguise Stefani writes movingly and affectingly in  The transformation  about her ambivalence in the process of getting ready and the results that stare back from the mirror, right up to the point the wig goes on and completes the transformation from male to female.

"In that moment when I slip on my wig, I’m transformed, and I’m aware of the transformation. It washes over me and I become a new person, a happier person."

I know the feeling. For me it's two-fold. As much as the transformation to Susie, it's the joy of having long hair again. As  I wrote in an email to Abigale recently,

"In those days [we're talking 15-20  years ago ] I didn't need a wig. I had long hair, almost to the middle of my back. It was the one thing about my male self I felt good about (even, perhaps especially, when I sometimes got confused - though only from behind - for a girl*), and I was devastated when it started to thin and recede in my 50s, and I faced reality and had it cut short."

 *This happened twice that I'm aware of.  The first was when I was 20, in my second year at uni. I was lying on the grass outside one of the halls with a friend, wearing just a pair of shorts and a singlet. A friend, looking out the window, told me later she'd asked herself who that girl was chatting with her friend before she realised it was me.
The other time was when I was working in a care home in the summer. I had to wear a tabard thing (I was promised it was unisex, but it probably wasn't) and tie my hair back in a pony tail, leading  one of the residents to ask me if I was a boy or a girl. 

I always hoped I would grow grey and distinguished as I approached middle age. If I couldn't be Taylor Swift, I could always be Emmylou Harris, who absolutely rocks the silver grey bob.

Instead my hair started thinning alarmingly, and then receding to the point where I could no longer pretend it wasn't really happening, and had it all cut off short. At that point  I had several choices: I could try to give up dressing; continue to dress and look like a balding bloke in a frock; or take the plunge and buy my first wig.

Option A lasted barely six months. Option B lasted even less, right to the moment I saw myself reflected in a mirror and felt stupid, foolish and ashamed.
As for option C, I had no idea where to start. I bought my first wig from a joke shop and it was exactly that, a joke. Katy Perry might be able to get away with it on stage, but I certainly couldn't. Even after I cut it back into a bob, it looked shiny and horrible. The next, this time from Amazon, wasn't much better.  I also made the classic mistake of opting for strong colours, first black and then blond, and in a style that while it looked good on my sister, patently didn't suit me, and worse emphasised my jaw.

It took a while, and a few more mistakes (including a horribly tangled blonde mess when I ignored warnings about curling Kanekalon fibre) to find a style and a look that I felt happy with and could look in the mirror without wincing. Who knew Susie was a redhead? Not me. It came a surprise, but the look on her face when she first saw herself in the mirror suggested she knew all along, despite what ideas her other half might have had.

Granted, it's still rather obviously a wig. And a synthetic wig at that. But nobody else is going to see it (well, bar the thousand or so people who've looked at this blog and Susie profile pic).
If it ever come to the point that Susie plucks up the courage to go out in public, or meet people, we'll have to see about something more realistic - and comfortable. And get rid of that tell-tale grey around the temples.