Top 10 Reasons Middle Age Transition Doesn't Suck

I’ve noticed that a lot of the really cool bloggers out there like to make Dave Letterman type Top 10 lists. OK, maybe not me, or any of my excellent blogger friends in my b-roll way down to the right, but people do this. Now in the past, it’s always been my firm policy to observe what the cool kids were doing and run in the opposite direction, you know, just to be different. Not that being different was a big chore for me, but whatever. Wouldn’t it be really, really different if I made like a monkey and aped the cool kids? No? So what, I’m doing it anyway. And yes, these are all tongue in cheek before you get all ‘Analytical Annie’ on me.

Without further ado, the Top 10 Reasons Why Middle Age Transition to Womanhood Doesn’t Suck:

1. It’s Way Better at Making You Feel Young Again Than Buying a Corvette - Seriously, what in life is going to make you feel younger at 40 or 50 than going through puberty again? Just a few months of blue pills and you are right back with Margaret doing those “I must, I must, I must increase my bust!” exercises. The added bonus is that you don’t even have to keep tampons handy in your purse for when your special friend finally arrives. Way beats looking like a ridiculous looser in a sports car everyone thinks you bought for penis deficiency reasons.

1. Suddenly You Are the Interesting One at High School Reunions – I’m going to take a wild stab and guess that not a whole lot of us were the captains of the football team. We all know we secretly wanted to be cheerleaders or on the synchronized swimming team; let’s not lie to ourselves here. When we show up now, suddenly Johnny Brewski’s 4 touchdowns in one game in 1986 isn’t such a draw any more. It’s OK, he can sip Old Grandad from his flask while the crowd of people you only sort of remember lavish you with positive attention.

1. Very Low Probability of Ass Kicking in the Forecast – OK, we all deeply envy the kids they like to show on Nightline who both figured themselves out at like 5, and had the guts to insist on it at the same time. No yucky male puberty, and get to do all the girly stuff we are now too old for. We also didn’t have to present as teenage girls with a penis. I’m sorry, but that just seems like it’s got to suck and super dangerous if inclined to date. Teenage boys are simply not known for non-violent restraint when their masculinity is threatened. Yes, at our age we can find ourselves in the same boat, but by now we do have some common sense about it, plus we don’t have to wait what must seems a horrendous amount of time to take care of things. At 40, a few years is but a blink.

1. We Can Just Go Buy Pretty Things – Just getting started and building your wardrobe for the final time after Purge #8? You can shop anywhere you want, and buy anything you want, anywhere, anytime, even in total dude mode because (1) everyone is going to assume you are married and doesn’t even blink and (2) you just don’t even care anymore anyway! Remember those nerve wracking trips bringing a dress from the K-mart clearance rack up to the register at 21, sweating and blushing the whole time? Those days are done sister!

1. We Can Buy Those Pretty Things in the Right Size – Nothing was a bigger bummer than ordering that sweet looking dress online and failing to understand what the ‘P’ meant on the size chart and looking like the Morton Salt Girl as a result. By middle age and after dozens of heartbreaking Salvation Army donations, we are finally no longer attempting to stuff our feet into way too tiny shoes, or wearing pantyhose that cut off all our lower circulation. The feeling like we are still trying to squeeze into our younger sisters outfits when just trying to look nice is done as well.

1. Chances Are, You Got Your Shot at Having Kids – Maybe not true for everyone, but the majority of us had the joy bringing life into the world. Maybe not the way we would have wanted, but still. We can’t all be as smarty pants as Dr McGinn and think to freeze our sperm before starting HRT, so our younger, more male-ish lives were the best chance we were ever going to have. [Note: Dr McGinn, in the tiny chance you read this, it’s all tongue and cheek! I certainly don’t need my potential surgeon getting miffed (So, little Miss Michelle thinks she’s so funny, eh?) and adding 4 additional testicles or something.]

1. The Value of “Comfortable” is Well Ingrained – One thing we learned in the years of acting male is that men generally refuse to wear anything truly uncomfortable for any length of time. Even ties are really not that bad. Younger trans women, as well as a great many cis women, are willing to subject themselves to fantastic levels of suffering in the name of looking good. Four inch stilettos, way too tight clothes, jewelry that makes barbed wire seem like a good time, and so forth. By the time we hit middle age, we are generally willing to suffer pantyhose when necessary, and maybe a pair of heels on special occasions. We are saved excruciating pains up our feet and shins just through the knowledge that looking pretty good in flats or low pumps is way better than looking really good in foot shredding, ankle breaking platforms.

1. Lower Expectations – Back in the dude days, people didn’t expect a whole lot out of you when it came to the softer side of life. You could forget everyone’s birthday for 5 years straight, then make it up with an animatronic talking fish head wrapped in the classifieds section and be lauded as truly swell. Now that you are revealed as female, it’s time to stop being such a sandbagging lump of crap and actually read through the Hallmark section a bit before randomly picking something for your mom’s birthday that says, “To My Nephew Who is 5!”. By this point, after all the years of really screwing the pooch at this, anything you do is going to look like a huge improvement, even if the same thing from your sister would raise eyebrows of disapproval.

1. Old People Kind of Look Alike Anyway – OK, you saw how fast the last few decades have gone, and how exponentially faster every added year has been as well. With the way this is going, it’s not long before you are going to be “get off my lawn” old. I’m sorry, but this isn’t the place to pull punches; there just isn’t time. The good news is that once you hit about 65, the great big public difference between the sexes seems to be boobs, hair, and clothes. And just barely at that – there is a lot of overlap. That’s just 3 things you have to worry about  to pass in public with never a person looking at you with the hairy eyeball. Sure, your chances of ever looking like Natalie Portman may have fled, but there is something to be said for being unquestionably a Ma’am as you munch your senior Moons Over My Hammy at Denny’s.

1. Your Older Relatives Are Probably Dead – I’m not saying we should be jumping up and down yelling, “Yay! Aunt Bernice is finally pushing up daisies!” At the same time, the older we get, the less of the preceding generation is left kicking around to call us pansies, Nancy-boys, or worse, all while peppering their language with the ‘N’ word and making it to the polls do or die to vote against us. We still miss Aunt Bernice, and her constant attempts to trip us with her cane and steal the cough medicine from our bathrooms, but it’s OK to be a little glad we don’t have to try to explain this. She just wouldn’t understand.

And so concludes my latest attempt to witty, whimsical, or simply copy other people who actually are. Fear not my munchkins, I’m sorry to say that I’ll probably be doing this again, as I thought of a bunch more after I already typed ‘10’ and didn’t want to go all the up to the top of the page just to correct.

michellelianna