Why rock the boat?

You would think that the answer to "why" someone wants or needs to come out of the closet has been answered a million times by now, especially in the gay community.  It's simple - people want to be treated as human beings, and that means acknowledging their feelings, their likes and dislikes, their fashion sense or lack thereof, their intelligence, their sense of humor, and so on.  Still, I am constantly asking myself, why I am thinking about rocking the boat?  Unlike some transsexuals, I can say that I'm reasonably happy and quite proud of what I've done in my life as a male.  To most people, I seem "normal" if slightly eccentric with the hair (but then maybe they attribute that to ethnicity, I don't know).  When I can find a little time alone without fear of one of the kids dropping by the house, I may dress in a more comfortable (ie feminine) manner while I work, and that  little bit helps keep me from going bonkers. So it would seem that I can keep living a dual life and the people around me would not have to deal with the craziness.  But...

But.

But I avoid going out to public places and events because it is so painful to see the huge variety of women around me and not be one of them.

But I shudder whenever my gender is directly addressed - calling me my male name is ok, but a random clerk or passerby calling me "sir" makes me want to retreat to my bed and hide for the rest of the day.

But what I see in the mirror keeps changing between blinks, and it's making me crazy.

But seeing an old picture of myself in a suit as the soloist in an orchestra concert makes me daydream for several minutes about how beautiful I might have looked and felt in an evening gown instead.

But as I mentioned in my last post, even being mistakenly identified as female for a few seconds can make me feel instantly warm and fuzzy and happy... until the "mistake" is corrected and I drop back down the abyss.

But I'm tired of wondering why my wife keeps asking if I want anything for myself when we are in the men's department shopping for my son.  Even though intellectually she knows transsexuality is a permanent part of me (and hell, she'd be SO pissed off if I actually could switch it off and hadn't all this time :-) it is obvious she doesn't want to fully recognize it while I'm still mainly being a guy.

But when my daughter and I talk about a dress or blouse or whatever in a particular catalog, I can't tell her that my experience with that company is that their clothes run slightly small, or ask her whether this or that item would look nice on me.

But mostly, it's the same as I wrote at the top of this post.  I want people, especially people I care about, to really know me - all of me.  Ironically, the fear of rejection by some of these same people is also one the big reasons I haven't come out of the closet yet.

OK, this was mildly depressing.  Let's end this post on an up note.