I have done a lot more writing than reading when it comes to trans experiences. But now that I’m on a reading kick, I am discovering how powerful it feels to me when transgender authors express experiences I have had through their lenses.

The whole thing is making me a bit emotional. First, there’s that sense of community, of shared feelings and responses that I never got even from all those trans events I attended over the years, where I got to know so many terrific people. I now get to sit in the quiet of my home and let these messages wash over me rather than having to have a ready answer for a conversation-mate, or a quick reply before the music or other revelers intruded.

“I’m not a boy or a girl anymore. I’m just broken.”

That’s a quote from Meredith Russo’s wonderful If I Was Your Girl. (I don’t want to give the impression that the book is as depressing as that quote sounds; it is absolutely not. It’s a rather uplifting story, actually. But we all do have difficult steps along the way, don’t we?)

What gave rise to those feelings for her character is completely different from what led me to similar sentiments in my own life, expressed in my own book. For the most part I am past it, but just hearing those words in my head still hit me hard. I know how that feels.

I think the experience of writing a book has me feeling the entirety of my transition experience from beginning to end all the time these days and that makes me a bit sensitive.

I can’t stress enough the joy and contentment my female life has brought me, made all the more jaw-dropping when compared to my former life. But even so, some days, I just feel like it’s hard to be me, that living happy takes too much energy and too much effort. It could be because I rarely sleep 6 hours a night these days, but it’s more than sleep deprivation.

There are trade-offs I have had to make to live my best life as Janie.

Estrogen, which magically transformed me body and soul, exacts a price both physical and psychological on your sexuality. I feel kind of broken that way – though not hopelessly so, I hasten to add.

I transitioned later in life than most, never aware of my womanhood until mid life. If I Was Your Girl, which is about the experiences of a trans girl in her late teens who has already fully transitioned, made me melancholy, jealous of all the years I missed and the completeness of her transformation, even if I know that her experience could never have been mine, even if I had known, and that mine is no less valid and hers no less difficult.

Having missed the chance to grow up as a female and having endured so many years of a male life, I occupy a space between male and female that makes everything harder. I’m trying to be the best woman I can, but old habits and hormonal relics make it more challenging than I feel it ought to be. It sometimes feels like I’m just broken in a bigger way.

But somehow, despite the hurdles, I am nothing less than over the moon about my life as Janie, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Trans life can be bittersweet.