Way off...

Well, I have anticipated that as I get further along in my transition that my blog may in fact turn into just another blog and not so focused on my transition. So this is my first post that will not be entirely transition related. School has been interesting because it is my first real experience as fully living as a guy 100% of the time. No one in the class knows that I am transgender, it is not who I am or anything I am just Jackson. Now occasionally I will do or say something that I feel like gets some odd looks from the other 13 guys in the class however no one questions me. It is a big adjustment really, not all bad just big. It feels like I was thrown into the deep end when I was barely comfortable with the shallow end of the pool. While that is not bad, and I do prefer to live my life that way because it tends to work better it also proves to be harder at times. It is good though, it is who I am and how I best function.


So speaking of school, it has really been on my mind a lot in recent weeks. Since transiting and getting out of the military my entire life focus seems to be shifting. While I was in the military, well my whole life really all I wanted to do was work around planes, fly them, do anything and everything aviation related. I have always loved every thing about it. So when it came time to finish the last two years of my undergraduate degree it was not a difficult decision to go to school that is world renowned for their aviation related degrees. After all I had an aviation job in them military that allowed me to travel and see the world and do all kinds of really cool things. So I thought at that point I was going to stay in the military, or at the very least stay in that field. I had a career path, I was focused and I knew what I was going to do. Then in quick order a series of events shifted my entire life.


A year into what was supposed to be 2 years left of my undergraduate degree my daughter was born, and I was still living as a lesbian under Don't Ask Don't Tell. It became immediately apparent the that sacrifice being asked of me in that situation and the cost required was far too great for me. It was a very difficult decision, yet I knew it was right to start the process of getting out. That same time frame I was also finally, after years of wondering, diagnosed with a form of dyslexia. Oh how that explained so many things, and put my mind at ease about questions I had always had. At the same time dashing though my dreams of a continued military career if Don't Ask Don't Tell were to ever go away and I wanted to rejoin. So at that moment in time I knew, deep in my heart my military career was over although I continued to wrestle with that decision right up to the last day. I could have stayed in and done something other than a flying career but I could not fathom such a thought. Since I was 4 years old all I ever wanted to be was a military pilot. So I knew that if I couldn't do that, along with everything else that my time was done. And that is how I came to realize the time was right to transition (which I have blogged in detail about before). 


So I continued going to school, in part because it gave me income and stability during a very unstable time. I failed a few classes, took smaller loads in school etc so I really didn't make as much progress as I would have liked. Now, here I am with about 9 months left of school probably assuming all continues to go as planned. So far too into it to back out or change my degree now. Especially because nothing would transfer out of here, or very little. However, now that I have transitioned mostly or to this point I am realizing I really don't know that I want to stay in this field. Yet here I am getting a degree that is somewhat specialized. I am realizing that part of my life is just not important to me, and that there might even be a small part of me that was trying to live as much in the male world as I could while still being a woman and this was one last way of doing that. 


So I really don't know what to do. It seems clear to me that finishing school is the only option at this point. But a small part of me is struggling with regret, even though I made the best choice with what I had in front of me at the time and I know that is all I can do. I wish I had not chosen this path to go down because I fear now I might never get done with school, or have to get an advanced degree or even worse another degree in order to do something outside of this field. Or even worse, that I will never get to do anything that is truly fulfilling. There was a point in my life where this would have been fulfilling for me, or so I thought. Now though I have a lot less confidence in that. I want to work with people, I want to help people and I want a job where I get to teach or advocate for people. Ten years from now I don't want to be working someplace like Boeing making lots of money and being unhappy. Money is totally useless to me if I am unhappy and unfulfilled, I would rather be poor.  So with all that said I have lost all motivation to finish school which won't help me one bit if I do want to go further and get an advanced degree later if I let my grades go to crap. I suppose I feel almost hopeless about the situation, or overwhelmed at least. To top it all off, even if I wasn't going to school here I am not sure I would know what to go to school for really and so I have to wonder if getting a science degree in an industry that is growing is not a good thing even if I don't really want to work in it forever? 


I think that now that a major portion of my transition is over and I am more comfortable with myself now than I ever have been before that I can finally take a good look at myself and what I want in life. Since I can do that now,  I am not so sure the path I am on is what I want. The question though is what to do about it?