I believe that our souls are eternal, and we keep reincarnating into this world as a new individual over and over. Therefore, it would stand to reason, that throughout our hundreds, if not thousands, of incarnations, that we have been here as a male and as a female, many times each. Along with that belief, I believe that during the time between lives, when we are non-physical, we are with our guides and our group of friends. We love being there in that non-physical plane, but we know to continue growing, we have to go back to Earth and experience the joys and challenges that it offers.
So, we're given choices, and it is a time of evaluation, not judgement. We, along with our friends and guides, are considering what our next life should be. We will have help, but ultimately, we'll make that decision and commitment. Who will I be next? How will that next life help me grow spiritually? We'll weigh various factors, like the family that we will be born into, the geographical area where we will live, the kinds of opportunities we'll have, the kinds of burdens we may have, and of course our physical nature. Whether I decide to be strong and beautiful, or weak and ugly, all of this and much more is for a reason: growing as a soul.
So let me take you back to where this particular journey began — to a little boy in Tampa, Florida, and some of the earliest memories that, looking back, were quietly shaping who I would become.
As a very young child I was a bit sickly. I had asthma, and whatever else, and it meant I needed a lot of attention and comfort from my mother. For some reason, I didn't have a circumcision within days of my birth like most male babies, so my parents had that procedure performed when I was 4 or 5. One thing I remember about that time, was I had an infection from the surgery, and it had to be treated regularly, so my mother would pull the foreskin down, and apply the medicine. I'm not sure if there is a connection to any of that, but I became very much a mama's boy in the coming years. Maybe something about the intimacy of treating my infection caused it. I recall following her into the bathroom when she had a bowel movement. I was like her little shadow everywhere. So as this went along for a few years, both my mom and dad became concerned. This was when men were men, and a young mama's boy was not to be tolerated. So they both made a concerted effort to change my behavior.
One of the things I recall that I disliked the most, was having to stop wearing brief underwear, and instead wearing boxers. I really hated boxers. I would roll up the legs and make them look like briefs. At this time, I was probably 9 or 10 years old. Once, my older brother and I were allowed to go to downtown Tampa alone, the plan was to see a movie, which we did, but after the movie, we had some extra money, so we went to a nearby department store, and I used the money to buy myself some briefs. Finally, I had some underwear I liked wearing again.
I recall seeing my mother close to bedtime walking around the house in her panties and a nightgown. I was intrigued by the sight of those very pretty silky lacy panties. They were so feminine. I didn't have sexual feelings towards my mother, but the panties aroused me, and perhaps way back in my mind it was the idea of wearing panties myself. Of course, in those days, young adolescent boys relied heavily on the Sears catalog for the photos of women in panties to feed the fire of their sexual fantasies, and for me that panty-sex connection was firmly secured into my psyche.
Throughout my later teen years, I was sexually focused on girls. I had a few girlfriends over the years and was horny all the time. I lost my virginity at 16. I might have lasted about 2 minutes before I had an orgasm, LOL! I loved hetero sex, but didn't even know what a clitoris was, and pleasing a girl and making her cum was not my forte. They didn't offer sex education in the public school system back then, and it was the pre-internet era. In my later teen years, I realized from locker room experiences that all guys were not created equal. My endowment was on the smaller side, and at the time it was more a mental notation, but later in life my size did cause me to question my ability to please a woman sexually. The subtler arts — foreplay, timing, truly tuning into a partner — were things I'd only figure out much later in life.
I was a mama's boy in my very young years, but as I grew up, I became more of a traditional young boy that played sports, and rode bikes, and hung out with my buddies. We did usual boy things, like climbing trees, and building forts out in the woods, and talking about girls. The one thing that was different about me though, was I was always kind of a pretty boy with a pretty face, my stature was small, and I was not muscled like some of my friends. It could be said that I was androgynous, but this was long before Mark Bolan, David Bowie, Prince and MJ would become icons of that terminology, so I despised being seen as a girl, or even girlish.
I would come to terms with this conflict much later in life, and even to this day, I'm reminded I have room to improve my own self-love.