A little bit further from the past

In my previous post, I explored a few of the formative events in my early life which put me on the path to where Arianwen is now, which I hope you have read before getting to this part.  Please remember when reading through these historical reflections that my physical form is very large, and not one which would ever be confused with being female.

I have always been someone who needs only a little amount of sleep, so in my earlier years, I often found myself not only being the first one up in the morning, but almost always the last one asleep at night.  I also had the fortune of having family members who were not light sleepers, so if I was moving from room to room in my home late at night, I only needed to be moderately quiet.  As with most histories I have perused, I am not sure exactly when or why I started on the path I find myself now, but at about age ten while I was having one of these late nights alone in the waking world, I came across my mom's clean laundry in the basement.  On or near the top of the pile of clean clothes was an all-in-one undergarment that was calling out to me to try on.  With only a small modicum of hesitation, I removed all of my male garments (including underwear) and stepped into the top of the all-in-one.  I carefully pulled the garment up my torso, while only slightly struggling to get the straps at the top over my shoulders.  When I was finished getting myself into the all-in-one, there was a feeling of rightness and completeness which came with this initial foray into transvestism.  I then tried on her nurse's uniform over this (back before they allowed the use of scrubs as a nurse's uniform), but since I couldn't get the front zipper all the way closed and the uncomfortable feel of the the fabric of the uniform, I reverted to wearing the all-in-one and padded around the basement for a few minutes enraptured in this experience.

Periodically after that initial time, I would troll through the laundry area here trying on anything which looked remotely interesting.  Most of the time, though, the items of interest would turn out to be too small for my frame, and I would have to just be satisfied with the mental exercise of wearing the selected garment.  Over time, as my frustration grew with not finding anything which would fit, I would start to go through a bin of items we called the "rag bin."  In this bin, I eventually found a pair of pantyhose (with a large run up one of the legs) which I not only successfully tried on, but also smuggled back up to my underwear drawer for future use.

As I gained a few years from this point, my forays into both the "rag bag" as well as into clothes given to our family from different friends of my parents, I accumulated almost enough for a full outfit -- a pair of pink cotton panties, moderately laddered pantyhose, a white all-in-one with a broken crotch panel, and a short ruched peasant blouse/dress -- except for the shoes.  One evening, when I was about fourteen, I was feeling adventurous enough to put all of these articles of clothing on, experiment with some makeup I found in the bathroom (mascara, lipstick, and green eyeshadow), and venture outside for a walk around the block.  Since this took place around midnight, I wasn't expecting to run into anyone from the neighborhood, but if I did I would have made quite an ugly sight -- an outfit which did not look well put together, along with my (male) suede shoes, and probably the worst makeup job known to man or woman.  Fortunately, I did not encounter anyone on my walk, and I was both highly thrilled and extremely nervous about being out in public dressed as I was.  This was the only time I ever went out in public like this, although "ensemble" was used quite often in private (mostly because they were the only women's clothes to which I had access).