Lunch with the Girls

I've made a few really nice friends on Facebook this year.  However, up until today I haven't had the chance to meet any of them in person.  Today I got to meet Beth Angela (her FB name) and Kim for lunch.  Kim drives an 18 wheeler for a living and since she was on a truck run from Canada to Houston, we met at the Denny's near the Truck Stop on Route 20 in Dallas.

Beth Angela and I have been friends and have talked on FB every day since March and I have really enjoyed her friendship.  She's a really kind and nice lady!  I just had the pleasure of meeting Kim last week on FB through Beth Angela.

We had a really nice lunch at Denny's and sat there and talked for a good while after we finished eating.  Kim told us a lot about her life and when she was in the Army.  She is such a sweetheart!  After a while, we walked back to her truck and climbed up into it to talk for a while.  Her truck's name is "Cleo" and she's pretty cool looking!  Cleo is green and even has "teeth" in the front like some of the fighter jets in the military!

Since Kim is on the road all of the time, she pretty much lives in Cleo.  She showed us pictures of her family on her computer and a few pairs of really cool high heels that she has with her.  But what I found to be so special about the whole time there was how much she shared with us about some truly personal aspects of her life.

Kim is transgender and transitioned last year.  She showed us pictures of herself before she transitioned.  She also showed us her dilators.  For those who don't know what dilators are, after Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS), the patient needs to stretch her neo-vagina to prevent it from contracting.  This is done by doing daily exercises using rubber vaginal inserts, know as vaginal dilators, for about six months.  After that, dilation is done several times a week for the rest of her life.  This is what dilators look like:

Dilators

She showed us pictures of her using dilators after her SRS procedure and let us feel one of her breasts to see how natural the implants look and feel.  Just for the record for whoever might be reading this, there was nothing dirty or perverse about the way that she did this.  She was just sharing her experiences with us. She also said that if we ever had any questions to feel free to ask her.  I really appreciate how open she is about the whole thing and I definitely learned something from it!  What's even better is how happy she is with her life as a result of her transition!  This is wonderful to see as I've encountered a good number of trans women who are very unhappy and depressed.  I hope that one day they all can be as happy with their lives as Kim is with hers!

I haven't really had any close friends since I retired from the Air Force Reserve in 2004.  I'm glad to be making friends again, and I'm really glad that Beth Angela and Kim are amongst them!  I have the feeling that they both will end up in my inner circle of friends, and there aren't too many people who have ever made it there.