I'm trans, and while I've been living as male for about 8 years now, I wasn't able to start physical transition (due to a pregnancy and financial constraints) until now. I'm about to turn 30 and for the first time in my life I have facial hair. Some of them are coming in gray. I know that's a stupid thing to worry about, but it's upsetting. I finally get to have facial hair, and it's already gray while it's brand new. I'll never really know what it's like to experience life as a young man. I've been trying to present male, but I don't pass well. I got lots of experience being read as a butch lesbian but not much as a man. And now I'm...all grown up, for lack of a better word, and the world expects me to behave appropriately for my age. It feels so stupid to lose those years over something as petty as money. (Yes, I'm still young, still have lots of years, yadda yadda, I know. But not those years.) There's not really any questions I can ask or anything. Just wanted to vent.
Aww. I'm very sorry that you spent so many years ready for more of a physical transition without being able to do so. It makes sense to me that seeing brand new gray facial hair would trigger some much needed grieving for those years where money (and other things) stood in the way of you owning your gender in the ways that you wanted to. Big hugs to you.
I guess I would say that your best and happiest years are ahead of you. If you spend to much time looking backwards you get a sore neck.
We all have these transformational realisations (And the regrets which invariably shadow them.)....but only when we are ready for them. There was a reason for this delay, and you have not lost your best years. That's really just retro-imagining. (Which is probably a lot more fun than the real thing would ever have been.) You are at the absolutely perfect age; 30 is the bridge between a life of dreaming and a life of doing, and the perfect moment for what is now presenting itself. Learn to be grateful, or you might not pick up on the amazing upsides and opportunities now taking shape (And waiting there for you, just behind that thin, moth-eaten curtain of regret.)
At 35 and before transitioning, I see behind me a life full of pain and emptiness. Yet, it was also a journey for me, I don't regret my 20s or early 30s because I know that going back and changing things would mean changing everyone else my life has touched. If you transitioned earlier, who else would have been effected, would your child have been born or would you be married? We are much more than our physical bodies and while you didn't live the life of a typical 30 year old, your life has still been meaningful and a journey and has made you who you are today which seems to me like a great person. (*hug*)
You can be a silver fox! Seriously, though, 30 is not old at all. You've still got lots and lots of time ahead of you to make great memories, and I sound like my old headmaster but I genuinely mean every word! Not to bring up the eon-old problem of ageism in the LGBTQ community, but I think there is an issue about the general perception that your teens and 20s are supposed to be your heyday in terms of your identity, but that just isn't true. I mean, look at Laverne Cox: I know she was in her 20s when she transitioned, but she's 32 now and totally gorgeous. There's no age limit on this kind of thing, and even if you transition a little later than most people, you still have so much time to live your life as you are. And again - 30 isn't even close to being old. If the grey hairs are what is discouraging you, will it make you feel better if I told you that my friend's Dad went grey whilst he was at university? Some people just go grey early, it doesn't necessarily mean that your glory days are numbered.
Though not trans, I can empathize with coming out later and feeling like crucial time was lost. I don't regret marrying hetero because I got great kids out of it, but I wish I'd come put younger when it would've been easier to meet people, and I had more free time and less responsibility. It would've been so much easier.