This month marked the fifth anniversary of my transition to living as a female, and more profoundly, the twelfth anniversary of encountering other transgender people for the first time and realizing I was not alone in my gender questioning for all of the years leading up to that moment.

As it relates to transgender people, the term "transition" is often used to mean the specific point in time at which one starts living in the gender opposite the one assigned at birth. Historically, treatment standards, as well as the need to be highly closeted about your new gender presentation to avoid discrimination, have forced us to make this change appear as instantaneous as possible.

But my experience has been that transitioning genders is a process that continues for years in increasingly subtle ways. It's a profound change and there is just no way to know going in what lies ahead. If you truly understand that living in another gender is way more complicated than wearing different clothes, chances are that you will be prepared to deal with, and even appreciate, the aspects of life that will be uniquely different.

Take something as mundane as a urine test. It was two years after my transition and one year after my sex reassignment surgery when my doctor handed me a cup for the first sample in my new life. I remember staring at him blankly and thinking "how does this work now?" Gosh, it sure was a lot easier in my prior life. Don't worry, I did figure it out, and laughed doing it. It's a small price to pay for living an authentic life.

A more profound surprise was my initial relationship with the tampon disposal box in the ladies' room. On more than one occasion I found myself staring at it with tears streaming down my face. It's a whole part of womanhood that I missed, and that I would have happily endured if I could have been born with a female body. Don't worry here, either. After having enough non-trans women laugh at me for this emotionality, I'm now at peace with that box.

I had never considered how my transition might come up in the death of loved ones. After my mom passed away in 2004, a friend called my dad shortly after to say, "The paper screwed up the obituary - they say you have a daughter." I was proud of my dad for stepping up and telling his friend about my change. But I was also incredibly sad that my dad had to deal with any aspect of my transition at that moment, when the focus should have been on my mom.

When my wife Barbara passed away in 2006, my sister-in-law offered to assemble photo collages of Barbara's life for the memorial service. Until that moment I had steadfastly resisted showing anyone pictures of the former male me; folks who knew me in my prior life sometimes refer to me as "he" even today. But Barbara married a guy, and it would have looked silly to cut me out of the pictures from our wedding, so a lot of people got to see Jeff for the first time. Again, a small price to pay for living an authentic life.

It wasn't until after I had decided to transition that I realized that my sexual orientation was not going to change. I was clearly still attracted to women. That led to one of my more embarrassing moments when I said to Barbara, "I've got good news - I'm a lesbian!" I figured that fact would justify us staying together as a same-sex couple, which I very much wanted to do. Of course, she put a quick end to my excitement when she said "I've got bad news - I'm not."

But Barbara did lovingly stay with me in spite of my transition. And while Barbara was alive, it didn't matter how bad the anti-gay, anti-trans news was during the day, I still came home to someone who loved me unconditionally. The surprise here is how much that love allowed me to be comfortable being out about being trans, way more out than I had ever imagined.

Although my sexual orientation never changed, I essentially "became" a lesbian when I transitioned. But I had gone into my new life with a partner and so I had never experienced the lesbian dating scene as a result. Now I find myself going through a second coming out - as a lesbian this time. I know the dating drill from the straight side of things, but who takes the initiative when there is no guy in the equation? And is that thing I hear about U-Hauls really true?

I was surprised at my brother's reaction to this latest development. "I thought you said you were going to assimilate" as just another woman, he reiterated recently. I told him that I was doing exactly that by being in social spaces where other lesbians hang out, trans or not. Somehow I don't think that was the kind of assimilation he meant.

Barbara's health was my focus in her final years, so after she passed away I found myself with free time on my hands and in need of occasional breaks from grieving. One day I spontaneously went bowling, my first time since high school. I had a blast.

Now, when you are a casual bowler, bowling is just a party sport. Oh sure, "extreme bowling" exists, but it does not involve skateboarding to the foul line to throw the ball. It does involve black lights, loud music and videos - extreme party bowling, really.

But when you bowl a lot and are somewhat good at it, bowling becomes a nerdy sport. I started going more often, and this summer I even bowled in a league. I'm definitely hooked. The surprise here has been that, after overcoming the stigma of being trans, it has been a piece of cake to overcome the stigma of loving to bowl.

My transition seems to be continuing, and as Martha would say, "it's a good thing."