My girlfriend of almost 8 years left me on New Years Day this year. It kind of shocked me because she had just confessed to me that she was a lesbian, so I thought with me being trans and all that things would be perfect as I transitioned. I can't say I was entirely upset about the situation at first because I no longer had to fear her opinion of my transition/the direction my life is going and it did allow me to be sexually free for the first time in my life... However, things got a lot harder as the distance between us grew. I started to feel like our relationship had been meaningless. We were never very close, intimacy wise (which makes sense given she was a repressed lesbian, I looked like a man, and I was dealing with dysphoria). It became really hard not to regret spending so much of my life with her. It felt like I'd wasted 1/3 of my time spent on this earth, all for nothing... for something that was never real to begin with. I'd be lying if I said I didn't still feel that way a lot of the time. I deeply regret not being honest with myself about who I am sooner because I'd have transitioned better and I'd have spared myself the pain of loving someone who is incapable of loving me back. Hell, it might have even helped her figure out who she was sooner. It's been 9 months and I still love her and miss her every day... I probably always will. Everyone has their "one that got away", she is mine.

But the story is irrelevant. People will try to tell you to live your life without regrets, but I don't think that's always a realistic way of looking at things. Everyone has something in their life they feel they could have done better. However, it doesn't accomplish anything to contemplate what could have, would have, or should have happened. I'll always feel bad about how things played out for me, but there's no use dwelling on it. The only thing you or I can do is to try to figure out what is next... seems like you're already moving fast on that, which is good. You will find someone who loves and appreciates the real you someday.