accept. embrace. live.

A got an email from a friend last night, said friend asked me about the motivation behind it. The idea behind my last post got away from me a bit. The comments somewhat took it further away from the point which I did a lousy job of elucidating in the first place. The point of my last post was *not* to assert my validity as a transsexual woman, nor was it to assert the non-validity of others. Truly, it had nothing to do with that.

I ran into my Starbucks "friend" the other day and he's become very friendly towards me. We chatted for a little bit. It's the kind of thing where one can just tell that there's an attraction. I left and as I got to work, was feeling good about the whole thing. But then a thought crossed my mind. I tried to envision telling this person about my history. One thing I've done throughout transition, especially in terms of coming out to people, is rehearse conversations like that. The rehearsals always go well. This particular rehearsal was a disaster. I couldn't envision what I would say, how I would say it, or how he or any other man might react. There is virtually no one that I can talk to about this. The post was the way those feelings manifested themselves.

The point was that not only do I have no idea how to go about this, I don't even have anyone that I can talk to about it. I don't have anyone who is in a situation similar to mine. There are three or four people I've met through transition, all through teh blogz, with whom I consider myself close. I've spoken on the phone or Skyped or met in person with all of them. But even among that group, there's no one who has been-there-done-that. I know of straight transsexual women, but I don't even know their real names. And there's only so much trust one can put in someone who won't even share their real name with you. Even though I typically have ended up doing my own thing, it's a little frustrating nonetheless to have no one who can relate in a real-life sense to this particular transition hurdle.

So anyway, if my last post sounded frustrated, I suppose it was a little bit. I'm under a tremendous amount of stress these days. I spent all afternoon yesterday trying to avoid having to go to Court this morning because my X is trying to force the kids into therapy to use against me in a custody hearing come January. My mother has been giving me the silent treatment for 2 weeks because she didn't like the way in which I thanked her for the kids' birthday presents. I still haven't quite figured out this "make friends" thing. Oh, and I have this whole major surgery thing coming up in 9 weeks and change. Things that normally wouldn't get to me seem are getting to me. For example, the county voter registration office asked me to send in a copy of my court order so I could change my name with them. They don't require it in cases of, say, name change due to marriage. Normally, this, at the risk of sounding like Monica Roberts, ain't nuttin' but a thang. But I raised a fuss about it; I fired off an angry-sounding email to the county Registrar demanding to know why I was being treated differently than other women. Awesome overreaction, Faline. Like that will accomplish anything.

This would be the perfect time to be able to snuggle up on someone's arms and have him tell me this will all be OK. But there are no arms and no possibility of arms right now. I don't know how to get arms, and furthermore, I have even less of an idea how I'd keep them, once I got them. And I'm alone in it.

Someday...