So it's been three weeks since my surgery. Dr. Brassard and his staff were wonderful. Absolutely the right choice for me. Made quite a few new friends, friends whom (who? whom? I never know for sure) I hope to keep. I'm not inclined to go into the details of my time there or my recovery... it is all private and precious. Let it suffice to say that my recovery is where it's supposed to be at this point. I have friends who have taken care of me since I've been home and continue to. I'm up and moving around, taking walks, doing well. Things are good.
I took a quick look on T-Central the other day and realized that I am just not into this anymore. I'm neither into the transition stories nor the constant din of the TS vs. TG arguments. Doesn't hold any interest for me. Writing about the remainder of my transition, what little there is left of it, doesn't either. I'm sure I will find ways to help those who are where I once was, but for now I am going to focus on me and my recovery. Time to get back to real life.
So, this is the post that I've wanted to write since that first day that I realized that I was a woman. The last post. What have I learned?
As we transition, we read about techniques for "developing our femininity," about developing a sense of style, about walking with our hips at a specific angle or stepping with a certain frequency, about how a woman does this and how she does that, about how women respond to this and how they respond to that, how they develop friendships, about learning how to be a woman. This could leave us with an inaccurate impression, an impression that "being a woman" is about something specific. I've been guilty of contributing to this myself, as I asserted in an earlier blog entry that no woman would give up her children without a fight. That is false. There are not many, but they exist. Which, I suppose, is my point.
Do you want to know the secret of being a woman? Do you want to know what you need to do to be accepted as a woman in real life, from someone who has accomplished that very thing? Lean close. I will whisper it in your ear. Here is what being a woman is all about:
**drumroll**
Nothing. It's about nothing. There exists no quality or trait that is universal to and exclusive of women. There is no behavior, learned or otherwise, which if missing from a person, marks that person as unmistakably male or unmistakably female. There exists neither a book you can read nor a video you can watch which will teach you how to be a woman. So stop trying so hard. Sorry to disappoint you, but there's nothing specific to which I can point. We don't have as much in common as you've been led to believe.
Well, there might be one commonality. I suppose we're all just striving to be ourselves. Perhaps that is one unifying characteristic of all women. For any given woman, being herself might mean falling in line with society's expectations; to regress to the mean. For another, it might mean flouting them for the sake of flouting them. Of course, the 3.5 billion males in the world also share this trait, this sense of self. So, if one is a woman, "being a woman" is about nothing more than being herself. As is "being a man."
We are unified by our uniqueness. Whatever acronym one chooses or does not choose to "identify with."
So, after blog entries spanning three calendar years, transition, and successfully living my life as myself, that is my sole piece of wisdom.
Ultimately, we are all striving to be ourselves. Whether that self is a fully-assimilated woman, a fully-assimilated man, a woman who is "out" about her background, a man who likes to express another side of himself from time to time, or something else altogether. In terms of transition and gender, whatever degree of change one undergoes, even if she goes "all the way" as I have, is not to emerge from the change as a woman or a man. We do this for one reason and one reason only: to be ourselves.
So, to be you, be you. Stay true to yourself. It's not any more complicated than that. Neither I nor anyone else can offer you any advice on that. *You* are the only one who knows. Don't do anything because someone says you should or avoid doing something else because someone says that you shouldn't. I promise you that if you remain true to yourself, at some point, someone will appreciate you for that which you are... a woman, a man, or something in between. It might take years. You may incur tremendous losses. But you can get there. Your reward for this? Nothing more than being yourself. Being yourself is the only way to have a fighting chance at being free. It's working well for me so far.
We are different. There are going to be arguments and dissent. Trans people, and people in general, all might not want to get along, and that's just reality. Even if it might be better for all of us if we did. I might not agree with your self-concept, and you might vehemently disagree with mine. At the very least, perhaps we can acknowledge the fact that the essence of what I'm doing is the same as yours... trying to be myself, whoever she is. And whoever you are.
All the best to you as you seek her or him.
With that, I'll leave you with one of the greatest songs ever written.
I took today off from work to finish up odds and ends before I head to Montreal tomorrow morning. Expected that it would be somewhat of a frantic day, but it's not turned out that way. Have been working on my "to-do" list all week, and I got everything done that I wanted. The recovery supplies are purchased. The freezer is stocked with homemade veggie lasagna, mini meatloaves, spaghetti sauce with homemade meatballs and sausage. The house is clean. I'm packed, more or less. Even had time for a nice nap this afternoon.
I'm very calm about all this. Excited, too, but mostly calm.
I needed to make one more trip out to the grocery store to pick up a couple items for when I get back... tea, cranberry pills, seltzer, and a couple other things. My last trip out of the house before heading to the airport in the morning. I step into the grocery store and who do I bump into but Sharlene. Sharlene is the head administrator of G's preschool, the woman who banned me from it. We worked things out and now have a friendly relationship. I don't have any animosity or hard feelings towards her at all. We chatted for about 5 minutes, she asked me how things were, and I told her I was heading to Canada in the morning for surgery. She wished me well.
One might think to herself, "Geez... of all people to bump into, the last person you see before SRS is her? Ugh." But I don't look at it that way. The truth is that I think it was kind of cool to see her today of all days. There was something almost poetic about it. To me, the preschool banning and subsequent reinstating symbolizes everything that I've done right with my transition. Putting my son's interests first. Learning how to work with people towards whom I'm angry by putting that anger aside and seeing the larger picture. Teaching people that transsexuals are not whatever-you-thought-we-were. Turning a bad situation into a fantastic opportunity.
And that's what transition is, really. I mean, c'mon. Being born into the wrong body? It is a baaaaaad situation. I've taken this situation and turned it into a tremendous opportunity, an opportunity to turn my life around and show others that they can do the same, whatever their particular bad situation is.
So it was absolutely appropriate and cool that of all people, Sharlene was the last person from my life that I'd see before heading to Montreal, which I will do in about 13 and-a-half hours.
I don't think I will write here again for a little while. Time to focus on the task at hand. :)
Here we go!!! :)
I've been thinking about vacations a lot lately. Trying to figure out when my last real vacation was, at least in the way that I think about vacations. Didn't take one this summer, or last summer. Or the summer before that, unless you count taking the kids to visit family for a week. Which I don't. Before that, my X and I took a trip in 2004 (yes, 2004) to San Diego. I suppose that was a vacation, unless you consider the fact that the entire itinerary for the trip was dictated to me. Wasn't overly relaxing.
I suppose the last real relaxing trip was before we got married. That'd be 2003. That's a long time to go without a vacation.
This week, it's been very loud in my head. Between all the last-minute things I need to take care of, my X is pushing for us to go to a co-parenting therapy (always productive when you are in the middle of a custody battle), I have a bunch of knowledge transfer meetings at work, electrolysis, one night out with friends (to see the indomitable Rachel Platten), a couple doctor appointments, and a (certain to be) long conference call with my attorney. I'm very busy, which is both good and bad. I have this list of things I need to get done before I depart on Saturday, and I keep coming up with more to add to the list. None of them are "big" things, but there are quite a few of them.
A trip to have major surgery isn't necessarily relaxing. Although this particular trip will be somewhat of a vacation from my life at a time that I sorely need it. Between the custody trial and SRS, I keep waiting for a moment when I just break down under all this stuff, but it still hasn't come. My therapist says that's because I am stronger as myself than I was as a man. Perhaps, but I also feel I'm getting through this because of my pragmatic nature; I focus on the task at hand and I try not to allow myself to be distracted.
I wonder what it will feel like on Saturday, when I am sitting at the airport, waiting to board my flight to Montreal, when I am away from all this, if only for a short while. Away from the pressures of life, from haranguing ex-spouses, from doctor/attorney/therapist appointments, from work. At the very least, it's bound to be a mental vacation.
Months ago I wrote about how it appeared that my sexual orientation changed from that of a straight man to that of a straight woman. For the past year-and-a-half or so, I've solely been attracted to men. To be certain, these attractions were purely physical attractions, and for the most part, still are. As I've developed emotional connections with women through my transition, I've always wondered how it would be possible to develop the sort of close emotional connection with a man, that I can and do with women. But my feelings towards women have been exclusively platonic during this time.
Well, transition appears to have thrown me yet another curve ball. There's a woman that I've come to know over the past three months or so and I feel incredibly drawn to her. I've only met her once; in fact, I have trouble remembering what she looks like. But we've spoken on the phone many times. We're continually finishing each others' sentences, we seem to think alike, we just connect. A little while ago, we had a bit of a disagreement but quickly got back on the same page. She said something like "See, even when we fight, we end up agreeing." I find myself daydreaming about her... a lot. Not in a sexual way. Although I have imagined kissing her. It's quite a pleasant thought.
We have a business relationship, and for now and the next few months, even if these feelings of mine were reciprocated, it wouldn't be appropriate for us to have a personal relationship outside of the business stuff, even a friendship. So any of that will have to wait, if it's meant to be at all. I do know that she loves my sense of humor, that she thinks I'm pretty, and that she has a lot of respect for me. All good things. :)
She's a single mom, a couple years older than me, and although we've not gotten into too much personal stuff, I don't sense that there's a man in her life. Through her work, she is very involved in and passionate about LGBT-related causes, which makes me think at the very least, she's bi. I was talking about my feelings with my therapist, and she suggested that a bisexual woman would be less likely to be put off by the fact by my history than someone who is exclusively straight or lesbian. I tend to agree with that.
This post, I suppose, isn't so much about this specific person as it is about me and how things change as one transitions. The more I think about it, I think the way it's going to go for me is that I will be attracted and drawn to someone's soul. The body containing that soul, whether it is a male or a female body, might not matter so much to me. We'll see how everything shakes out after surgery. There are bound to be a few more twists and turns to this story.
I had to go look at the calendar before I wrote the title for this post. It doesn't seem possible that my little countdown timer went from 120 to 10 so quickly. I have moments here and there where it hits me, like today at work. I'm rolling off our project when I go for surgery, and will start with a new client when I return. I was talking to our project architect about some knowledge transfer that I need to do before I leave. Our architect has been on this project since its' inception, and was the one who applauded when I came out to the team. He's a fantastic architect, but more importantly, a good person. I'll miss working with him.
Anyway, after we talked today, I started getting emotional and choked-up. While I ultimately don't want to be known as the transsexual person, this project has been very safe and even comfortable. I'll be on a new project with some people who might know, and a client who will not. And that will be new. The unknown is a little bit scary. I started thinking about what it will be like on my last day. I'll probably be an emotional wreck. Not to mention that I'll leave work, and then go pick up my kids for my last evening with them. Which will likely be even more emotional.
As far as the surgery itself, I'm excited for it. I think once I get my see ya laters out to co-workers and the kids, that I will be calm and focused once I'm up there.
I made my blog private; there are maybe 15 people who are readers.
Today I feel excited and emotional. :)
I wonder what you all think you're accomplishing.
Pretty much every blog in which I have any interest whatsoever these days, at least in the comments' section, has degraded into a cacophony of voices screaming at each other and accomplishing absolutely nothing. Whether you're a transsexual separatist, a crossdresser, a transsexual who identifies as transgender, a transgender person, someone who starts comments, or someone who is repeatedly goaded into responding to comments, a commenter on T-Central blogs, PHB, Bilerco, Transadvocate, or any of the other LGBT-related websites where people endlessly rehash the same thing that's being simultaneously argued on all of the other aforementioned sites, you need to wake up to the fact that you're not going to change anyone's mind about anything via blog comments.
What you will do, is alienate people that you otherwise might not have. You might drive good people to stop blogging or to head-em-off-at-the-pass by disabling comments altogether. You might cause people not to trust you who otherwise might have. What you won't do, is bring anyone around to your own way of thinking. Not gonna happen.
Especially when someone comments as "Anonymous." Don't even get me started on anonymous commenters. I turned them off here a little while ago when I got one-too-many trollish attacks from "Anonymous."
Anyway, this is all just a bunch of meaningless white noise full of a bunch of people who pretty much enjoy hearing the sound of their own voice.
I've been guilty of falling into this trap myself at times, getting caught up in it; in fact, I recently did elsewhere. Probably mostly because I'm bored and lonely. Not much of an excuse. Anyway, I'm done with all that. I'm not planning to read, let alone comment elsewhere anymore. I'll keep up with this blog through SRS and perhaps the outcome of my custody trial but I can't see it going much longer than that. Frankly, I'm getting sick of it. Blogging has brought some good to my life. In the form of a handful of precious friends who don't blog anymore, as well as a release at a time in my life when I sorely needed it. It's beginning to turn into a burden, though.
Knock your collective selves out with your comment wars. I'm done with it.
I ruptured my Achilles tendon almost three years ago while playing basketball. It sucked. I couldn't walk for three months, couldn't do all the things that a person with a normal Achilles tendon takes for granted. It took me 30 minutes to get groceries up the stairs. I wanted to go get a takeout pizza, but I had no way to carry it. Couldn't workout or run or bike or swim with my friends. A very frustrating and lonely time. While one is going through something like this, it's helpful to find support in others experiencing the same. So I joined an Achilles recovery support site in which each member of the site blogs about her or his experiences. It was great while I was going through the process.
Anyway, I had surgery for it, I recovered, and I got back to normalcy. The sutures they use are called "Ticron." They're non-absorbable, meaning they will always be in there. So there's a bit of artificiality to my tendon now, and there always will be. Despite this, I don't refer to my Achilles as my Neoachilles, or Neotendon. There will always be small hesitations here and there... if I jump, will it re-rupture? If I run too fast or play tennis or play basketball, will it re-rupture? I do my best to put these aside and do whatever physical activity I like. I can't let this change the activities I enjoy. There were a couple side effects which will be with me forever; for example, the leg still isn't as strong as the other one, and there is some lingering numbness in that foot. I think these side effects are likely permanent. Nonetheless, it's just a tendon, like anyone else's.
I don't think of myself as post-Achilles, or as a post-ruptured person. It'd be silly to define myself that way, I think. At any rate, I got the medical problem fixed and proceeded to live my life. And that was that.
I had a post up here a couple days ago entitled "30 days." which came off a little more depressing-sounding than I intended, so I removed it. So now we have this one. Apparently I've released myself from the pressure of coming up with interesting blog titles. :) The week was stressful. I had a good cry on Friday afternoon, which I *really* needed. That sums up the "30 days." post. You didn't miss much. :)
This morning, I woke up crying. I've no idea what I was crying about in my dream, but when I woke up I was crying. The pillow was wet. That's never happened to me before, at least that I recall. I tend to try and find meaning in such things. I suppose it means I'm stressed and upset. I find that I'm overly jumpy lately, too. A month and change ago, I came home at lunch to find that motion on my door; two weeks later, another motion. Now I'm continually checking the front door, like I'm waiting for something else to happen. You know the dashboard fuel light? Today mine lit up when I was driving and I almost launched myself through the sunroof.
We were supposed to have a pre-trial hearing tomorrow morning in my custody case, and it was continued (postponed) this afternoon. Without going into detail, we needed to have the continuance granted, and it wasn't clear until the last moment that it would be. So I've spent the last day or so stressing about that. Hopefully the legal stuff won't continue to be so stressful between now and November 7th.
A good friend of mine will be having surgery with Dr. Chettawut about 10 days after my surgery. She's visiting in a couple weekends. I have two weekends with the kids, and one to get things done (this weekend), and that's all she wrote. I feel like there are million things to do between now and then.
I'm very much looking forward to the 11 days I'll be spending in Montreal. Other than keeping in touch with the kids and letting a few select people know how I am doing, I'm going to maintain radio silence while I'm up there. I'm not going to write much here, if at all. I'm not going to post updates on Facebook. When I return, I have a friend who has been through this before coming to stay for a week, and subsequent to that another friend who's also been through this staying for another week. That will be time that I am required to focus on my recovery and my physical health. Hopefully it'll give me the mental break I need to push through to this custody trial in January.
Wow, this blog entry is incredibly disjoint. I appear to have lost my ability to write cohesively. Apropos, I guess. That's all for now.
Surgery is in 40 days. You've probably not noticed it, but about three months ago, I put a little countdown timer at the bottom of my blog. It's hard to believe that it's gone from 120 to 40 so fast. Still very surreal. Between thoughts on surgery, wondering how I will get through the holidays, and the full-day custody trial scheduled for mid-January, my next 4 months will be about little else than survival. I've not yet experienced any pre-surgical freakouts, crazy emotions, or anything like that, but I'm sure that will come as November 7th draws near. I can't imagine what the night before will be like. I can't imagine what it'll feel like the last time I see my kids before surgery. Just thinking about it brings forth some pretty heavy emotions.
When I say "survival" earlier, by the way, I don't mean it in the suicidal sense; I mean that I have only the energy to put one foot in front of the other and get to the next day... to put myself in a position where I have a chance to finally, finally, after 40+ years, have a relatively drama-free life. I don't even know what that's like. For now, I'll continue sucking it up and dealing with the insomnia, constant-pit-in-my-stomach, and loneliness. There's a light at the end of the tunnel... but just how long is this darn tunnel?
Before my first consult to get my hair done, about 18 months ago, back when it was reminiscent of an inverted grey mop, I had a couple minutes to kill beforehand and stopped at the drugstore. Some guy started talking to me in line about how he didn't have much to do that night. It took me a minute to realize that he was hitting on me. At the consult, I related this anecdote with surprise to my stylist and a friend, Holly, who was there for moral support. I recall Holly saying to me, "Faline, you're pretty. Get used to it. Deal with it." I didn't quite believe her at the time.
I apologize for the self-indulgence which is to follow. But, I need a mental pick-me-up. So, to steal Holly's phrase, deal with it.
I had two appointments related to my kids yesterday, so I put a little extra effort into looking nice. Spent a little time on my hair, picked out a muted purple ruffle cardigan, fancy cami, charcoal pants, black skinny belt. A little bit of makeup. Not much. Ended up being one of those days that I look in the mirror and cannot believe that the woman staring back at me, is me. I looked fantastic. I made my usual stop at Starbucks on the way to work and counted various stares from no less than four men and two women. Yes, I counted. I'd ask for a little slack here, as this is all still a novelty. :) I gave one of the starers an "Um... helloooo?" look and when he realized it, he gave me a sheepish, embarrassed grin. I know this grin because it is the same sheepish, embarrassed grin that I used to give someone who caught me staring just a little too long. YSG was among the transfixed, pun not intended. I gave him a big a smile and a wave of my fingers; he smiled back and gave me a "peace" sign with his.
I guess Holly was right. I'm not quite used to this yet. As evidenced by the fact that I'm writing blog entries on the subject. But, I'm dealing with it. :)
Over the course of my transition, although no one has (overtly) rejected me, over time, friends and the relationships have faded away to the point where other than a precious few people, we're friends in the Facebook sense only. I try to do my best to understand and realize that I'm not the same person I was before and that people were friends with him, not her. I also think removing myself from the local triathlon scene has contributed to that. Triathlon can be cult-like at times; social events revolve around training and races, and if one doesn't train and race, she's not really part of the group any more. So this is no one and everyone's (including me) fault at the same time. I'm as OK with it as I can be.
However, there's one particular friend for whom I truly feel a loss, and this loss saddens me more than any other. I'm not quite sure why. I've known her for three or four years and although at times she could be a little aloof, we clicked. At times it almost felt like a little more than friendship, but it never happened, which was probably for the best. The amount of communication has waxed and waned over the course of our friendship, but I trusted her to the degree that she was among the first few people to whom I came out. I remember how supportive she was and how she told me that I shouldn't be afraid to talk to her about it. We went out a couple times when I was still in wig mode. In fact, she was the one who prodded me into going out without the wig, a much-needed prod. A couple months later, she, I, and others were hanging out, carrying on, having a couple drinks, and she told me that I was her favorite friend. She's said stuff like that to me more than once. She was my favorite friend, too.
We met up for dinner around the time that I came out at work, about a year ago to this day, and I haven't seen her since. I've sent a couple emails and messages here and there about getting together, but I haven't been taken up on it. Granted, she's very busy with some new stuff in her life but if I figure if people truly want to make time, they will. I'm not angry at her in the least; after all, she was friends with him, not her. I had hoped she was friends with her, too. I miss my friend.
Did you ever have one of those nights that, despite the fact that you don't necessarily need validation anymore, absolutely validates everything you're doing, and makes you smile so big that your cheeks hurt? That was tonight for me. I don't even know if mere words can do justice to the way I'm feeling right now.
Tonight was one of our quarterly All Hands Meetings at work. They go over business stuff for about 90 mins., and then there's social time, drinks, apps, etc., for a couple hours. I had never even shown up for one of these during my first three years with the company, before transitioning. I woke up this morning with dread. All day I wondered how long I would stay at the social part of the meeting. How long of an "appearance" would be enough? Show my face, then go home. I thought that if I managed to stay until 6:30, that would be enough. Never been my thing, and still wasn't, after how I handled the first All Hands' Meeting that I attended a couple months ago.
The business part of the meeting started, and they worked their way to the "Employee Recognition Awards." Each quarter, one employee receives a "Super Star" award, out of about 500 people in the company, for outstanding work/commitment. There is one given to a team, as well. I've mentioned here in the past how I was working on a pro bono project, in which I ended up doing the work of two people. The person giving the award started describing the recipient of the Super Star award and her work, and as I listened, I thought, "OMG. This is me. Wow, just wow." And it was!! It was a bit surreal walking up to get this award from the CEO with my picture and name on the overhead with 500 people applauding, when a few short months ago, I feared being fired. (The recognition wasn't bad, but the $200 AMEX gift card wasn't either!!)
The business part of the meeting ended, and the social hour began. People were congratulating me on the award right and left. But still, I felt like I didn't know all that many people; that I was wandering around aimlessly amongst all the masses. My lack of self-confidence got to me. I walked around for a little bit with my glass of wine, had a couple cursory conversations, and then after about 30 minutes, decided it was too much stress, and that I had to go. So I sneaked outside, pretending to be talking on my cell phone, got into my car, and started driving home, bitterly disappointed with myself.
I approached a stoplight. As I sat there, I shook my head and thought to myself, "you know, this is your night. you won an award. people are congratulating you. and you're sitting here in your car, going home at 6 PM. And you look *good* today (it was a good hair day). Turn this car around, bitch. Turn this fucking car around now and go back, and have a good time. You can do this. You know you can."
So I did. I turned the car around and I went back. And guess what? I had a blast. I was social. I talked to lots of people. I made them laugh. I got hugs. Ended up staying, along with the young 'uns, until 9 PM, about an hour after the event was supposed to end. One guy in particular, I had worked with before, and while on travel, before I transitioned, we had a bit of a "rock star" night. Including a baseball game, casino, horse racing, a midnight run to buy alcohol, and a strip club. I figured he of all people had been pretty freaked out by my transition, and I wanted to talk with him. I sought him out, and we talked. When I transitioned, HR sent out a message to the people I had worked with, John included, disclosing my transition. The email subject was simply my name. When I talked to John tonight, he told me when he got the email, and he saw the subject, his first thought was that I had killed myself; that he knew there was something very wrong with me and that I was incredibly unhappy. Wow, just wow. I had no idea that I came across that way to people before transition. Anyway, he said that he didn't quite understand it but that he was just glad I was still around.
The last person I talked to was a woman who had just joined the company a few months ago, and for whatever reason, it was a particularly special conversation. There was nothing outstanding in what we talked about, topics we covered, but you just know when you connect with someone on a friendship level. We talked for about 20 minutes, hugs were exchanged, and I headed home.
I drove home somewhat astounded on how well I'd done; how people reacted to me and how I felt I was in my element. My element! A room full of people was never "my element." There's this new song that I heard recently on the radio, only once, that I love. I sent the radio station an email this afternoon asking them to play it again. I had the radio on in the car tonight and heard this about a third of the way home ...
"This one's for Faline..."
What????
"Here's 1000 Ships, by Rachel Platten."
SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The icing on the cake. Is this my night, or what? Wow, just wow. I cannot stop smiling right now.
Is it worth it? Worth it for who? Me?
Probably, but I can't say for certain.
I don't have the perspective yet to answer. I wouldn't feel right answering until "it" is long past, which won't be for a while.
So far it's cost me $50,000, my relationships with my family are extremely strained, I'm in the middle of a legal battle with my ex-spouse to stay in my children's lives, and I'm currently in no-woman's-land as far as friendships are concerned. In 5 years, when I look back, will I view all this as being worth it?
I'm as sure as I can be, but I can't say for certain.
Is it worth it for you? I don't know.
It's worth it if you are one of the extremely few number of people who have gender dysphoria to the degree that requires transition. If you're not one of those very rare birds, for me to tell you that it's worth it might, despite my best intentions, end up hurting instead of helping.
So be cautious.
This isn't like being gay or lesbian, you know? If you're gay, you know it well before the journey starts. If you're transsexual, you can only be "sure" to a certain degree before embarking on the journey.
So be cautious.
I don't want you to end up like Charles Kane, or worse yet, Mike Penner.
Is it worth it for you? I don't know.
The only person who can answer that question is you, and the only way that question can be answered is by walking the path. And the only way to start walking the path is to take one small step, and see if it feels comfortable. If so, take another when you're ready.
Be cautious.
And someday, you'll know.
My "arms" post was a little down-sounding. Yeah, I'm lonely, but I don't need to sound so depressed about it. I heard this song on the radio for the first time yesterday and instantaneously loved it. Similar sentiment, but more optimistic. I couldn't help but smile as I bounced along in the car to it. I don't know that I've ever had such a reaction to a song before, from the first couple notes. When I got home, I realized that I didn't remember any of the words, and they had provided neither the artist nor the title. This was an emergency. I needed to listen to this song again. Tried a couple things (see the comments), but no luck. Thought some more and remembered that it had the words "coffee," "belly," and "soliders" in it. How many songs have those three words, right? Worth a shot. So I googled "coffee belly soliders lyrics" and 1000 Ships was the first hit. Yaaaayyy!! Well, it was the first hit for the correct spelling of "soldiers," which Google graciously suggested. That's one of those words I can't help but misspell.
I can't stop listening to it. Just makes me smile, which I need lately. I found out that the artist, Rachel Platten, will be performing in my area the the a few days before I fly off to Montreal. I'll get a few girlfriends to go and we'll have a send-off. Cheers!!
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...
I had an appointment for my second surgery letter a few weeks' back. This appointment was with a well-known provider who has been working with trans people for over 20 years. She was going through her standard list of questions, and she asks me, "So, you've had FFS." "No, no I haven't." Her eyes popped out of her head. She wrote something down on her bad and shook her head incredulously. I had an electrolysis appointment about a month ago and one of the women who works there, but hadn't seen me in months, saw me and the same thing happened. Her jaw dropped to the floor and she somewhat stammered out how beautiful I was, as if she couldn't believe that a transsexual woman could look as I do. There's a guy at Starbucks who I consistently get looks from, and we're starting to get chatty.
I look great. In fact, I don't blend. I stand out. In the way that a woman wants to stand out. Which makes it easy for me to attract men. What this does not make any easier is the inevitable conversation that I will have no choice but to have with a man, once things start getting to that point. Not revealing to a man with whom I was serious means involving my children in that and asking them to lie, and I am not willing to do that. But how the heck does one go about telling someone *that*? Let me know when you find that one on your "TS Roadmap."
On teh interwebz, you can find resources to assist you with just about all parts of your transition. Except one. If you happen to be straight, you'll find that you're a needle in a haystack. Which makes one wonder, but I've written on that subject before. I go through a mental list of my friends who have and/or are transitioning, and you know how many would describe themselves as straight? None. Not one. Wait, I thought of one. One. You mention that you're straight around a group of trans women and you get this response...
*blink*
*blink*
"ewwww....."
Which isn't all that helpful. So, like just about everything else related to my transition, I'll take the same approach... the "eh, I'll figure it out." approach. I've pretty much done my own thing through transition. Taken steps, handled things in the way that felt right to me. Sometimes going against prevailing wisdom, sometimes not. It has all worked so far. The whole relationship thing, though, seems like a horse of a different color. The only thing that I've decided so far is that I'm not going to shoot myself in the foot from the get-go, IOW, tell people before they've had a chance to get to know me. Everything else, I'll figure as I go.
There's a new term which I've seen in the past couple days, designed to criticize and/or belittle transsexual women like me. If you go over to Jenny's blog, she's coined a new one... "Serious Transsexual." A somewhat tongue-in-cheek phrase to describe women like me, I suppose women who go through the Standards of Care, women who take their transitions seriously. I'm forced to guess at what she meant since she didn't define the term. Jenny is one of the contributors to T-Central. A little surprising that one of those women shows such obvious bias. She's also the one who came up with the idea of the "sin bin" a month or so ago. A concept which went over with a resounding "thud" with the T-Central community. They never did say how the poll turned out. Nor did her post on the sin bin concept allow comments. I would have commented on her blog about the "Serious Transsexuals," but she moderates comments, yet another red flag, so I'm writing here instead.
Anyhoo, back to the "Serious Transsexual" thing. I suppose that I am a so-called "Serious Transsexual." In fact, it's so serious, that my ex-wife has filed a motion against me in court to have all of my parental rights revoked. It's hell. I can't sleep at night and I constantly feel like I am going to vomit. All of my remaining savings, thousands of dollars, went to my attorney in the form of a retainer check. One of the things that could be used against a "Serious Transsexual" like me are things from online. For example, avatars. Here's a line from Jenny's post:
So have I just shot myself in the foot, destroyed my credibility to Serious Transsexual eyes as surely as if I had changed my avatar to a picture featuring myself in a rubber French Maid outfit?
Hmmm, I wonder how a picture of me in a rubber French Maid outfit would go over with the judge? Probably not all that well. I wonder how that might impact a judge here in Virginia, a Republican state with mostly conservative judges. Yeah, if anything, it would make my chances of staying in my children's lives smaller. One wants to plaster pictures of herself all over the Internet in costume, knock yourself out. Criticizing those who do not because they're trying to get through this portion of life with minimum collateral damage is another thing altogether.
I had a post featured on T-Central yesterday. I had two thoughts when Halle asked me if I was OK with that. Thought one was "how nice, I'm glad she saw something in the post." Thought two, and I am not making this up, was "I wonder how long Jenny will allow it to be featured, before she features something else?" Turns out the answer was just a shade over 24 hours. The shortest amount of time for which I've seen a post featured. I'm a little bemused by it, frankly.
So anyway, Jenny. Yes. My transition is deadly serious. And before you go on writing posts grouping people without any consideration for their lives or their transitions, and coining little phrases to describe them, stop and think. No, your credibility in the eyes of this "Serious Transsexual" hasn't been destroyed because you advocate fun costumes. It's destroyed because you're biased and prejudiced. I get enough prejudice from my ex-wife, you know, the one on the other side of the courtroom.
Women who are pregnant sometimes experience what's known as the nesting instinct, the urge to prepare a home for the incoming newborn. They clean, they organize, they decorate. They have their husbands paint the nursery (paint fumes and pregnancy is a no-no). They buy new sheets despite the fact that they have perfectly good ones due to the insatiable urge to have new, clean sheets. They replace the dishes and organize and re-organize the washcloths for Baby two, three, four times. They have their husbands repaint the nursery. All to prepare for the new arrival.
I won't go so far as to claim that I, too, am experiencing this as surgery approaches, but I have been doing my own little version of nesting. For the first year or so of my transition, my home wasn't reflective of me. It was reflective of what I was going through in my head... it was disorganized, random, and devoid of character. Certainly not somewhere that I'd be proud to, say, entertain. That started changing about 5 months ago. One day I realized that my home was not mine. It was someone else's. I am rectifying that.
I've gone through every closet in the house and thrown out tons of stuff, and organized. I've gone through the kids' toys and donated what they don't play with, and thrown away all the extra crayons, watercolor sets, markers, and coloring books that will never be used. I had no idea we had so many crayons. I rented a carpet cleaner for the first time in God-knows-how-long and cleaned every carpet in my townhouse, which is 3 floors of wall-to-wall carpet. I went to Michaels and bought a bunch of Fall stems to arrange in this little pot my sister got me a while back, along with other stems for other pots, and frames. I've gone through all the old pictures I had up and replaced them with pics of the kids from some photos we had taken a couple months' back. I've completely redone my bedroom, from the accent furniture to the curtains and bed decor. I've redone lots of the kids' room, bought a new bookshelf for them, did some decorating, put up some wall decals. I spent three hours today taking apart this monstrosity of a gas grill which has been sitting on my patio for a year, gathering rust. The last reminder of my marriage I had to look at on a daily basis. The grill is now in pieces at the county landfill.
I had this couch sitting in the basement, holding about 20 "lovies," our word for stuffed animals. I brought it upstairs and reorganized the main room so guests would have somewhere to sit that wasn't a chair borrowed from the kitchen. As you can see from the pictures, it was quite an interesting time getting the couch upstairs. Attempt one is on the left. Attempt three is on the right. We won't discuss attempt two.So every non-kids' weekend, I tackle a list of "stuff to get done." Today was devoted to organizing, tomorrow to (ugh) cleaning. I have 5 more such weekends before I visit Dr. Brassard. Hopefully it will be enough time to get things the way I want them. The garage needs to be organized, lots of cleaning needs to be done, food needs to be cooked ahead of time and frozen, recovery supplies need to be purchased, and I need new curtains for the living room. Oh, and there's one wall I need to paint. See that couch on the stairs? There are now huge brown scuffs on the wall from said couch.
Is all this the famed "nesting instinct?" Something like that, perhaps. What am feeling bears a little resemblance to the excitement and anticipation one might feel before Baby comes home for the first time. That said, it would be silly of me and insulting to women to compare what I'm doing and feeling to what they experience when they're pregnant. I'm merely working on getting my place the way I want it before I depart for Montreal. Clean, organized, and most of all, to feel like my home when I get back. I'm not getting ready for a new baby. I'm getting ready for a new life.
As you've no doubt heard a million times today, we had an earthquake. For an encore, Mother Nature will throw Hurricane Irene at us this weekend. Events with the potential to screw things up. So I'm taking this opportunity to vent about some of the things which are screwing with my head these days. I'll be having surgery in about 2 1/2 months and while it's obviously a wonderful thing, it's a stressful thing. I'm a little concerned about the amount of leave I'll have to take without pay, as well as how much I will be able to see my children for the first month or so of recovery. I have offers from certain family members to come help, which I'll probably take them up on. Speaking of my kids...
About three weeks ago, I came home at lunchtime to find a notice on the front door from the county Court. My ex-wife, as I alluded to in my last post, filed a motion for a hearing to have all of my parental rights revoked. And of course her pleadings are all related to my transition. So I've retained an attorney, and while ultimately I have confidence that at the very least I'll have the same amount of time with them as I do now, it's a stressful thing.
Work is going well although it's been crazy the past month. I'm fully billable. I also volunteered for a pro bono project which a team of 7 of us work on outside of normal work hours. Our company does these projects for non-profits, which otherwise wouldn't be able to afford us. Anyway, the other technical resource on our team was booted from the team for non-performance, leaving little ol' me to do all his work. I was also getting pressure from the higher-ups in the company to get this certain technical certification, so while I wasn't thinking about surgery, meeting with my attorney, spending time with the kids, or working on the pro bono project, I studied for the certification exam. I passed the exam and our pro bono client was thrilled with my work. It all ended well, but it has weighed on me.
And as well as my transition is going, let's face it. It's still transition and it sucks. The loneliness is rough... it'd be nice to go on a date or have someone to cuddle with... ugh... it's been, um... I think over three years now, but I just don't want to get into all that until after I'm recovered from surgery. Pre-op dating is not for me.
All this at once has been a lot to deal with. I've not been sleeping well again. For a while there, I was doing well with sleep, 7 or 8 hours. Lately, I'm back to 5 or 6. Have had this pit in my stomach for 3 or 4 weeks now to the point where I constantly feel like I'm going to puke. Especially when I eat. I keep wondering when it will all be over and the issues I face in life will be similar to those that a "normal" person faces. I think 2013. I don't feel sorry for myself here; it's all just a lot! I have a ton of great stuff going for me and I appreciate it all. It just gets tiring being continually focused on the big picture.
