What ever doesn't kill you

This has been a week of extremes, ya know the sort that leave you stumbling for stable footing, and leaves you feeling rather unraveled.  I didn't know it was possible to feel the emotions of happy, depressed, surprised, heart broken, and faintly optimistic more or less with in the small space of a week.

While on the computer early in the week googling around the web, I happened across a transgender conference that was being held in Boston in the later part of January, and started to read. Usually, most of these are geared more towards the m2f's, and little if any of the workshops are aimed at f2m's.  But oh buddy, not this one!  There is loads of interesting things for the f2ms!  What I really liked about this conference is that they have two full days of "partners in progress" for partners of trans folk, no matter which way your partner is going.  I thought, "excellent!  TH (the husband) could attend with me, and get to at least listen to others who are more or less in the same boat as he is.  Faintly optimistic

I thought about it overnight, and then showed him the website, opened to the part of the brochure that dealt with him, and he read it, got very quiet and then answered, "no, I cant do that.  I cant go to that."  And then in the next breath, he urged me to attend.  We talked about it a bit, and then he left for work.  Two days later, still trying to decide if i should go, I mean for cripes sake its in Boston!  he asked me if I had purchased my ticket yet!!!  After being asked again the next day if I had my ticket yet, I decided that he really was serious about me going, and that he isn't ready yet to attend.  Tonight i bought my ticket, and paid the conference attendance fees.  Tomorrow, the hotel will be reserved.  So, off I go to Boston!  Happy

Last night after we watched the movie "Despicable Me" part of my christmas gifts Th had given me, I went upstairs to read, and TH stayed downstairs watching tv. He had to stay up until 7am before he could go to bed, he works nights.  I was tired out and was hoping to be able to sleep after a very long week of not sleeping well, I'll get to the reason for that later on.  But, alas sleep was elusive, and being thirsty I went down to get a drink. Turns out, that TH had watched a Nat Geo show called Taboo, and this episode was about transgender people.  Now, even though we have been working on this almost a year, I never really knew how much of what I was going thru that he understood.  But, there was a m2f on there, and seeing her talk about it, seeing what she went thru to match her inner gender to her outward sex, and hearing her talk about how free she felt now, and finally at peace with herself, he at long last, finally got it.  He understands so much better than he ever has!   FTW!

If you read my last post, you know that things aren't happy families with eldest son and his wife.  We didn't know if they were even going to come for christmas dinner or not.  The way our holidays work, is that I make the meat, the yeast rolls, and maybe one more thing, and everyone pitches in to fill in the menu.  Being so upset, I forgot to ask for desserts.....so this is the first christmas dinner ever within my memory that we didn't have some sort of sweet to end our meal with.  Auntie came, and she was very sweet to me, and was trying to boost my spirits.  I've had a solid rock in my stomach this past week, with the worry about what was going to happen on Christmas.  Would they even come?  Would they come and a huge assed stink happen?  Or even worse would people be forced to chose sides?!  All of these things have happened before with Dil (daughter in law) at different gatherings, but mostly at Thanksgiving and Christmas....sigh.  depressed

Seven o'clock came and....son #4 and his gf and wee doggie.  Things seemed ok with them, they seemed happy to be here.  A bit after 7, and son #3 and his wife to be, and their new puppy came in.  They were fine as well, whew!  Now wife to be and Dil don't get on,  Dil treats her terribly!  Wont speak to her, ignores her, or says very not nice things to her.  Wife to be's crime? Who knows, its all part of Dil's craziness.  And time passed, and then the doorbell rang....heart in my throat I ran to the door.  I felt if the doorbell was being rang, it wasn't good news, because we never lock our door on holidays, and the boys all know to just come in.  Whew!  It was because Son #2 had his hands to full to open the door!  His wife comes in......followed by eldest son, baby and Dil. faintly optimistic

I tried to smooth things over, I gave Dil a welcoming hug, no dice, she didn't return it, wouldn't look at me, sigh.  We ate, but she didn't even sit down.  She actually left to go and fetch a soda at the local convenience store.  Ok...yeah...  While she was gone eldest son started to interact with us, but as soon as she came back, he shut right down again.  Ok, I asked wife to be to be our christmas elf and hand out gifts.  TH and I didn't get a single acknowledgement for our gift for either her or the grand.  Now, I luckily didn't see it, but Auntie and TH both saw her rip the paper off her gift and throw it at eldest son.  What did we get her?  A gift certificate to her favorite clothing store.....I wonder if she just threw it away when she got home.  depressed

TH's and I worry now that Dil has broken our family.  Son 4 and gf both told me this will blow over, but after seeing her actions we're not giving their views much credence.  We are hoping that this will be patched up, but at this point, we are not holding out much hope.  Son 3 is getting married this summer, and there will be a round of showers and parties and of course the wedding itself, and these gatherings will be ripe to cause more friction and dissension within our family.  Last year, Dil had a baby shower and didn't invite wife to be, and gf, and gf has been with our family now around 6 years.....  They couldn't attend she said, cause they aren't married and don't understand anything about babies.  However Auntie was invited and she is unmarried and childless, its just more of Dil's way of throwing bombs into our garden hoping to blow it to smithereens.  pessimistic