adrift

im struggling with the whole gender/sex thing. i cant be a guy. im not comfortable being seen as a woman. i even have a hard time typing woman in reference to myself. im rather at the end of the road here. (not suicidal, ok?) i dont know where to go from here. the one open lane, is something im not comfortable with, the other is beyond my reach. i know it sounds like more of the same same whining from me, and for that im sorry, but its eating at me. its like acid dripping me away.

im beginning to think that my idea of keeping the girl suit and accepting my life as a hidden man, was flawed.

and so the thrashing around within my bindings continues..........

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Oh my Sir!

You ARE happy to see me!

The Question

Steven over at thestateofthenationuk.blogspot.com has ended 5 on the fifth, in favor of something new, a thought provoking question is put to us. This month the question is

What you attempt if you know you could not fail?

That is the easiest question ever.

1) come out to EVERYONE

2) transistion, and live a full life, not this half hidden life that is strangling me.



What would your attempt be?

Of Fish and Birds, a guest post by T

Recently my friend Biki posted in blog "A fish may love a bird, but where will they live?" It is an interesting presentation so for all of us I will try to answer it.

The duality we all have in life whether we are any of the letters in LGBT is one of conflict. More often than not it is an internal one. It is our struggle to fit in a society that is ill prepared for us. Because of this ill preparation we are usually in the midst of defining our lives by standards and terms that really do not apply to us. We struggle.

What we need to discover is the power of love and creation. We must love who we are and who we want to be. We must love the journey that takes us wherever we will go. In that journey we should realize its success or failure is our creation. Like any traveller we can choose to flock to the masses or find our own path and enjoy the adventure on our terms.

Life has many obstacles, pit stops, even questions. Some may take our whole lives to figure out but that's fine. We are all works in progress, ever learning and changing. We are our choices and experiences. We are expression. Maybe that is the answer.

If there is no definition, space, or even feeling or thought about something express a new one. It does not have to be universal because our lives are our own.

So to answer my dear friend Biki I say this:

They live by the river, the lake, the sea. The bird soars proudly looking down upon its love always in sight. The fish gazes upward in joy. Diving forth the bird plunges through the watery surface for the brief foray to love's world. Bursting forth back to the air the fish surges up nudging the bird, a tantalizing embrace. It is not  a perfect love but who said love is perfect?

The boundaries in our lives are usually set by us and as long as we follow someone else's definition we will never embrace our love fully. Fish or bird, it's expression is our own and as long as we are happy with it then it is a perfect love. 

Love and create it's expression



Love is Never Wrong

by T http://links-of-love.blogspot.com/

"A fish may love a bird, but where will they live?"

I have no pronouns that "work". I'm happiest with the male pronouns, but not 'seen' as male so only female ones are attached to me. I dont feel female, but dont look male.

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Baka Hoka*

The traffic for the first few days scared the shit outta me. I haven't driven in heavy traffic since I was 18! So, huge learning curve there. The GPS who I have named "wife" cause she bitches at me when I dont manage to follow her orders, has for the most part done a great job getting me where I've wanted to go. There was one very odd day where "she" had me across the street from where I wanted/needed to be. Luckily I had a huge thirst for a frosty beverage of the coffee type, and there was the mother ship gleaming at me from across the street, Starbucks. And when I got out of my car and looked around.....yup! There was the store I was attempting to locate. But hey! I got to wander around a really cool unexpected store, so it's all good!

I've spent quite a bit of time driving around getting the odds and ends that I seem to need and had forgotten. Water purifier, measuring cups, bath rug, etc. As the days past, the comfort level with the traffic has increased, to the point where I'm taking the highway if the "wife" says to, and have actually charted a few trips without "her" guiding me along. Grid streets are a huge help to finding ones way about.

The other day after having a wrong address to a asian market I wanted to visit, decided to do a wander around one (!) of the huge local malls. I've never seen a cheesecake factory in person. Its well odd to see a chain restaurant selling mid-level food, looking like it has been transported from Vegas. I wandered into and out of many stores in the mall. Many of which I've never heard of. I mean I've heard of Lucky brand jeans, but didnt know they sold anything else! And actually bought two new shirts.

Girl shirts.

and I'm ok with em. Sure they arent very girly, or show chest or cleavage, but still.

While the main reason for me coming here was to get out of the cold for health reasons, and yes, I can't remember the last time I've felt this good, tis been a very long time. No limp, no brain fog, and the exhausted weight in my chest is gone. And now when I do get tired, its a 'normal' tired. I've stumbled across a surprised benefit, time to actually think about things.

A retreat in the desert, a time apart, a time to finally hear me, and to find out who I am without the context of the modifiers of wife and mother. And one thing that has become obvious to me, is that I submarine a lot of me to fill those rolls, something that makes me a stupid other*. If TH didnt like the person I was to begin with, he wouldnt have fallen in love with me. I've got to find him again. Because submerging so much of me has turned me into a stupid other*.

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Whew!

It's been very busy these last few days. When I left home, it was -35, and was a fantastic 70 here. OH! You'll never guess what occurred the day I left Alaska. I had texted eldest to see if he would like to meet up for supper, and possibly take me to the airport. He answered back, how about lunch with me and baby, AND I'll take you to the airport. And so he did! 'twas quite wonderful.

So, I get into Phoenix, did some texting with Newleaf, took a shower, changed clothing and we met for lunch. TH got in around 6 pm, safe and sound, that was a long, cold hard drive let me tell ya. I gave my list of apartments that looked good on the web to Newleaf, so he could plot it all out. The next day, Newleaf picked TH and I up, and off we go apartment hunting. By noon, we had found the one we wanted and started the process of getting all our ducks in a line to make it ours.

Newleaf took us to a magical land by the name of Ikea. Zomg, it's completely fantastical! We walked thru the entire store, something that IS rather a PIA, because if you only want to visit one select area, one must still wander through the entire store, small moment of grrrr for that. We all had a nice dinner, and Newleaf showed me how to use the garmin gps.

Yesterday morning, TH and I wake up bright and early and head over to the apartment to sign the lease, and get the keys. Then off to a whirl of shopping. Ikea for furniture, Walmart for dishes and even though I though we had decided on not splurging on a tv for me, TH bought me a nice tv. Back to the apartment to dump that stuff off, then onto the grocery store. After getting the food put away, we were completely trashed tired. We ate some left overs, good thing I can never eat all of my dinners, yeah? And we're dead asleep by 9. Yes, sigh, by 9. And the alarm rang all to early at 5 am. TH got a shower, we ate and was at the front lobby by 6 for the ride to the airport.

And so the adventure begins.

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Acceptance and Peace

 

Today, I was sitting on the sofa re-reading a favorite manga series, when my phone chimed a calendar alert.  Having no clue to as what I have scheduled I pull it out of my pocket, and oh, its my "Out of the Closet Birthday".  Whoa, has it been a year already?  A warm feeling filled me, and unlike last year when I was a baby at accepting me and learning who I was, there wasn't any fear or grief, only a pleasant feeling of.....love.  For quite possibly the first time in my entire life the war that screamed in my head of self hate and disgust had faded into a dull whisper.  It had faded so slowly that I never noticed the loss of the internal cacophony that had raged within me.  Feeling love and not disgust, being at peace with who I am, and not what I'm not is quite pleasant.

Am I happy when I see a girl looking back at me from the mirror?  Well, no of course not.  But girl and I are learning to work together a bit better.

The trick is how to integrate the outer shell with the inner true self, not an easy feat, at least for me. 

Looking back on this year, it was a year of growth and acceptance, a year learning how to be the most authentic self possible.  There have been several stumbles, and a few landslides, and several successes.  My one big success is dressing to please me, not others.  And the only time I dressed to please someone else caused a huge upheaval, and later a melt down when the wedding photos arrived from 3rd son.  I've determined if indeed youngest son gets married next year, I will stand to my personal guns and go in some sort of pants.  The day of me in a dress are over.

I leave tonight for my "Great Adventure".  Yes, that's what I've decided to call it, sounds ever so much more exciting than "wintering for my health", yeah?  For the first time ever, I and no one else will be master of my time, of what I do, what I wear, of my entire world.  After endless days of whining about being afraid, the fear is gone, and I'm rock steady.  I am ready to go, excited to go.  And sad to say, ready for TH to fly home leaving me to my own devices.  What I do find interesting is that my trip coincides with my closet b'day.  Rather a total re-boot of my life.

Unlike last year, when the future scared me down to my atoms, I'm racing into my future, happy and laughing.  This year could well prove to be a pivotal year as a trans person.  Ditching the parts of me that only hold me back, clinging tight to the things that really matter.

My only fear is that TH wont fit into my new view of who I truly am, not who I'm expected to be.  But, as my grandmother used to tell me, "don't bother trouble, until trouble bothers you."  If indeed this fear of mine comes true, I'll cross that bridge tomorrow.  Damn!  I sound rather like Scarlet O'Hara when she said, "I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow."  But she rather had it right, don't ya think?  We can worry ourselves into a frazzle about something that may never come to pass.