What is normal?

From here……

Today was like a multitude of other Saturdays…and it wasn’t. When your life changes so radically what is normal? I woke to a phone call from my ….wife. We still haven’t even filled for divorce. We’ve been living separately for 3 months…..sleeping separately for at least half a month before that. She’s finding the name of an attorney on Monday that can work with us both as we are trying to stay friends….not sure how long that will last. I don’t want to hurt her more than I have.. But I also know she can’t be with me on this journey, and I have someone who can and who wants to…and who also loves me. I think if she found out now she’d die. I don’t want to hide my love, but I don’t want to shove it in her face while she’s hurting still. And she is…

She called because I’d said I’d help swap beds in my youngest’s room while he was away at Band Camp. She was asking when I’d be over. After blearily answering the phone, as I’d been up till 3 AM chatting with people, and talking to Megan, both on line and on the phone. She apologized for waking me and we set up a time. I got myself up, made the bed…putting the elf and the stuffed bear between the lace pillows. One holding the other. I logged in and checked email, Facebook, answered some stuff, added comments to blogs, and then was ready to get a shower. Unfortunately I have two other ‘roommates’ who use the shower, so one was already in and the other was waiting, Sigh.

I sat down at the desk and looked over. There were two movies I’d had for a while that had put off watching for different reasons. I told myself that I just didn’t have the time, but that was just lying to myself. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to. Especially one. Normal. This is an HBO film about a middle-aged man who comes out to his wife as trans. I’d seen the clips and I had wondered who had videotaped my life. So deciding to try it I popped it in.

Other than being in a rural area, it was my life. It was amazing and scary at the same time. I heard them say lines that I’d heard out of my wife’s and my own mouth. Who ever wrote this had to have passed through it in someway to be this eerily accurate. I was spellbound. I was watching my life play out…or rather my life crash and burn. Time came to go and I paused it. Driving over I was thinking about it when Megan called. It was wonderful hearing her voice. I knew I had a short time before I reached my wife’s house, so we chatted fast. She was doing better…she’d had a bit of a melt down the night before, and I’d been worried. I hadn’t waited so long for someone who understood to loose her now. We chatted til I pulled up in front of the house. With regret I told Megan I had to go.

Going inside what was my home for 14 years…seeing the woman that was my wife for 26 years, is always difficult. I still love her and always will. I just know we cant be together and she knows it also. We chatted and then I dismantled the old bed that was broken. Symbolism? Clearing a space for the new bed, we grabbed her keys and our purses and drove to Ikea. Walking into the store I mentioned watching the first part of Normal. She turned and commented that couldn’t we have one visit without me talking about something trans? I shut up. The rest of the trip was banal conversation about what bed and what light to get. We made our purchase, loaded it in her car and drove..to her house. I keep wanting to type home, but she’s made it clear that it’s not.

At home we unloaded the purchases and commenced building the bed. As with most IKEA pieces, it was those wonderful pictographs to solve a puzzle instructions. 3? hours later it was done. She offered some ice tea as I was pouring sweat, and we sat down and chatted. Always a wrong move. She made comments about how I was effecting my son’s life, and I figured it was time to leave. She complained that I left anytime she criticized me…uh….duh? It’s either that or have a fight. ….. So I stayed. Finally when she was blaming me for one of our son’s issues I stopped her and said he had issues that went beyond me, and that of the three he could relate the most. She looked at me stunned and then complained that as co parents I didn’t tell her everything. So I told her…she was devastated. Not that the child had these issues, but rather that the child was not willing or not comfortable telling her. I said it was his choice, and said that I felt bad for not honoring it. She railed a bit at me, seemed mad, so I took my cue to leave.

I arrived home and logged in. Megan just about jumped me…if she could have through the computer she would have. We chatted on line, talked on the phone, played in SL all for about 4 hours. I love her, what can I say. We didn’t plan this. She wasn’t going to tell me about herself, but we fell in love. In the beginning because I met her just after I ‘came out’ she kept telling me to work things out with my wife, but that was not to be. After moving out we became very serious…I didn’t have a wife to loose anymore….I’d already lost her. Megan was there for me through all the roughest times…..And I’m there for her.

My wife called while we were chatting online. I told Megan that she was on the phone and to wait a few. I’ve been honest with her about my dealings with my wife…….the ‘ex’ can’t prefix that soon enough. I love Megan and want her with me by my side, and me by hers. She was calling to tell me I’d walked out after dropping a bombshell on her, and how could I do that? I sighed and told her she had seemed mad at me so I was removing myself from her house. She said she’d cried after I’d left and had to hide it from my eldest. Yeah, guilt, the gift that keeps on giving. We chatted and I promised to talk to my son about talking to her. She finally said ok and hung up. Meg’s and I chatted for a while more, looking at houses as we did, then it was time for her to sleep, so kissed goodnight.

I kicked back and looked at the DVD. I shook my head and started it up from where I’d left off. More of my life portrayed in the movie..that same exact lines spoken by the husband and wife. The same all consuming need to change, and the inability for anyone else to understand. The same family issues and fears. I never had a daughter, so I didn’t have that part…and we aren;t staying together like they did. I was crying by the end. It ended the night before SRS. I wondered what the following days, weeks, and months held for them. I cried for my loss, and the loss of all the others who’ve dealt with this. And it didn’t matter if a couple stays together or not, the loss is still there. I cried for Megan’s loss…though she lost her family years ago, they just never talked about it and lived in the same house. I suspect that is even worse.

And then I put the movie back in it’s case, safely put away. I think it would do my family good to see it if they could survive it because it hits way too close to home. The title comes from one scene where she’s going to get in her dirty truck, and someone has written in the dirt on the far side where he doesn’t see it “You are not normal!”

I looked at the title again with its backwards R in NOЯMAL. What is normal? Who defines it? Is there some committee that writes down in a book somewhere what is normal and what is deviant? Hmmm perhaps the APA in the DSM? Or religions in their holy books? Or kids who scrawl it on other kids lockers? Or someone who etches it in dirt on the side of a truck? For me tonight, I’m defining normal as being yourself, being true to yourself, and becoming yourself in what ever form that takes….it’s not in some book somewhere…it’s not etched in stone….it just here buried in the word, buried in a hundred thousand other writings of people trying to define for themselves what is normal. This in the end is what I hold as normal….

…to there.