From here….
… looking back at what has trans-pired. (that’s right, go for the cheap pun)
January started with my mother quite literally on her death bed. And my depression darkening and taking on old tones. Thoughts of suicide and music that represented those feelings. January 11th at 3 AM she died, an orderly at her side while we slept in our bed. The call came at 5 AM to tell us. 3 hours after her birthday. It wasn’t like it was a surprise. We’d known it was coming. We’d watched the disease eat at her and destroy her. And me in a lot of ways…or at least the battery of defenses I’d built up around me so that I wouldn’t deal with certain things.
Subtle cross dressing hit. And grew. Depression grew till I contemplate suicide to spare the family the anger and hurt that was pouring out of me. And feeling unable to tell them…or myself really what I was feeling. Therapy began. Looking for a cause and solution. I doubt my ex knew what she was dredging up when she berated me into getting therapy… things would have probably been different if she hadn’t. Things would have stayed darkly buried. And I might have survived…. Maybe.
February brought me coming out..to myself. Realizing who I was and all the feelings I’d been fighting for 45 years. Way too long… way to late to save my ex a world of pain.. “I don’t hate you…no..So tell me now, if this ain’t love then how do we get out? She said I don’t hate you I just want to save you while there is something left to save.” <em>sigh</em>
By March I had come out to my therapist and my wife. I also was playing Second life to find some release…escape? Honesty? I played a female character and met another female character. We chatted and I felt ‘normal’ there. I told her in the first week what/who I was expecting her to run. she didn’t. We talked a lot and played i the world.
April..fighting with wife. Making passionate love with wife. Being distant to wife. Kids trying to figure what was gong on. Wife trying to find a third option, but not dong any real research…afraid of finding out something? Of making it real? We gave each other pedicures. We laughed. But I looked at the toes… and knew that I was looking at my feet the way they should have looked years ago. I was overjoyed, but also brought to tears by what it meant. Jill saw the look on my face and I think she realized that things had suddenly shifted out of her control. Telling the kids. Watching them try to take it in. Being told by Jill that she couldn’t keep waiting, and that I had to decide if I was going to stay within what she could handle or move out by the end of the month.
May… May 1st moving out while they were out of the house. Shaving….everything. Seeing my face for the first time in over 30 years.Feeling good abut having the beard and other hair gone, but still hating looking in mirrors at my visage. Coming out to a few select people at school. Setting up my Facebook page for ‘me’. Contacting alums that I had loved.. and finding they loved and cared for me as well. My Second Life relationship becoming more of a love affair. She was way to young for me, but she said she wanted it to continue… so it did. And how…… It moved out of SL into IM’ing and emails.
June telling the Head of School about being transgendered. Starting hormones…felt good. Starting therapy with a therapist who specialized in GID issues. Moving department into temp facilities while new space was being completed. Getting involved in Outfest and the community. Meeting wonderful people and jerks alike. Starting to dress subtly but full time. Felt good. Started photo documenting the transition, as well as starting this blog after finding Cameron’s and Dreamweaver’s blogs. They were and are wonderful special people who helped me get through a lot of this.
July..tumultuous at best. Megan admitting that almost everything she had said was a lie. She really was my age and…while she had never understood the feeling before nor had the vocabulary to express it, was a female in a male body. She’s been through a lot in her life..most bad, and abusive. I was upset, but knew I still loved ‘her’, the person behind the words. We started talking on the phone.See the post about the phone bill for more on that. But I also had lost some trust in her, and had a hard time knowing what was true and what wasn’t. Jill and I filed for divorce.
August. Moving into the new location. Setting up the new network with the team of consultants and engineers. Dealing with not so well thought out decisions and a new boss. Dealing with ups and downs with ex and kids. Dealing with Megan. Sending ‘the letter’ out to the staff. Coming out to the world. Dealing with a psycho landlord/room mate. Getting burned out by all the ours at work and volunteering. Enjoying finding a community out there. Meeting in person and online some of the luminaries in the transgendered community. Oh, and (new info alert…this may be TMI for some) discovering some of my um interests in SL crossing over to the real world. Discovering Threshold and Fetlife.
September. Giving notice to landlord. Talking with a wonderful woman I’d met at Outfest and realizing she also had a tenuous living situation so pooling resources to find a place. She wanted to stay near the LAGLC, so we ended up near Koreatown/Silverlake/Hollywood. Next door neighbors are a wonderful couple who happen to be lesbians. Great BBQ’s. And accepted me as female from the start. School starts. Girls see ‘me’ for the first time. Reactions vary. Some start friending me on Facebook. Few talk to me at school though. Plans are made to bring Megan to here. Epic fail. Lots of fear and crying. y emotions overwhelmed me. Then she closed in and said it would be a while before she could try…maybe years. The fears and loss of trust returned. We started arguing and I got mad at her more than once. She’s come so far from the submissive puppet she was to where she was now, but still couldn’t take the big steps to get herself help, and she needed to do that on her own before she put her fate in someone else’s hand. I finally realized this and there was much crying on both parts…still is. She was there for me when almost no one else was..and I tried to be there for here, but she just couldn’t be there for herself, and that is the biggest thing she has to accomplish if she is ever to move forward.
October. The Legacy Awards. Jen (roommate) and I worked the awards. She introduced me to another transgendered person she worked with at the Center, Angelina. We said hi briefly. I noted she was cute as she hurried off to work at another part of the venue. I shook my head and wondered what I was thinking. I had never considered dating another trans woman. Slowly it dawned on me that as I accepted myself as a woman and a lesbian that I also accepted other trans women as women. I attended the Transunity and the Siren awards. I was out and about. And I was happy. I was me. People who had known me for a long time noted I was happier and more at peace than I ever had been. On the other hand I was dealing with issues at work. The new boss seemed over eager to make his mark on the department and the school and expected everyone to fall in line… I seem to have a lot of difficulty following lines… Late October, the 38th LAGLC Gala. Jen and Angelina were working it. Angelina lives in Reseda and takes trains and buses to get to the center, which is about an hour and a half one way, so Jen offered to let her stay the weekend at our place. But Jen’s room was still full of boxes so she asked if Angelina could stay in my room on an air mattress. Angelina had also been to a BBQ the week before with a man as a date. We’d chatted and I’d lent her a white blouse for the Gala (hey, she still has it!). I loved her accent. She’s from Belize. And we’d gotten on well. We stayed up late watching Logo.
November. Angelina stayed over again for something else…. but this time no air mattress. She shared my bed and we went dancing. Nothing ‘happened’ and still hasn’t. But we talked and hung out…and then she came over again and stayed and we cuddled and watched TV… visited friends, went shopping. More and more time together. I realized I was falling for her rapidly, but she has issues to deal with so there are lots of things to work out.
December. Christmas. work. Moving servers. Rebuilding network parts. Installing new equipment. Spending time with Angelina. Her commitment and abandonment issues. Christmas Eve fight with ex, dinner with kids, Angelina spending Xmas eve, Xmas day and part of the next day with sponsor. Christmas morning with kids and ex. Went quite well it seemed, but I could be wrong. On to New Years. More last minute work. upgrades, missing parts, things not planned for. Angelina not allowed out for New Years. She’s in a recovery program, half way house. 3 years of sobriety. So I’d planned on doing laundry, and friends had invited me and Angelina over. She obviously couldn’t make it but we made plans for a BBQ at her house on New years day.
New Years Eve till 12. Called and wished family HMY. Ex suggested I bring laundry down and stay for evening… OK but I was going to drop by friends party for a few then head down. Got there, met them, all good. Monica and Danica are great people. I love their style and attitude. Hugs all around. Had a blast, but went to leave and car was blocked in. Called family and made apologies. Danica made a killer pear Martini for me. I followed up with… a few.. black Russians.
Midnight. New Years came and we all yelled and screamed and played music loud. And I missed a call from Angelina. Welcome 2010….
After Midnight, into 2010. I ended up in a heated discussion with a straight man having to defend who I was. Followed up by an argument with a gay man who felt that it was acceptable to toss off the right for trans people to not be fired just on the basis of being trans for the ability to have domestic partnerships become marriages. It’s nice to know the ‘community’ is willing to let us starve, be evicted, loose everything, even possibly our lives so that they can marry. This was followed up by the cis woman who treated me like a science experiment to be observed and commented on. Time to either drink more or go home. I went home.
Noon. Party at Angelina’s house. Where she wanted me there and then ignored me, except to introduce me as her girlfriend… except she didn’t want to come home, and won’t say she loves me. I left and texted her that I didn’t think I could spend the weekend with her. Much texting and fighting. So I went and did laundry. Now it’s January second. I need to be at family’s house in 3.5 hours. I’m mentally and physically exhausted and it’s only the second day of the year. 2010 doesn’t bode well at this point. Oh, and roomie still has yet to pay any rent.
I had such great hopes for this year.
Well at least my name has been legally changed. <strong><em>sigh</em></strong> and now I need to get the gender marker changed. I guess I just keep putting one foot in front of the other until I get….
…to there.
Be First to Comment