all in my mind

There are days when there is only confusion, verging on despair here, but every now and then the planets align, and in those moments, I play little mind-games, like this one for example:

I conjure up a younger Halle, sipping on a coffee, sinking down into her 'comfy chair' as the guy with the façade paces around and asks some of his really silly questions, like:

What is it like to be you? 

Do you wake up in the morning to a different thought each day, not the same one like I do? 

Does your brain still have noise, or is it really, really quiet and serene? 

Why can't I just be like you?

Putting on a serious look, and waiting just a bit to let him think these are hard questions, she tilts her head a bit, and smiles, then replies:

Some of these things would fix themselves if you would let them.

For the others, you already know the answers.

You are a good person.

Be yourself.

How did she get so wise?

Never enough

I will never get this post right, so it might as well be done wrong. Better wrong than not at all.

Another friend is gone. Another long illness has taken its toll.

I wonder what might have been, in a kinder more caring world.

Left to wonder what turn I can make so that in some better alternate future, we do not see the mourning of such a gentle, insightful person for no good reason.

Her illness might have been guilt, or shame, or self-loathing, but it is, was an illness, and what brings it on and what could send it packing is us. Being female or male or trans, none of these are an illness. Not accepting ourselves and more importantly, feeling we cannot ever be accepted as who we are is not just sad reality in our world, it is a fatal illness for too many.

I know why her death is something to take personally. This is not the first time it has occurred to me to give up the safety of stealth to speak out publicly. Too many young people are alone in their pain. It cycles round and round and eats them up. Coming out might save one life. Does loss of privacy and perhaps a few friends by my spouse and I matter enough to negate that need?

My friend was anonymous when she posted her comments and she will stay anonymous here as well. I cherish those comments and the email conversations we shared. I give thanks to the goddess for allowing me to know her a at all, but the pain is coming from so many directions right now and mostly for the thought of a loving spouse who is without her best friend and lover today. Nothing I do now or in the next months and years can bring her back. Nothing will fill the hole she has left in all those she chose to touch.

Every choice leads to a turn

Every choice we make turns us in a new direction.

My voyages into my own past are a psychic attempt to make sure that some version of my earlier self might find a sweeter future (not that I am whining about the version I lived) by donating an idea that might not have otherwise occurred to them. It is also a reason for my posts here, and my good wishes for some unknown gentle passerby.

I stay and blog because sometimes sharing an idea makes it clearer for me. I think of leaving because I wonder sometimes if the kind of learning that is happening here is helping me enough, and often because it is definitely time-consuming. There are other things I might do in that time.

It has been clear to me for a long time that if we do not influence ourselves, and give ourself the ideas we need, then someone or something will come along and influence us instead.

Some of the media has capitalized on this. There is too little space here, and way too much to say about how media has first of all found a way to turn off the impulse for quiet reflective thought in most of the humans on the planet, then, having done that, substitute their perversion of reality; fear, hatred, and whatever else they care to throw into their messages, overt and subliminal, that makes a person think their baser nature is really in tune with what is important in the world.

It amazes me that the few individuals who escape that influence are able to survive the loneliness, let alone be able to convince their comatose sisters and brothers that they should waken from it.

Am I preaching to the choir here? Well Duhhhh.. you are here, reading this instead of happily drowning in some soap opera reality offered to you by the television that is probably running in the background somewhere in your life.

Coincidentally, this morning two of my favourite bloggers have given us a window into the British newspaper scandal. If you are interested and have not already read Dru and Lucy's posts, I certainly learned something from them. It is bad enough that human nature is what it is, and people will not only fail to embrace those who will challenge a neat and tidy view of what everyone should be like, but will make fun of you and perhaps even try to end your life. In Britain it seems to have become institutionalized. As I suggest above, the media has tremendous power to persuade. They could choose to educate and bring the world out of the gutter. Instead, they choose the simple and quick and yes, dirty route. "Putting a fire out might be the right thing to do, but look, if I throw this bottle of gasoline (petrol) on it, look how high the flames dance! Hoorah!"

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Some who have been here before know that one of my favourite authors is Richard Bach. In his book "Illusions…" he introduced the "Messiah's Handbook". It is filled with sayings that charm me. Bach's idea is you hold a question in your mind, then open the book at random choosing left or right, then read what it has to say to you. He suggests that this works with any book, even a novel, if you open the page and point at random then start reading.

I decided this morning to check it out using my copy. The question was "would it be better for me to continue blogging my ideas, or should I stop and devote time to other pursuits?"  By the way, realizing how much I enjoy reading others' blogs, I am not likely to give this up any time soon (unless I find myself in an empty room, of course). So, I opened up my copy of the book, chose right side, and …

A big help isn't it? :)

We must not be afraid to think for ourselves, and more important, not be afraid of those turns that we must take because of the convictions those thoughts will bring to us.
That is what being true to myself means to me.

Wishes Are Children

Careful the things you say,
Children will listen.

Today, just a piece of music, an ear-worm if you will, and the only way to purge it, is to indulge it, and perhaps, to share it. Just some music.... it cannot hurt you...

Careful the tale you tell, 
That is the spell...

If you could take a pill…

Part of my very successful façade was my 'handy-man' image. The only sort of work around the house that got farmed out was electrical, of the sort that could kill you if it was done incorrectly. I have replaced lights, and toilets, sinks, taps and I have made furniture and cabinets. The landscaping around our homes and all of the planting and patios and decks were all my idea, and most of the work was done by these (now well-manicured) hands. I just finished unclogging a sluggish drain by taking it apart and cleaning it out. Some would see this as a man's work, but for me, it is about being involved in the creation of something useful and sometimes beautiful. It has never occurred to me that anything done couldn't or wouldn't have been done if I'd been born or made female. I likely would have worn gloves more often, that much is certain.

Sweetie and I both love to eat good food, and most of the time that means buying the best ingredients our budget allows, then finding a recipe to make as fine a meal as we can. It's fun, and doesn't take as much time as Madison Avenue would have you believe. Most of our meals take a half hour or less to prepare, from start to finish. Of course, we clean up together; a good opportunity to give and get hugs. :)

As you can tell, self-sufficiency is part of who I am, deep inside, but more than that, personal responsibility is part of who I am too. Getting help for my gender issues has taken me a long time. It required shifting thinking to accept that asking for help was in fact taking charge. If the only way to get a project done is to hire some help, you can bet I will be taking the project over as soon as possible, and watching over the "hired help's" shoulder too, to see how "it" was done. If something about this project doesn't work out, I won't be blaming my therapist, even if I may give her a lot of credit when (optimistically) it does, no matter what that means.

Before arriving hereabouts, I traveled around the outskirts of Blogistan where many of the gender-variant look for instant solutions to their issues. In many of these sites, you can read about how, somehow, one would be transformed into a woman, usually a beautiful one. Sometimes the transformation would be magical. In many of the scenarios, someone else decides they are going to become women against their will. Often these 'forced femme fantasies' are written as a punishment scene; the man has been abusive, or insensitive in some way and needs to be 'taught a lesson'. Of course, deep down, he really wanted to become a she, and so the uniting theme turns out to be "instant gratification" and "lack of personal responsibility".

For some time I read fictions about transition. Luckily, the sites that provide these are well organized. You can filter out the sort you don't find interesting and zoom in those you do. Eventually I just zoomed myself out, because no matter how many different ones I started to read, I couldn't see myself as a character in any of those stories.

These days, I am enjoying reading fiction about powerful women. This is probably because I enjoy the company of powerful women too. Likely it is because inside that is how I see myself. If something is going to happen to me, I want it to be my idea, and it should be something that will ultimately make me feel good about myself, right or wrong by someone else's standards.

I suspect men who read and enjoy stories of being forced or tricked into becoming women have something about their history or their character that draws them to that sort of scenario. I do not understand that sort of thinking. I would not 'take the pill', because solving my problems is my job. I created the situation by my choices. If I don't like the choices I have made, maybe that will teach me something about myself, or about others. Perhaps by making a new choice I might be making yet another mistake. If so, it is my mistake, and there is power in making your own way in this world. Giving up your freedom to make decisions and choices is defeat in my world; not something I will take lightly, the same as blaming others.

Being victimized, forced to do something is an evil in my world. Nobody has the right to do that to another. So, making it into a 'literary device' for 'solving your problems' obviously does not work for me.

Role play is just that, and when we play games it should be fun. Nothing done in play should make permanent changes in our lives, even if it might change our minds about some things.

I often wonder if some seekers from that other world stumble by this blog and are puzzled by what they see here; or what they don't see here.

No magic or instant solutions. 

Lots of personal choice and responsibility. 

The Halle way.

Homesick

Today, a ramble from a homesick Halle:

Some called it the soul, others their conscience; it is that part of me that rises up above the day-to-day to encompass some 'higher' ambition. Some externalize this, calling it 'the angel on my shoulder', or even 'God'. These same people know an evil persona on the other shoulder, both whispering in an ear. I will not get drawn into some argument about supernatural beings. I have enough demons and ghosts around me to keep you and I both awake at night, thank you very much; no need for a new and different pantheon here.

For me, those forces that keep me from rising up need no persona, that is simply the background where my life began. I cannot enjoy watching television drama, or soap opera. It has always been incomprehensible to me that there are people who do not have enough drama or sadness in their own lives. They actually find entertainment in watching such television programs or movies. It is the same story with horror movies for me. Of course, it might be like hitting your head against a wall; it feels so good when you stop.

I often wonder where my siblings are, or if I am truly an alien, an ET among humans, magically made to look like them, but forced to still live with an ET brain and ET desires. That part of me that nudges me to rise above the sadness of alien-nation imposed by humans gets me through, and reminds me of home, at least for a while.

Don't get me wrong, I love the humans, and wish them only well, but oh my, I do wish I could go home someday to tell my ET family a wondrous-strange story of life among humans.

Is it this awesome?

Spoiler Alert! If you are a Gray's Anatomy fan, but have not seen the November 3rd episode (last night), then you probably want to read this another time. 

Every now and then a fictional account becomes much more to me. A good book (thank you Calie) feeds the soul, or a movie or television program moves you to think differently about the world. I love that, and hope that some day something I create can be such a catalyst.

For those who do not (or cannot) watch this television program, Gray's Anatomy (to grossly simplify) follows the lives of the surgeons in a Seattle hospital; their careers, their love lives, and everything in between.

Last evening's episode began with an operation to 'harvest' the living heart from an accident victim who was brain-dead, for immediate transplant. The heart was put into a device in a plexiglas box designed to keep it alive and beating. A phone call reveals the planned recipient has died. The heart, with no ready donor, is left in that box, in the keeping of Dr. Christina Yang, beating and in plain sight for the remainder of the episode. At first a curiosity, then a nuisance, the heart soon becomes a symbol of all that is miraculous, and truly awesome in the world.

Christina had made a 'bucket list' for herself, and needed to shorten it. By naming each item, then comparing it to 'heart in a box', she was able to decide which on the list should stay (as awesome) or go (less awesome).

There are times in your life when you need to dream big, and believe that truly miraculous and awesome is what you deserve. I will remember that heart, still beating, alive and eventually hidden again but still awesome; giving someone who might otherwise have died that day a miracle.

A Long Time Ago...

"He has been through a lot in the last while, so please, let him sleep."

The voice came from a very young woman. It was hard to see her face clearly, almost as though her features were not fix. The voice was very kind but had a strength, a confidence that was remarkable for her size.

"Who are you?" was the only thing that came to mind, having traveled so far to talk to the little boy in his dreamtime and now being confronted by this stranger. Perhaps she was someone in his life at this age? A teacher? Not a relative, I'd remember her if she was. As her features settled down, a flash of recognition. No, she can't be here. He is way too young.

"I think I will ask you the same question; we don't talk to strangers."

My shock at seeing my own feminine self, so young, but definitely me. Turning back to look at the boy, sleeping so peacefully, then facing her I said quietly, "The boy in the bed is me. He grew up." I said it sheepishly, for some reason. " I really need to talk to him. It is very important to me."

She reacted so quickly, eye-darts flying at me "You waited a while, didn't you? A bit busy were you? What do you need to talk to a little boy about anyway? You must have long forgotten us at your age."

I must have looked shocked, or hurt. She reached out to touch my hand. "I don't know why I said that to you. I am sorry."

But she had been right. I had forgotten that little boy who, from the look of the room and the books and the few toys on my old shelf was about six maybe seven years old. It was the reason for my visit in his and my dreamtime, to try to find some understanding of how 'it' all started. I was suddenly concerned, and wondered if trying to visit my boy self was wrong, then realized that meeting her was what it was really about. "No, I should be the one to be sorry to have upset you. I had worried about angering him, but I didn't expect to see you. He needs to know how wonderful a person he is." Feeling a deep desire to connect with her, I asked "Do you have a name?"

Her soft reply  "Do I need a name? Nobody knows I am here, not even the boy." reminded me how old I was before I even recognized her as part of me. Of course the boy didn't give her a name, since she was just a part of him in this time.

"In my life, you have a name. I know you, and a few people in the world do too. I named you 'Halle'."

"That sounds nice, I suppose. It is sad for me to think that you still need me at your age; sorry, but you are a bit old aren't you?"

"Almost sixty"

"Oh my… I am sorry, I said that already didn't I?" Looking over at my child self, she gestured "He is getting restless. If you want to tell him something, please tell me and I will 'pass it along'. He is confused and upset enough with the adults in his world. He won't understand or accept anything you try to tell him."

She was almost crying, so sad and lovely, almost motherly in her attitude toward that little boy. Softly, I tried to say something she could use or tell him. "He needs to stop trying to make everything work out. He should get upset more. That little boy should react to the world instead of trying to control it. Most of all, he needs to learn to be a child and laugh and play more. Can you help him with all of that?"

A look of defeat came over her face as she sighed and quietly said. "You are all grown up and have forgotten how hard it is to be that sort of person for him. He needs all the help and love I can give him just to get through a day." Shaking her head, then she looked up at me.  "You want him to be a 'normal little boy', I think."
She paused for what seemed a long time. My child self turned in his sleep and opened his eyes briefly. She whispered. "I will try to do what you suggest. Come back again. We need to talk more I think."

"Oh yes, I will. I am on a journey. It brought me here. I did not expect to see you, Halle."

She smiled. "Thank you for the pretty name."