We were walking toward each other on the opposite side of the street when we made eye contact.
The outfit she wore was perfect for a weekday in November in our small town; daytime casual, with a bit of eye makeup, earrings that were just big enough to help frame her face along with medium-short hair that had soft bangs and enough flip to bounce as she walked. Tailored beige slacks were tucked into her light brown boots that had just a bit of heel to emphasize her purposeful stride.
A hip length early winter coat with a colourful scarf completed her look.
In spite of all, to my eye she had a slightly androgynous but very attractive look that she wore well. She returned my gaze evenly, with a hint of a smile that seemed to say she recognized me, not for who I am, but for who I could be.
My own look these days, soft black leather jacket, white scarf and black bag with the strap keeping it comfortably against my hip might say, to someone who was aware of the possibility, androgynous but male in the same way her demeanour said androgynous but female.
Had she made me? Is she someone I might have a lot in common with?
I crossed the road, and as we passed, I smiled again and said 'hello'.
No doubt this is more about my state of mind than anything else, but if she had stopped and said she was noticing there was something about me that was worth the risk of mentioning, I would have admitted finding her fascinating back.
Believing as I do that we are lead through life by a playful spirit, perhaps her playful spirit and mine might arrange for us to meet again. Maybe she will read a blog post and recognize herself.
"Please take a risk and say hello back when I say hello next time."
Wednesday, 28 November 2012
Thursday, 22 November 2012
Back and Forth
Sixty is a magical number for many reasons. Alternately, it says look back and then look forward, as though it is a pivot point somehow.
Five times as old as I was when I realized I could never pretend to be a girl again, believably anyway, as my Adam's apple first began to poke out and I sang soprano for the last time.
Four times my age when I had my first 'girlfriend'. She loved being with me 'because I was a good looking guy' and she felt safe (I honestly believed that was a compliment) with me, and her parents knew they could trust me too.
Three times the age when my second girlfriend broke up with me, almost certainly because she was tired of waiting for me to 'do her' and found a 'real man' who was 'up to' the job.
Twice the age when the plan to be a good man seemed to be working perfectly, with two beautiful kids, their fabulous mom and a mortgage and sixteen hour days to prove it.
Several times there has been a knock at the door, but luckily, just a courtesy call to remind me, not a come now, it's time. When someone close gets that call to move on and join the choir eternal (no links to the parrot sketch today Python fans; you know where to go for that), you remember that the day will come for you to do likewise.
So, time for what is next, before there is no more time.
Time spent on working out who is left here when we strip away layers that were the masquerade person, and beginning to get to know the unvarnished and amazingly fresh person under it all has not been wasted.
What is next in this context has, refreshingly, nothing to do with what needs to happen to continue life, and how I dress or even what sex is written on my driver's license.
Wouldn't it be a pleasant last thought on the way out the door to know that today's what's next turned out to be something lasting.
After all, when appearances end, there are things that ripple outward.
Others have said it better ~
Sic transit gloria mundi
This too shall pass
Five times as old as I was when I realized I could never pretend to be a girl again, believably anyway, as my Adam's apple first began to poke out and I sang soprano for the last time.
Four times my age when I had my first 'girlfriend'. She loved being with me 'because I was a good looking guy' and she felt safe (I honestly believed that was a compliment) with me, and her parents knew they could trust me too.
Three times the age when my second girlfriend broke up with me, almost certainly because she was tired of waiting for me to 'do her' and found a 'real man' who was 'up to' the job.
Twice the age when the plan to be a good man seemed to be working perfectly, with two beautiful kids, their fabulous mom and a mortgage and sixteen hour days to prove it.
Several times there has been a knock at the door, but luckily, just a courtesy call to remind me, not a come now, it's time. When someone close gets that call to move on and join the choir eternal (no links to the parrot sketch today Python fans; you know where to go for that), you remember that the day will come for you to do likewise.
So, time for what is next, before there is no more time.
Time spent on working out who is left here when we strip away layers that were the masquerade person, and beginning to get to know the unvarnished and amazingly fresh person under it all has not been wasted.
What is next in this context has, refreshingly, nothing to do with what needs to happen to continue life, and how I dress or even what sex is written on my driver's license.
Wouldn't it be a pleasant last thought on the way out the door to know that today's what's next turned out to be something lasting.
After all, when appearances end, there are things that ripple outward.
Others have said it better ~
Sic transit gloria mundi
This too shall pass
Monday, 19 November 2012
Life by the Pod
It amazes me the way information seems to come as it is needed.
Caroline's comment to the previous post to this pointed me to the podcasts of a BBC radio program Desert Island Discs, and of course now I am hooked, and having fun going through the archives of this very entertaining, long lived program.
Finding this 'new-to-me' podcast naturally (or perhaps supernaturally) brought me back to another collection of podcasts (you can choose to have them update themselves once you subscribe) that had been accumulating; Radiolab from NPR station WNYC.
Radiolab is advertised as being about the Natural Sciences, but the scope of their offerings is amazing. The latest program, a 'shorts' called "What's Up Doc?" is, appropriately, about Mel Blanc. If you don't recognize his name, you should, but that is all I will say on that topic. For me, the learning from that nineteen minutes of radio has to do with recognizing something of myself in this very talented person. The part of me that I recognized there had to do with the multiple personalities that once inhabited my mind; all of those men who helped me manage to get through life in a body I was at war with.
I do not know at this point what the sequence of guidance was that brought me out of the land of confusion over the past few years, but from today's perspective, that feeling of somehow being part of a larger and more complex whole, that somehow gives direction to what otherwise might be a random life, is real. Thank you Aadi, or Whoever...
The dark eyes looked at me level. "Don't you believe you're guided, if you really want to learn this thing?"
"I'm guided, yes. Isn't everyone? I've always felt something kind of watching over me, sort of."
"And you think you'll be led to a teacher who can help you."
"If the teacher doesn't happen to be me, yes."
"Maybe that's the way it happens," he said.
(Richard Bach: "Illusions")
Caroline's comment to the previous post to this pointed me to the podcasts of a BBC radio program Desert Island Discs, and of course now I am hooked, and having fun going through the archives of this very entertaining, long lived program.
Finding this 'new-to-me' podcast naturally (or perhaps supernaturally) brought me back to another collection of podcasts (you can choose to have them update themselves once you subscribe) that had been accumulating; Radiolab from NPR station WNYC.
Radiolab is advertised as being about the Natural Sciences, but the scope of their offerings is amazing. The latest program, a 'shorts' called "What's Up Doc?" is, appropriately, about Mel Blanc. If you don't recognize his name, you should, but that is all I will say on that topic. For me, the learning from that nineteen minutes of radio has to do with recognizing something of myself in this very talented person. The part of me that I recognized there had to do with the multiple personalities that once inhabited my mind; all of those men who helped me manage to get through life in a body I was at war with.
I do not know at this point what the sequence of guidance was that brought me out of the land of confusion over the past few years, but from today's perspective, that feeling of somehow being part of a larger and more complex whole, that somehow gives direction to what otherwise might be a random life, is real. Thank you Aadi, or Whoever...
The dark eyes looked at me level. "Don't you believe you're guided, if you really want to learn this thing?"
"I'm guided, yes. Isn't everyone? I've always felt something kind of watching over me, sort of."
"And you think you'll be led to a teacher who can help you."
"If the teacher doesn't happen to be me, yes."
"Maybe that's the way it happens," he said.
(Richard Bach: "Illusions")
Friday, 9 November 2012
Untangling
In a recent correspondence, a good friend asked me to tell her how the spiro is working out, because she couldn't tell from reading the blog. I wrote back and told her lots of detail.
That is how I do things. Correspondence with a friend is a place for lots of feelings, and this is a place for ideas, and maybe how I feel is contributing to the ideas, but it has been my choice to do things that way.
I do have a message to my younger self though, but that person might not like it.
Your best bet is to get into therapy as quickly as you can and sort out that tangled ball of stuff called your life. Taking some sort of hormone suppressant might be a really good way of giving you a chance to do the sorting. Stop beating yourself up because you can't think yourself out of this.
My feelings and impulses driving me before this past month were like a really tangled up pile of electrical cords, all the same colour and size lying on the floor of an airplane hanger. They were wrapped around and around and interlaced and pulled tight.
Like the job of untangling those cords, it was hard to know where to start the process of understanding, because there are co-related issues; lots of them. Feelings about one bleeding over into another has confused me into believing one was the cause of the other, or visa-versa. Some of these issues, on their own were hard enough to deal with, but when they were tangled so badly, feelings of guilt and shame mixed in, they seemed impossible to deal with.
The anti-androgen has calmed some things way down and individual issues can be seen in relief. Sort of like those electrical cords suddenly being a different colour, or thickness that allows you to figure out how to deal with one at a time.
Petra said once my search was like trying to solve a Rubik's Cube. This analogy of untangling cords seems more useful right now. One cord at a time.
Quite a few of them are lying on that hanger floor right now, neatly coiled and not likely to get tangled again.
So, I am getting better thank you. It is never going to be perfect. I will accept better.
Trying to live as true to myself as possible in a complicated world, just like all of you are I am sure.
Take care.
That is how I do things. Correspondence with a friend is a place for lots of feelings, and this is a place for ideas, and maybe how I feel is contributing to the ideas, but it has been my choice to do things that way.
I do have a message to my younger self though, but that person might not like it.
Your best bet is to get into therapy as quickly as you can and sort out that tangled ball of stuff called your life. Taking some sort of hormone suppressant might be a really good way of giving you a chance to do the sorting. Stop beating yourself up because you can't think yourself out of this.
My feelings and impulses driving me before this past month were like a really tangled up pile of electrical cords, all the same colour and size lying on the floor of an airplane hanger. They were wrapped around and around and interlaced and pulled tight.
Like the job of untangling those cords, it was hard to know where to start the process of understanding, because there are co-related issues; lots of them. Feelings about one bleeding over into another has confused me into believing one was the cause of the other, or visa-versa. Some of these issues, on their own were hard enough to deal with, but when they were tangled so badly, feelings of guilt and shame mixed in, they seemed impossible to deal with.
The anti-androgen has calmed some things way down and individual issues can be seen in relief. Sort of like those electrical cords suddenly being a different colour, or thickness that allows you to figure out how to deal with one at a time.
Petra said once my search was like trying to solve a Rubik's Cube. This analogy of untangling cords seems more useful right now. One cord at a time.
Quite a few of them are lying on that hanger floor right now, neatly coiled and not likely to get tangled again.
So, I am getting better thank you. It is never going to be perfect. I will accept better.
Trying to live as true to myself as possible in a complicated world, just like all of you are I am sure.
Take care.
Friday, 2 November 2012
Not Sugar Coated
Stream of consciousness stuff today ~ most unusual but it is my blog so...
Woke up at o'dark thirty and didn't feel like doing anything but making some coffee and reading how some of you are doing out there. I'd love to visit Meg and help her organize that apartment, and yes find her boobs too! :)
Last week we (doctor and I) upped the dosage of 'spiro' to 50mg. It never occurred to me in the past that having elevated blood pressure was good news, but it seems that spironolactone is first and foremost a diuretic and is prescribed for hypertension. Bonus for me is my blood pressure is in the normal range for the first time in years.
Calm and in control for the first time in a long time, and feeling that way now for a few weeks, what exactly does that mean as far as gender dysphoria? Well, unlike many who I enjoy following out there in Blogistan, it has never been about getting dressed for me; oh sure, I have dressed because it was something I had to find out ~ just how much like a man in a dress I would appear to be. The answer to that was with the proper attention to details, not at all. Very satisfying to know.
If it isn't about the clothes then what? I will calmly and rationally tell you, that even now, it is all about that offending item down 'there'. As long as I can convince myself to go one more day without fixing that problem, I will.
Oh, the sugar coating? When the sun finally rose this morning this is what greeted us. Just a dusting, but it justifies having put on the snow tires already.
It just looks like a layer of confectioner's sugar.
Woke up at o'dark thirty and didn't feel like doing anything but making some coffee and reading how some of you are doing out there. I'd love to visit Meg and help her organize that apartment, and yes find her boobs too! :)
Last week we (doctor and I) upped the dosage of 'spiro' to 50mg. It never occurred to me in the past that having elevated blood pressure was good news, but it seems that spironolactone is first and foremost a diuretic and is prescribed for hypertension. Bonus for me is my blood pressure is in the normal range for the first time in years.
Calm and in control for the first time in a long time, and feeling that way now for a few weeks, what exactly does that mean as far as gender dysphoria? Well, unlike many who I enjoy following out there in Blogistan, it has never been about getting dressed for me; oh sure, I have dressed because it was something I had to find out ~ just how much like a man in a dress I would appear to be. The answer to that was with the proper attention to details, not at all. Very satisfying to know.
If it isn't about the clothes then what? I will calmly and rationally tell you, that even now, it is all about that offending item down 'there'. As long as I can convince myself to go one more day without fixing that problem, I will.
Oh, the sugar coating? When the sun finally rose this morning this is what greeted us. Just a dusting, but it justifies having put on the snow tires already.
It just looks like a layer of confectioner's sugar.