~ ~ ~ one ~ ~ ~

While contemplating the parallels with the book "the host" referred to in last week's post, it occurred to me that a shift in internal identification has taken place while I wasn't paying any attention. "We" don't need a miraculous 'happy ending'.

He is gone

I looked on painfully as the pretend-male, seemingly logical part of this team worked so hard to think himself out of a complicated, contradictory life. Disastrously, yet out of necessity, his fabricated persona ran the show and did it so very convincingly. Lately that male persona, the last of the façade it seems, was running out of steam. I could tell because everything 'he' thought and felt became mine, yet that straw man did not have the power to survive. I do. He hurt and wanted and it felt like insanity, even though it was just more of the same; almost sixty years of turmoil in a pressure cooker venting constantly that he had helped me survive.

Our therapist assured us many times, we are a good person, full of love; doing the best we can. Now we... no, I am convinced that being a good person to the rest of the world is very well and good, but I need to stand up for myself too, and love myself. Nobody else can know what I need in order to be whole. More importantly, doing what is good for others is often toxic for me.

I have always thought that the point of writing here was mostly for others, so they might know that a personality spanning both sides of the gender divide, like two drivers taking turns on a long trip, can exist and perhaps thrive. I am glad to have this blog now as a record of how "we" became "I". 

Today, late, but not too late, there is one person.  Despite living in a body that society, testosterone and the needs of a lifetime lived by a synthetic male personality created, it turns out "he" really isn't needed now. I am this complex, logical, caring, whole-hearted person in charge of making the choices that can be made here. There is nobody else to blame or credit living inside with me. 
Perhaps the last key came from you Ellena, when in your comment you referred to a difference between "being a body and having a body". Thank you for following your desire to comment that day!

I Am Not My Body

Time will tell what further baggage from the past can and must be changed or eliminated. "I" am determined that my love for my sweetie and our children (and soon, our grandchild!) will be honoured. 

Life won't ever be easy. It isn't supposed to be. Yet amazingly, I'm convinced making good choices comes down to one complex ingredient.  

love