What is so special?

It has puzzled me that the urge to write here has waned. Of course, the transcription process over at On the Other Hand is taking time, which partially explains it.

My blogging process has usually involved writing what felt right on the day, taking inspiration from within seriously, and whenever possible making these letters to a younger self relevant to the issues of the transsexual doing his/her best to get along with life. In that spirit, today it feels right to put down some thoughts on the subject of finally ending the façade forever.

Years ago, a woman who used to visit this site frequently commented there is nothing special about being a woman.

The reply then should have been, and most forcefully now, is (chosen carefully from my grandmother's colourful collection of euphemisms) BALONEY! 

Her comment offended me. In my heart she might as well have said there is nothing special about being aligned with your soul.

Sure, there's nothing special about seeming to be a woman; any good actor can manage it with the right makeup artists and coaching. Being a woman is quite different and she was so wrong, because now in my seventh week since giving up any pretence of maleness, being the woman I am is special to me beyond belief.

My answer to her statement at that time was to say that I felt I was a woman, which she scoffed at. Perhaps the real issue was the whole nonsense of thinking my heart's desire was something that needed to be justified; that convincing her or anyone else was important.

These days a common response of folks to whom I am explaining what is going on here is to say how brave I am to be doing this. To some, I tell them doing this is an act of desperation. I came to the point where losing everything else was preferable to continuing the lie.

It seems to me that those I meet are accepting me for who I am because they can tell this is the most natural thing I've ever done. Finally I am comfortable in who I am. Projecting confidence and joy to those around me is easier than ever. This past weekend I found myself slightly overdressed in a large crowd. People were checking me out and I remembered how it would have felt only months before, and then almost as quickly thought I'm a woman who is standing out in this crowd because I am tall, have a good body, and am dressed nicely. Get used to it!

Here is a piece of very simple music that is very dear to me right now. It brings tears to my eyes.

How Could Anyone?

How could anyone ever tell you
You were anything less than beautiful?
How could anyone ever tell you
You were less than whole?
How could anyone fail to notice
That your loving is a miracle?
How deeply you're connected to my soul?

from If You See a Dream
Words and music by Libby Roderick
c Libby Roderick Music 1988
BMI All Rights reserved.

Are there no prisons?

How amazing the interconnected pathways of thought; where one cautionary tale begets another. 

This morning Dru Marland posted otter madness, a poem inspired by finding that someone who fishes on the canal system (where Dru has her home now) suggested that otters need to be 'controlled'. These anglers say otters pose a threat to the fishing of the area; 'an aquatic disaster'. If they could say so, I suppose the otters would likely feel the same way about a certain species that always takes more food than it can possibly eat from the world, and leaves every environment it populates worse off than it was before. 

Regular readers here might know that I am a big fan of Dickens' A Christmas Carol; a story of radical transformation. Thinking about those ignorant anglers in Dru's poem put me in mind of The Ghost of Christmas Present's parting gift to Scrooge:

"Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask," said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe, "but I see something strange and not belonging  to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?"

"It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it," was the Spirit's sorrowful reply. "Look here."

From its foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment. 

"Oh Man! look here. Look, look, down here!" exclaimed the Ghost. 

They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish, but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread. 

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude. 

"Spirit! are they yours?" Scrooge could say no more. 

"They are Man's," said the Spirit, looking down upon them. "And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!" cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. "Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And hide the end!"

"Have they no refuge or resource?" cried Scrooge. 

"Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. "Are there no workhouses?"

The bell struck twelve. 

I am suddenly reminded of the race for candidacy for the U.S. presidency ...

Own It

It is hard to move beyond some parts of your life; things you have done, said, and even things you have been will haunt you like a ghost.

The way you felt about yourself and your life can leave you with health issues to deal with. Some of us drink, eat, or even take controlled substances to numb. If we have done these things for a long time, we may have mobility issues. Habits of a lifetime are hard to break. Friendships ruined are difficult or impossible to mend. Family might be lost or at least relationships become so damaged that there seems to be no way past the divisions.

Who we are seems to be a combination of all of these things, some of them hard or even impossible to shake. If I am a recovering drug or alcohol abuser, I will always have to own that. Every day, every moment is my time to show resolve to be the person I am now, and not someone who suffered in circumstances I have moved beyond.

What we do now, what we say and believe now is what needs to matter to us. We must own all of who we are and that must include what we bring with us, no matter how painful.

For your own good, own it all, and move past and beyond to show yourself and the world who you really should have been all along.

My New Weblog

Some folks I chat with have wondered, now that there is only one-spirit, not two here at this blog, whether it is time for a name change, or maybe a new blog to take me through my transition. 

That is still a good question and if you have an opinion, please feel free to chime in to give your two cents worth. 

The new blog referred to in the title has a very different purpose. I call it On the Other Hand. 

The first post on the site explains what it is about. Briefly, it will be a collection of short articles I wrote in a 4"x 6" six ringed notebook in the years 1987 and 1988. I uncovered them just in the past few months while setting up my apartment. 

It was quite startling to read these little gems, for although they have no trans content, they are quite relevant to the spiritual path taken to get me here. 

From that point of view, they belong here, but there are many dozens of them... ok, 118 at least (numbered and bound with string). Then there are numerous random ideas and such, that may or may not make it here... so much material. They deserve a special place. 

Hard for me to believe it was I who wrote it all. So long ago; another person. 

They are letters from a younger self, to me now, the woman I so desperately needed to become.