An Onslaught of Caring

This past weekend involved me getting together with a friend who I see about once every six months (if that). We met some other friends at a bar for a few drinks, had a great time, and eventually left said bar some long hours later.

He and I were the only people left at the end of the night, and we stood in the parking lot for a good while after everyone we knew had left. Well, we didn’t just stand there. We stood there and talked. Mostly about me and what I’m going through. You know all that gender stuff I’m dealing with? Yeah, that.

His thoughts on the topic that he conveyed to me that night are as follows:

“You’re never going to look good.”
“You’re too big.”
“You’re going to be a freak.”
“I would feel weird bringing my friends around you because I don’t know how they would react.”
“You’re going to LOOK like a freak.”
“People will treat you like a freak.”
“You WILL look like a guy in a dress.”
“You’re WAY too big to look like anything BUT a guy in a dress.”
“Why would you do this??”
“DON’T DO THIS!!”

And so on, and so on.

These phrases were all fired at me during the course of our conversation, and I, having already played this sort of game with an uncle of mine back in December, deftly answered questions with dizzying clarity and alacrity, which even had my friend questioning his thoughts on all that he said (or so I would like to think… if even just a little) by the time that we left each other that night.

I had an answer to everything because these are the thoughts that bombard me fairly regularly, and I have to tell myself something to get the thoughts out of my head. I have to have some sort of answer to these comments, lest I stay festooned in a dazzling sort of hopelessness and apathy.

Additionally, every single one of the comments that my friend made was answered with nothing but a smile and a calm explanation about things – even when essentially being called a freak, or when being verbally assaulted with your worst fears from a voice outside of your own head (scary!).

Calmness prevailed, however, because I know that he cares. I know that he’s saying all of this stuff to me, believe it or not, because he cares about me and doesn’t want to see me suffer. He believes that me going through this will yield nothing but suffering, so he’s trying to “hit me with some reality”; when IN reality, these thoughts and comments may as well be surgically affixed to me. I take them with me wherever I go… even when I try my damnedest to leave them behind.

This was the same kind of caring that ensued with the aforementioned uncle in December:

“Can I just say something about all of this?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“DON’T DO THIS! You’ll be a freak! Please don’t do this!”

Ahh… the power of caring and candid honesty. It just slices right through you like 200 razors blades all at once. Thankfully this past encounter with my friend only took the wind out of my sails for a few days (I’m still feeling the effects, but I can tell that the pain is lifting a bit). In the past, something like this would set me back and stay with me for weeks… if not months. I can shrug this off a tad easier than I could in the past, and it doesn’t hurt as much, because over the exact points in your psyche that these honesty-fueled razor blades burrow into, I have a lot of scar tissue to cushion the blow.

However… it still hurts. Just not as much as it once did. I suppose that’s something to be thankful for. That, and for people who care. I can’t NOT respect honesty, and I certainly don’t want people to lie to me about what they think. I just wish that hearing one’s honest opinion of me and my life wasn’t like getting repeatedly kicked in the face sometimes.

My best to you.

So...

Just what the fuck am I going to do with myself in regards to the whole gender thing? I can’t see any way that I will ever start living my life as a woman. I mean, I guess I could really start scraping things together and just do it; but will that make me happier, or more miserable? I think that I want to do it when I have the chance to actually go and have the surgery soon after doing it, otherwise I’ll just be prolonging the agony of living in the world as a woman with a penis (and oh, how that's not too inconvenient or anything... if even just in terms of getting dressed and hiding things).

Though it's not like I’m not "hiding things" now, but in the scenario I just mentioned, all the world will see me and be much more aware of everything; and at the moment I'm sort of duping people into thinking I'm a guy... and pretty much making things easier on myself at the same time. (By the by, this only works because everyone who's close to me, knows I'm trans. If they didn't, the above described scenario would be quite hellish.)

I don’t know. I just know that I have to make a decision. If I’m not going to go through with all of this, will it be enough? I wish I could just have the bottom surgery, keep living like this, and if I ever want to transition socially, I could just do it.

It’s tough because I really don’t want to live without the anonymity factor going on. I want to be able to just walk into any place that people go, and not feel like all eyes are on me because I’m "the freak". I want to be able to interact with people and have them judge me on my interactions, NOT on the fact that I happen to be a 6’4” woman.

Well, if I’m lucky they’ll see me that way. If not, they’ll just see me and judge me as a transperson. And... well... whatever.

I have no doubt that these answers will come to me, but for now, I have no idea what they are. This is especially so because money is SUCH a factor with all of this.

I wasn't sure where I was going with this, but at least I posted. It's been a while. I hope all is well with you, whomever you happen to be. :)