Face Time

From the moment we’re conceived, there is change. It is a natural and immutable part of existence. (Yes, change is an immutable fact.) From one day to the next we are not the same. I daresay from one moment to the next we are not the same. Even if that change is imperceptible from moment to passing moment, it’s still there. You take a million of these moments, and the amount of change that takes place becomes pronounced and profound.

The fact that you will not be the same person tomorrow you were yesterday is a curse, a blessing, and a promise. We grow up, we get older, we look at ourselves in the mirror and don’t recognize ourselves. We try to think of who we were even just five years ago and it’s difficult. Trying to put yourself in your own shoes 10 or 20 years in the past is almost an impossibility. We remember moments from those times, but they are now perceived through a vastly different lens. The lens of somebody else. That is how much we change.

I think of myself just five years ago and I don’t know who I’m looking at. Any more than that is a blur. And when you add major life moments into that mix… births, deaths, the experience of new people who become a major part of your world, new jobs, new struggles, new victories… the velocity at which change occurs is heightened. These events speed us toward the next incarnation of ourselves.

While I haven’t had the change that’s instilled through meeting the love of my life or starting a family, I have other milestones that have literally transformed me. I went through the raging tumult of grappling with gender identity and my ultimate acquiescence to the acceptance that I’m trans… and then the many years of not only trying to deal with it, but trying to embrace myself and love myself despite the fact that all I had inside me was a gnashing hatred of who I was. Even while knowing that I’m actually a pretty decent person by all standards, the self-hatred you go through from being trans truly alters who you are. It is a meat grinder that some people do not escape from. It wrings out your hope and sanity and leaves you less than whole.

BUT… once I accepted the fact that THIS is who I am, I went on to address the circumstance. I sought the way to treat the horrid feelings that being trans hurled at me. I began taking hormones. My body then literally changed in wonderful ways. Not only that, but the chaos swirling in my brain was calmed, at least a little.

Then, not even a year ago, I had bottom surgery to help me feel better. And WOW did it! After adjusting to everything, the regularity of depression that interrupted my world has been not existent, and I haven’t even been down or bluesy in months. This is UNHEARD of for me. I feel like I don’t even know who I am at times because of the absence of these bad feelings. And it’s wonderful.

And now I’m having facial surgery later today. To…day. I have navigated my way to another major and monumental leap forward, and it is now on my doorstep. And this, perhaps oddly to some, especially considering my last surgery, is the scary one. This is the one that truly frightens me and has me filled with a whole mess of feelings that I’m still trying to sort out even though it’s mere hours away.

On one hand, I am SO excited to see how this goes, and I most certainly KNOW that this is indeed a step I need to make in my life… because I’ve existed in the world as I am now for long enough to know that all of the steps I have taken aren’t enough. The life I have now isn’t the life I want for myself, and I have to strive to achieve that life because what am I doing with my existence if I’m NOT heading in the direction I need to go and fiercely fighting to get there?

But it’s trippy and scary as fuck to not know what you’re going to look like at this time tomorrow. It’s kind of terrifying to know that how the world treats me in just a short time may be drastically different. It’s also awful to think that I’m going through all of this trouble, and the pain and recovery of surgery, and the staggering financial expense of it all, and there is most certainly a chance that it won’t be enough and it won’t make a lick of difference in how the world treats me. The uncertainty of it is overwhelming.

Add into this the fact that I’m about to surgically alter this constant companion of mine… my face. The one that looks back at me in the mirror every day. While it has changed very much over the years, this seems to me to be something very different. As I’m thinking of this and typing this, tears are actually filling my eyes. There is a bit of mourning here, and there was for my previous surgery as well. But the mourning is more pronounced here, because with the last one I knew that if all went okay I would at last feel right… and I do… very much so and despite some complications.

This next surgery is different for some reason. Part of me really loves my face. Part of me wants to claw it off my skull. It’s such a strange and conflicting space to exist in.

And the really weird thing is that my weight has fluctuated greatly over the years, and when we gain or lose weight, even a little bit sometimes, our faces change. Drop 40 pounds, and you WILL look drastically different. I know, because I’ve done so. Is this any different?

I guess there’s something more to it when you’re talking about altering and shaving down and sculpting your skull. Maybe it’s the permanence of it all. But even with that, the passing of time is somewhat permanent as well. 45-year-old me has a face that has permanently been altered from 25-year-old me, and that’s just through the passing of time (well, and some hormones thrown in there too).

For some reason, and somehow, I’m both wildly excited about this next leap forward, but I’m also filled with a sense of sadness about it. Right now, with it racing up on me I’m just trying to hope for the best and stay positive about it all. After all, this is something I NEED to do with this life… I mean EVERY inch of me is telling me this… but it doesn’t mean that it’s not scary.

It’s been such a strange year, and it’s about to get way stranger. Though strange does not equal bad. That’s something I must keep in mind. 

Now my job is to stay optimistic, see this as a finish line of sorts that I’m crossing after a decades-long marathon, revel in that, and keep this mindset and the joy of completion with me.

Okay, I’m ready.

Goodbye old face, and long live the new one.

Much much love to any and everyone who has gotten me to this point. I’m thankful beyond the scope of words. 


Wishing you all the most happiness you can squeeze from this existence.

 

Before the Dawn

"Growth is painful. Change is painful. But nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don't belong."
                                                                               – Mandy Hale

There seems to be a lot of debate and thought lately about what makes us who we are? What truly defines us? Is it our appearance? Our genes? Our DNA? Our mind? Do they all play a part, and if so, how important is each part?

As someone who is trans, the thought of identity and what makes us who we are is a constant. Part of that is because I feel in eternal discord, so I am trying my best to rectify that, and how do you fix something you don't understand?

And so I seek understanding.

Another reason I'm bombarded with these thoughts is because I insanely read comments on trans stories on the internet. People cry out that no one can be trans and we're all mentally ill and unstable because of DNA or genetics or <<insert reason here>>.


All that said, I come FIRMLY down in the camp that we are who our mind says we are. Our mind governs what we do and how we do it. It governs what we say, how we act, and really, isn't ALL of that who we truly are?

With that in mind, I have been out as trans to everyone in my social world for years now. I have received a host of reactions to it. Thankfully most of them have been good.

The thing that's strange about it is that I think many of the people in my life accept the fact that I'm "trans", but there's no real thought as to what that means. It's like, "You're trans and I support you," and while I appreciate that immensely, a step seems to be missed.


By saying I'm trans, I'm basically saying, "Yeah, I look like a guy, but I'm not. In fact, I'm not at ALL what I appear to be. My brain is female, and to me that means that I—who I am at my CORE—is female."

It took a loooooooonnnnnnnnngggggggg time and a massive amount of agony to come to that realization, and even more time and agony for me to learn to start embracing it. It's not that I didn't explore other options. It's not that I didn't scream and cry for it to be other things. It's not that I didn't go to seven different therapists to try to find out what was really underneath it all and why I was having these feelings.

After all of that, it became clear I was having these feelings because I'm trans. I was having these feelings because I'm a woman, but yet I look the way I do. It's enough to cause self-hatred and depression to envelop you like a shroud. It's enough to make you want to die. Literally. It's nothing that anyone would want for themselves, for it's just a magnificent amount of pain.


Okay, I don't mean to get all morose with this post, but I need to establish that this is not something I dreamed up overnight. This is not some fanciful whim I flew off on. This is DECADES of self-examination. And now I'm here, trying to find a way to be at ease with who I am, and have those in my world feel the same.

Yet I'm assailed with reminders that people can't let it go. That people can't see me for who I am. That people still call me the wrong name and say the wrong things about me. That people assume that I'm some guy and that I'll get all the "guy" things and have no idea about the "girl" things... whatever the hell that genderist bullshit is. That some dude will come up to me to tell me how "hot" some woman is because, I don't know, this is what dudes do (or creeper dudes do at the very least)? It's all fucking maddening.

But, outside of that, there are people who see me for who I am despite my appearance. They get ME. They understand ME. And they want to do right by ME. So there is hope, and things on this front get better every day. This is something I need to hold onto and keep in mind.

However, even with these people doing right by me, there is still the pain I feel every single day. There is still the discord. Nothing is in harmony with me. Everything is off kilter, and it's a terrible way to go through life.

And so I seek to get that harmony. I seek to match my outside with who I truly am. And this is happening in a major way just two weeks from now, because I'm having surgery. I'm having "the" surgery, as a friend recently put it. It has a lot of monikers: SRS, GRS, GCS, bottom surgery. Yep, that one. I'm having it. I couldn't be more excited about something, and I also couldn't be more terrified.

I think the excitement aspect here speaks for itself. I know this isn't going to cure all that ails me as a person, but it's a pretty big fucking bit of medicine for my soul. It will help. Immensely. I will no longer be cursed with feeling constantly wrong. A big part of me will be fixed. I will be able to just sit and watch TV at night and relax and not be in mental pain about my discord even while doing something so supremely mundane. That will be beyond amazing.

I'm terrified because it's surgery, and I've never had surgery. And with surgery you can have complications. You can have things go horribly wrong. There's a lot of trust with this, and you just have to hope and pray that things go well.

But even without that, there's the pain of recovery. There's the reliance on other people (which I am SO not good with) while I am healing. There's just the thought of SO much with this that it overwhelms and staggers.

On top of all of this, in preparation for surgery, I had to stop hormones two weeks ago, and I have been on them for over 12 straight years with no breaks. My brain and body forgot what it was like to be hammered with testosterone and not filled with estrogen. In short, I'm a catastrophic, emotional, hormonal mess. I cry basically every day, partly because my body chemistry is SO out of whack right now, but also because ALL of the awful feelings I had before starting hormones—before getting my body in tune with my head—is all coming back at me with a vicious ferocity. My skin feels different, my brain feels different, and my hair is already coming out in clumps again. I feel like all of the progress I've made physically in the past 12 years is rapidly being eroded away, and throughout all of this, I feel like I'm completely alone in contending with this horribleness.

I know people love and support me and they will be there to help me out, and I'm SO thankful. But this is an every-second-of-every-day thing with me now, and no one can keep up with that, nor would I want them to, because they have their own lives to live, and I need to find a way to muddle through mine.

Thankfully these feelings and this physical catastrophe that I'm going through should only be for a few more weeks, then I can get back on track feeling immensely better about me, my identity, and who I am as a person. I just hope I don't lose ALL of my hair by then.

It's overwhelming to think of this thing I've wanted for so long—to feel right—is only 14 days away. It's almost like, what do I want out of life after this??

I know there's more to go with my transition and getting me feeling better and better, but when something you needed has been SO out of reach for SO long, when it's finally on your doorstep, it's almost too much to process. And yet I'm doing my best to. Every minute of every day. The thoughts have swallowed me.

I think that's all I can say about this tonight, but my brain is going MACH 5 since this has been scheduled, and I get that out through writing, so I may just pop up on here a time or two before the big day.

In the meantime, thanks to all who have helped me or someone like me to get to this point. It's a hard enough journey as is, so it's nice to have some pals to help you along the way. Many thanks and much love.

And now I grit my teeth and continue trudging my way through this last bit of darkness before the dawn. I'm hoping for a glorious sunrise.

All the best. Always.

Therapy and Fairy Tales

I mentioned in my previous post how I've started therapy again, and briefly touched on the fact that it's been amazingly helpful thus far. Now I have been to at least six different therapists over the course of my life, but this therapist asked me to do something I never did before.

She asked if I would be interested in doing some expressive therapy, which, in this case with me being me and me doing what I do, centered around writing. I said I would very much be interested in it, as I want to write more, this was a great excuse to write, and the only way to catch the writing bug again is to write and write until you get it.

The writing assignment she gave me was this: Write a fairy tale about yourself.

It seemed like it could be a lot of fun, but I was waiting to write it because I wanted to give it some thought first. Then my appointment got cancelled due to the president being in town last week and it shutting down like five city blocks to the plebs like myself (side note: *GROAN*). So this writing assignment slipped out of my head... until last night... at midnight. And my appointment was today.

I knew it would probably be fine if I explained things and completed the assignment for my session next week, but I figured I would give it a go. So, I sat here, on my sofa, at one in the morning, and words just came out of me, and they came out of me in rhymes for some reason (though I guess some fairy tales do rhyme... maybe?... idk).

Annnnnnnyway... while this is stupid rhyming verse, and is actually kinda embarrassing, I'm going to share it below. I figured it's as good an update as any as to where I'm at now. Additionally, dealing with embarrassment has always been tough for me, so in an effort to get better with it, here's something potentially embarrassing that I will then have to deal with.

Lastly, when I was done writing this last night, as cheesy as this writing may be, a giant smile smeared itself across my face and I literally said out loud a few times, "That was awesome. That was fucking awesome." This is because a LOT of feelings came out of me, and writing became some sort of solace for me once again.

It also made me realize that I had forgotten one of my most favorite feelings in the world—getting in a zone with words spilling out of you, and you don't know where you are or what time it is. You eventually look up from writing (sometimes hours later), and you have something completed, and, on top of all that, you feel emotionally exhausted and cleansed.

God, do I fucking love that feeling.

So here it is. Make what you will of it. Much love to you all.

Fixing the Broken Girl 

Once upon a time, there was a girl,
Who looked like a boy,
And everyone talked to her like she was a boy
And everyone treated her like she was a boy

And so she acted in this role as best as she could

She learned all the Dos
And she learned all the Don’ts
She learned the You Shoulds
And she learned the You Won’ts

She learned what it was like
To not ever fit in
This lesson she learned

Many times and again

This filled her with hurt
This filled her with rage
This feeling she felt…
Like trapped in a cage

She battered around it
And clanged off its walls
It broke her and bent her
Her movement, turned crawls

Now limping, she falters
On broken down bones
And with each step she takes
She stifles back moans

But onward she plods
Into what, she knows not
No other option to choose from
This… is her lot

But striving for, working for,
Fighting for more
It’s what she must do now
She arrived at the door

And on she must go
As scared as she is
For what she does now
‘tis no way to live

So kick the door down
And do so with laughter
It’s the only way you can ever find
Your Happily Ever After

The End 

The Retreat

As we all know, life can tend to get a little nuts. From time to time we all feel like we’re caught in the clutches of a raging shitstorm, getting battered and tossed about like we’re out to sea, riding through a hurricane in a dinghy.

It’s during these times, when you’re getting hit with blow after blow and you’re stumbling and reeling in every misguided direction, that you need to stop everything, slow it all down, and regroup.

When 2011 began, I was caught in such a maelstrom. I was being whipped and whooped by life, no matter which way I turned. In an effort that I thought would cultivate momentum and push me through the beating, I blindly plodded forward, making poor decision after poor decision and completely losing myself in the process. I was essentially a shattered shell of a person as last year began, and when something is shattered, you have two choices: either you throw it all out, OR you start the laborious process of piecing it all back together again. Since I didn’t really want to toss away my existence, I chose the latter route.

So, how do you start putting your life and your own self back together? Well, the very first thing you have to do is to get out of the storm. You have to retreat. You have to seek shelter. It’s impossible to build anything in the middle of a torrent.

For me this meant completely pulling back from social interactions and from people in general. Not that all of the people in my life were causing problems for me or anything like that, it was just that they all contributed to this din that was slowly crushing me. I had to remove myself from it and find center again. I had to find myself again, specifically the self that existed outside of all exterior influences. In short, I had to quiet all the noise so that I could better listen to the voice inside me that was growing more and more faint.

So, this past year I spent a whole hell of a lot of time alone. Not that I was secluded like a shut-in (side note: “Secluded Like a Shut-In” would be an excellent name for an album), but my social interactions were extremely limited. It was a lonely year, it was a sad year, and it was a very tough year to get through. By the end of it, however, I had quit smoking, I had lost weight, and I had saved a small but decent-sized amount of money. Most importantly, though, I had found my center again. I found the parts of me that were completely lost. I reestablished my identity on my own terms by figuring out who I was and who I wanted to be, and through that I regained my confidence.

I simply cannot stress enough how much confidence governs one’s life. As an example, I was on a trip once, cruising along on an empty mountain road, when I got hit with a mild panic attack that caused me to suddenly question my driving ability. Now I consider myself to be an above average driver, so it’s not like I had any doubts about this stuff before. It was just a rare occurrence that struck me one afternoon, and because of it, not surprisingly, I started to drive a little less straight, I had to pay a lot more attention, and the very simple act of rolling along this lonely, serene mountain road became a herculean task.

To get past this, I first had to stop these insane thoughts from coming at me. Then I had to simply trust myself again. I had to remind myself that I’ve spent two decades and hundreds of thousands of miles behind the wheel of a car. I had to know that I could do this and that it really was no big deal. Once I did that, once I trusted in myself, I didn’t have to think about the process of driving at all, and I just coasted along merrily.

The point to all of this, is that when you don’t trust yourself, everything gets 100 times more difficult, and when last year began I had absolutely zero trust in myself. So I retreated from everything, pulled away from most, and wound up regaining my edge, my mojo, or whatever other word you want to use for it. I began trusting not only in myself again, but also in who I am. By doing this, I rediscovered the following things about me.

Your smile is endearing.

You’re quick and you’re clever.

You can make people laugh.

You’re a delightful smart ass.

You can handle what life throws you.

You don’t care a smidge about what people who are unimportant to you think about you.

You can laugh at yourself and at the problems of day-to-day life.

You are able to understand deeply and love unconditionally.

You are a fountain of untapped potential.

You are worthy of any and all kinds of love.

And finally…

There is no one else exactly quite like you. Embrace it.

Yeah, 2011 was a BRUTAL year for me, but wow was it important. I think you can probably understand why.

I hope all is well in your world, that you know all of the many good things about you, and that you are feeling supremely confident. There really is no other way to live.