Riding the Storm Out: My Year in Review

My, isn't that a portentous (or pretentious) title!  As usual, I am looking back on the past year and looking ahead to the next one.  And what a year it has been.

Overshadowing all else was my wife's passing in April.  Her health had been worsening for some time, and I knew she would not be with us for very much longer.  Still, I was holding on to her for dear life and trying to enjoy every minute as best I could.  The stroke happened early one morning, and though I had an ambulance on the way within minutes, the stroke was severe and the damage could not be totally mitigated.  She lasted for four weeks, the last two of which were at home.  Those weeks were indescribably difficult.  Friends rallied around us, though.  Her last evening was spent with her family present, and I was with her to the very end.  I am glad she is no longer suffering (and how long she had suffered!), but her absence is a hole in my life, and I seem to miss her more, not less, as time goes on.

Meanwhile, though I vacillated often, my transition to full-time womanhood kicked up a notch.  By late spring, I was spending almost all my time outside of work as Wendy.  I got a female (though convertible) hairstyle and continued with the hair removal.  I saw a healthcare provider about starting feminizing hormone treatments.  And I revealed my intention to transition to my family; painfully, that didn't work out as well as I would have liked.

Joyfully, I have made new friends this year who are already very dear to me.  And, as if by magic, a trans community has sprung up here in the Tri-Cities, right when I needed it!  No, I'm not so egotistical that I think it happened just for me, but I'm so grateful that it's there and I'm a part of it.  I actually have participated in four public social justice events this year (including TDOR), and two Pride celebrations, which is huge for me.

Lastly, despite the great loss and turmoil (plus a chronic illness), I had a lot of fun this year!  I discovered that, for an introvert, I really like people in my life.  There were many enjoyable parties and soirées, theater outings, a beach vacation, and even some opportunities to rock and roll!

Now I am poised for a new year that may be almost as tumultuous as last year.  I am still mourning the loss of my wife; I still wear my wedding band, and I have yet to spread her ashes.  I am about to step up my transition by beginning hormones in a couple of weeks.  My relationship with my family is almost nonexistent; though my mother is communicating with me again, my father and brother are decidedly not.  I so far have no more than a vague plan on transitioning at work, legal name change and other important matters.  The timing for these things hinge on several other issues I won't go into here.

I experienced a lot of loss in 2015, and I expect more in 2016.  My life is changing drastically, and I often feel that I am at sea, tossed about in a violent storm.  Who knows where (and who) I will be when the storm is spent?

A Letter From the Front

 I haven't posted anything here for a while.  It's been hard lately, and I have frankly been too dispirited to write much.  My wife passed in April, but it wasn't until September that I really felt myself slipping into an emotional trough.  September is the time of year that I traditionally start feeling down, due to a number of factors like bad childhood memories and seasonal changes.  It's been worse this year.

I've been tiptoeing toward transition for a while now.  Despite constant self-doubt and fear, I keep moving steadily in that direction.  I have now reached the point where the rubber begins to hit the road--making life changes that are not reversible, at least not entirely or easily.  And now I begin to understand the cautionary words "only transition if you have to".  I understand why so many trans people suicide--though I hasten to add that I'm not suicidal myself.  But this is when you start to learn how much you're going to lose, and how big the obstacles are in your way.  It is so daunting--and yet, going back doesn't seem to be an option either; at least, my mind quickly turns away from that thought.

I'm learning that I may really and truly lose my family, in part or in total.  That's incredibly sad, and I feel so bereft, especially so soon after the loss of my wife.  I go to work every day and try to imagine transitioning on the job--can imagine the hostility and isolation I'm likely to face from my coworkers.  I'm not sure I could stand that.  If I can't keep my job, I might have to move away.  But the thought of having to move away from my church community (my chosen family), and especially having to leave my house, so full of the presence of my beloved, is more than I can bear.  I truly feel caught between a rock and a hard place.

I feel isolated, and yet I hesitate to reach out to friends.  I'm so tired of being the needy one.  First I was the newlywed whose bride had serious cancer, then the caregiver to a wife in declining health, then the widow, and always the struggling transgender person.  I feel like an emotional leech.  I'm really tired of my seemingly never-ending troubles, tired of talking about myself, tired of depression.  Sick and tired of being sick and tired.  I want to be the one who says "it gets better", the one who gives support instead of always needing it.  Yet, here I am, sticking my hand in my heart and spilling it all over the page (well, I'm not so depressed that I can't throw in a musical reference).

I wrote the above late last night.  It's morning now, and things seem somewhat better and brighter, at least for a little while.  I will continue to put one foot in front of the other, because I don't know what else to do.

Darkness only stays at nighttime
In the morning it will fade away
Daylight is good at arriving at the right time
It's not always gonna be this gray
All things must pass
All things must pass away

Lifequake

How does one decide to totally upend one's life?  This is a question that has occupied my mind a lot lately.  Readers of this blog will know that I've been wrestling with the idea of transitioning to full-time womanhood for several months now.  I know this is a very big deal, most likely the biggest decision I will ever make.  And I also can see that transitioning would not be easy, or fun, and carries the risk of losing family, friends, and employment.  Given that I am big-decision-averse, I have really been struggling with this.  How does one make a decision this huge?

A curious thing has been happening for the last couple of years.  While the decision-making part of my brain is struggling with this question, the rest of me seems to be going full steam ahead.  Especially since the passing of my dear wife, the pace of change is accelerating.  I still work as a male, but most of the rest of my time is spent as Wendy.  I already have a very tentative and generalized timeline for transition forming.  I'm wrapping up hair removal and thinking about hormones.  Every plan that I make includes a consideration of how my transition would affect it.  Meanwhile, decision-making brain is still asking, "Should I or shouldn't I?"

I guess it's time for me to admit to myself that this is happening.  I want to waffle and hedge and qualify, but if I'm honest, I know that I am transitioning.  I tremble with fear at the immensity of it, but I continue to move forward.  As I stumble toward this lifequake, I'm thankful for the supportive friends and community I have.  I'm going to need all the help and support I can get.

Reality Check

Note: I recently suffered a serious loss, but I'm not going to write about that now.  The wound is still too fresh.

The past couple of weeks I have experienced an unprecedented amount of life as a woman.  Parties, lunches, Zumba, candlelight vigils, and even performing music on the stage.  I'm very out these days...but only in select company.  Specifically, among my church friends and in the local LGBT community.  Sometimes I get caught up in the euphoria of being Wendy and start to forget that my very existence is threatening to some people.  If I'm seriously thinking about living full-time as a woman, I feel like I need to bring myself back to earth by remembering times when I didn't experience such warm acceptance.

Not that I have experienced any real threats or violence so far--thank goodness--but there have been times when I knew I was clearly an alien presence to someone.  A couple of examples will suffice.

One Sunday afternoon a couple of years or so ago, I decided to go out shopping.  I was dressed very casually with the intent to blend in.  I wasn't very successful, apparently.  As I emerged from a store, I encountered two well-dressed middle-aged ladies, obviously fresh from church.  As soon as they saw me, one audibly gasped and dropped her bag in shock.  The other indignantly exclaimed, "Look at him!"  I chose to ignore them and walked to my car, but I was utterly humiliated.  I lost all heart to shop and went home soon after, my tail between my legs.

More recently, I was enjoying a potluck lunch after the service at church when a couple I'd never seen before sat down near me.  This was their first time visiting our church, and a friend introduced me to them.  I smiled and greeted them both.  The wife smiled warmly and said, "Nice to meet you!", but the husband did not speak and refused to look at me.  I could tell I made him very uncomfortable, and he in turn made me very uncomfortable.  After a few minutes he got up and left, never acknowledging my presence in any way.

As you can see, I have never really experienced anything earth-shatteringly bad (yet).  Just enough to remind me that the world isn't all sunshine and rainbows, and that the farther I walk down this road, the more of these prickly moments I can expect to experience.

Hair

I pause in the midst of a very heartrending and stressful crisis to talk about something totally different and seemingly inconsequential--hair.  After many years of wishing and procrastination, I had my hair done professionally.  More specifically, I had it cut in a feminine style and colored.  No more wigs!

It's amazing how the right haircut can make you feel wonderful!  In a sea of personal upheaval, it is a little buoy of light.  But it's also a rather large milestone in my undeclared, not yet settled-upon, yet ongoing, transition to womanhood.  Though I can make it look masculine for work, by default it is definitely a feminine hairstyle.

I had a new feeling the other day when going from a female gender presentation to male.  Often I feel sad when I go back to guy mode, but this time I felt like I was getting into drag (or drab: DRessed As a Boy).  In other words, I felt like presenting as female was my default and that presenting as male required work and was something of a disguise.  This seems pretty significant to me.

Before this, I rarely looked at myself in the mirror when not in full-on Wendy mode; I really didn't like the guy I saw.  Now, I find I'm looking at myself and smiling.  With the new hairstyle and my beard shadow gone, I can see a woman in the mirror, even without makeup on.  That feels so right.

To Be "Real"

Well, I try my best to be just like I am
But everybody wants you to be just like them.
                                  -Bob Dylan, "Maggie's Farm"

From my earliest days in the transgender community, I have occasionally encountered people--always male-to-female transsexuals who are living as women full-time--who have regarded anyone who is not on their path with condescension and even scorn.  To be more specific, they regard people like me--who are not actively in transition to full-time womanhood, and/or who can only outwardly manifest their inner woman part-time--are just wannabes and not real transgender people.  Some even state that those who are not full-time have no right to call themselves transgender.

I have to admit, this attitude really raises my hackles--so much so, in fact, that I am having to try very hard to make this blog entry something other than a string of profanities.  Yes, it usually takes a great deal of struggle, pain, and loss to transition.  Kudos to those who make it through.  But transition is not everyone's path.  Some simply don't need to.  They have found another way to be at peace with their gender identity.  Others can't, because of life circumstances and obligations.  Some, like me, are uncertain if transition to full-time is the answer; I personally feel very conflicted and am feeling my way through one day at a time.  I consider all of the above to be transgender people; we all feel some discomfort with our assigned gender or some pull away from that gender.

I was once informed by a transwoman on a Unitarian Universalist LGBT mailing list that I was either a woman or a man--that if I didn't go full-time and have genital reassignment surgery, then I was only a man who was pretending to be transgender.  (Oh, and that bisexuals are only gays in denial.)  Very black-and-white thinking and atypical for UUs.  Folks, life is not black-and-white--it just isn't.  The two conventional genders in our culture, man and woman, are generalizations and oversimplifications of a more complex reality.  Quite a few of us just don't fit--to me, that's the definition of transgender.  I'm a person in that gray area, and I will not be erased or minimized because I don't fit into a neat little box, or walk a particular path.  My feelings are just as real, just as valid, as anyone else's.  Life is not a contest, and there is no one correct way to get through it.  My wish is that those who wish to denigrate those who are different from them find a way to cultivate a little wisdom and a lot more empathy.

Remembrances of Nerdiness Past

Reading this article about nerds and misogyny started my memory a-stirring.  You see, I was a teenage nerd.  Well, in truth, I'm still a nerd, but anyway...I was a shy, introverted, intelligent guy; skinny, small, wore glasses, read a lot, a little socially backward--pretty much your textbook case.  As mentioned in previous entries, I also hated myself because I liked to dress as a girl, tended toward femininity, and identified to some extent with girls my age.  I was depressed a lot, though I tried not to show it, and I was always in fear that someone would discover my secret.

Despite that, I actually had quite a few friends, both male and female.  I was the guy that girls loved to talk to but were never attracted to.  All my male and female friends were busily dating and doing all the things that teenagers do--but not me.  As I grew older, I increasingly felt isolated, freakish, and resentful.  My self-loathing grew, and I erected an emotional wall around my heart.  I resented men for being able to attract women, and I resented women for not being attracted to me.  I'm afraid I veered at times into misogyny, which was probably fueled by the hatred I felt for my own feminine tendencies.

Eventually, I learned that there were others like me and started to accept my transgender nature.  At last, one cold January Friday night, I attended my first transgender support group meeting.  For the first time, I revealed myself as Wendy to other people, and was accepted.

The next day, I was walking on air.  I felt so free, so courageous, so happy, so confident--perhaps for the first time in my life.  I attended a planning meeting for my high school reunion and noticed that one of the women there seemed very interested in me--she was hanging on my every word, laughing at my jokes; in short, she seemed attracted to me.  It was a new experience, and a harbinger of the ensuing months.  I attended more support group meetings, allowing myself to more fully explore and accept my feminine aspect.  I wasn't fully free of bouts of depression, but my spirits began to lift and my self-loathing receded into the background.  And like magic, later that year I managed to meet and start a romantic relationship with a woman, really for the first time.

It may seem trite, but I really believe you have to love yourself before anyone else can love you.  Not love yourself in a narcissistic sense, but accept who you truly are--warts and all.  The problem was not other people; it was me.  Now, I'm still a nerd, but a nerd who, through much effort and painful growth, has found love.