No Day But Today

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Falling Forward: Comparing My Life To The Same Time Last Year

As I sit here in a Tucson Medical Center waiting room, patiently praying and trusting the surgeons as they operate on my mother, I began to reminisce about my life at this time last year.  I decided to look back at my blog posts from that time, and I almost cried with others seated all around me. 

I decided to repost this because I have so many friends who are currently in a similar situation with their spouses or partners concerning boundaries and concessions in their relationships.  I feel a sense of pride coming over me that I found the strength to write these words back then.  What seemed like the impossible was slowly being overcome with steadfastness, patience, and most importantly, love.  

I trust that my mother's going to be alright.  Transition taught me a lot about overcoming your fears, worries, and doubts.  If you take anything from this post, just remember that when you fall, fall forward.

December 15, 2008 - The Mother of All Talks: Falling Forward

So we did it. After two years of struggling to understand this, and fighting to retain the friendship and love we have for one another through it all, we made the critical decisions that will shape the direction of our future.

And we'll do it together, for as long as possible. The pain and hurt we feel inside will not dictate how we respond to our circumstances any longer. Harsh words, whether upfront or containing painful subtext, will no longer be the dagger that causes our spirits to bleed.

And the love we have for each other will never be questioned again. Our growing differences will not shake that fact. For too long we often brought the question of love to the table of disagreement. That never should have happened. My high school sweetheart will always be sweet to me. Her virtuosity and purity will always be among her greatest strengths. She is a woman worthy of magnificent love and tender affection.

Saturday night, after a lengthy drawn out intense discussion, she acknowledged my need to transition. Her selfless concession was clearly not easy to do but given freely and in a desire for me to be whole. We knew my desire to live authentically, the struggle to bring my body and mind finally together, would never abate. Every attempt to beat this into submission, to deny the simple reality of accepting my gender identity, failed time and time again.

"This will not bring you happiness you know," she said with near-whispered caution. "We still have to deal with everything else."

"I understand that, and I want to be able to have finally dealt with this so that I can deal with everything else," I said.

I've waited for the day to have finally stepped over, to have dealt with this truthfully and honestly, at my own pace, a pace so difficult to set because you never quite know how fast your spouse can walk or run. And to be able to do this on our own terms, with her blessing, transcended my own limited vision of how much could be accomplished.

The revival is complete. My once lifeless spirit now breathes again.

But things are not the same. They will never and can never be the same again. And it breaks my heart still.

In order for her to cope, to come as far as she can go on this journey with me, she must set boundaries. She sees and knows her own limits. She deserves to have her own immutable sense of self as much as I do. Therefore the core of our relationship must change into a new form of love. Perhaps it's not so much an evolution as it is an enhancement of the lasting friendship that we've always had. I think we both always saw it coming.

I completely understand her need for security. Up until last year she was able to rest in the knowledge that her brave strong husband would somehow make things right. When she could no longer rest her head upon my firm male chest, she had to scramble to find strength and security in other ways. (I'm learning this powerful trait in many women, the ability to analyze, organize, and execute a strategy that will protect their family and themselves.)

A lot remains at stake. It is paramount that we stand together in support for one another, and for our kids. Their futures into the uncertain unknown require that their parents love them and nurture them into adolescence. I've blown it many times over, missed the mark, made huge uncalculated errors. I don't want to keep making mistakes. And I don't want to make the same mistakes my own parents made with me. The kids deserve the chance to stand on their own two feet as they later approach adulthood.

They deserve to never feel the abandonment issues that happened to me and caused me to make my own grave mistakes throughout my life. The same things happened to my parents, and to their parent's parents. The cycle must end with us.

We chose to stay together, at least for now. And even once I'm through to the end of the transition tube (however long that takes), we've acknowledged the possibility that if we can't foster a loving household and continued friendship with each other then we would accept the last resort of separation.

On Sunday the tough talks continued. We essentially rehashed what we already decided together. But already the atmosphere was different. There was a change in the air...for the better.

We laughed a lot. We joked about silly nonsensical things, something neither of us had done with the other in at least several months. And we held hands at the end of the day as we lay in bed, laptop on her side, shopping together on the internet. Seeing her smile continue brought a relief from my own worry. The worry that SHE wouldn't be okay.

I walked around with a smile on my own face for most of the day. And yet, there was a tug from deep within that I began to worry about. This large hurdle was being leaped, but I was now realizing that many smaller hurdles have always been in our path, and I'd have to take those leaps when they came. My own boundaries would soon test my strength and resolve. The fear is still real, as are the doubts. But you only have one life to live...
and one life to love.

Laying on the bed together on Saturday evening, we watched the second episode from season one of Grey's Anatomy. Grey had just taken several risks that payed off with her assisting in a successful surgery, and she practically saved a baby's life. At the end of the episode, she and her intern friends and coworkers exited the hospital in the early morning hours as the dawning sun reflected a glorious light off the mirrors of the hospital. Grey narrated the following:

"At some point, you have to make a decision,
Boundaries don't keep others out,
they fence you in.
Life is messy, that's how we're made.

So you can waste your life drawing lines, or, you can live your life crossing them.

But there are some lines that are way too dangerous to cross;
Here's what I know, if you're willing to take the chance, the view from the other side ...

is spectacular."

We've turned a corner. And in falling forward like a toddler learns to walk, I've only begun to capture a mere glimpse from the other side.




But so far, it's breathtaking.




Stay tuned...



 This post, along with other posts written at that time, can be found HERE.  

Is It Hard to Be Who You Are?

Over the last few days, while enjoying a few peaceful moments on my long drives between work and/or other personal business in Tucson, I was looking back upon the challenges I faced before and during transition.  I remembered that exhilarating and liberating feeling when I first learned to wear makeup and go out to support groups or to the stores "en femme." Those cherished moments turned out to be fleeting, as each time I ended the day breaking down in tears having to remove the wig and makeup and change back into my guy clothes.

I knew who I was, and yet I was forced to cross dress in men's clothes and wear the real mask of living in the closet as I had done for so many years before.  I know why I did it, and in retrospect I'm glad I did.    I wasn't the only one going through changes.  My whole family was.

Much later, as I closed in on going full time in being true to who I was, the strength of dysphoria waned, and I found strength in finally establishing my true sense of self for the first time in my life.

But even then, I worried and wondered, "Can I really pull this off?  Can I get to the point where I'm not walking around like a neurotic muskrat always wondering if people are staring at me, questioning who I am or laughing at me?  Can I do this ALL the time and am I ready?"

I have the definitive answer now, at least for me.  In the past, in addition to learning and adapting like a teenage girl comes of age and learns her way in the world, I also carried the enormous burden of burying my identity and locking her away.   The vice pressing into my skull wasn't from developing confidence and stepping into my own as a woman, it was from the demands of straddling the line between two genders and forcing myself to live as a male.

Is it hard to be who you are?  The journey is unique for every individual.  Some make it into the frontier to begin life anew, life renewed.  Some choose to avoid the crossroads, pouring their lives out in ways they can best cope with the circumstances and hope it's enough to survive.  And even a few choose to for whatever reason return to the life that they used to live because transition wasn't what they expected.  It doesn't make them failures, and it doesn't make them any less T than when they transitioned.   I've said this before, but I've learned that being who you are is a lot easier than being who you're not.

It starts within you.  Determination, tenacity, and courage must be tempered with love, concern, and patience enough to allow those around you enough time to hopefully come along for the ride.

With the right amount of support from friends and family, adequate resources, faith, and a little fortune...okay, a LOT of fortune, you may one day see in the mirror a reflection of something, someone truly beautiful. 

And it'll finally be for forever.