A Trans Story - Losses

A Trans Story – Losses

Ok, well here I am at 3am in the morning and wide awake, with a very busy mind.

As I approach my 42^nd birthday I have been very contemplative, spending a great deal of time in the past with my regrets and my shame. Mostly I have been remembering my Dad. We weren’t exactly close, well I never felt that we were anyway. I kinda thought I was never quite masculine enough. That was just my perception, or the memory of my perception, but lets face it either one can be wrong. And memory by itself is not the most reliable thing in the world and then to add a child's perspective, well that can just mess things up.

Anyway mostly I remember my Dad around the age of 42. I wish I knew then what I know now, for at that time I only had 8 years left with him. He died when I was around 20. To be completely honest, I am not sure that I truly remember the age, or the year. I know that he was just about to reach 50 and that I was in my second year at college and that I was going to the Pub (although that’s no real indication, since I went there under age too) – but I do distinctly remember that I was finishing College that year, so I believe it was March of my 20^th year. The prior year, late on, he had been diagnosed with Pancreatitis, and I know he didn’t last too long after that.

I have not thought too much about it for some time, since I have always had a tendency to bottle up emotions, to ignore traumatic events and just not face them. That and to be completely honest I am ashamed of myself.

So to explain that last part. So if my memory is correct, it was late in 1994. My Mum and Dad when on holiday to Tunisia – it wasn’t the best holiday, they got sick, the hotel had listeria and all. When they got back my Dad had jaundice and shortly after was diagnosed with cancer. It was pretty much at that point when I really began to distance myself from him. At first I was available to take him to see some of his friends and all, but as it progressed and he needed more and more assistance, I found myself going out every night. It has taken me many years, but I can admit to being afraid. I was terrified that he would need my help with something I was simply not prepared to handle at the time. I was not used to seeing my Dad being anything less than a strong individual and couldn’t face it. I am ashamed to admit that I stayed away on purpose.

The night he died, I was at the Pub, as usual. I made it home and as soon as I stepped inside my Aunt told me that my Dad did not have long and asked if I wanted to go up and see him. Honestly I wasn’t sure if I did want to be in that room, but I went out of a sense of obligation and it is something I will never every forget. To this day I remember every single minute of it.

I remember stepping into the room. I remember seeing my Dad, once strong, now wasted away, lying in bed, my Mum by his side, my brother over to the left. And I remember that he opened his eyes, and looked at me with the first lucidity I had seen from him in months. I remember each and every breath he took. How he struggled for one more. Always one more breath. Each one I thought was going to be the last, but he would draw one more. And I will always remember his passing.

I have heard from many people (Christians mostly) how they felt a sense of peace enter a room of someone passing. Well I felt nothing. I never have. Perhaps I have always lacked faith, or perhaps that is where I completely lost it. But there was nothing, only silence and emptiness. And I could not bring myself to cry.

The next night my Mum wanted to make sure that I got out of the house, not wanting me to stay just for her, so she kinda made me go out – it didn’t take much persuasion, I was desperate to go. So I went to the Pub with my friends. It was awkward, as you might expect, no one knowing what to say to me. But even then I did not mourn. No I did what I have always done in difficult situations, I bottled it up and got rip roaring drunk.

That was how I lived my life back then. I avoided things. I got drunk and I bottled everything up, never ever wanting to say anything. Only now am I beginning to realize why I could never face anything. And I am beginning to realize why I could never mourn. Because I was too pissed off, at the world, my Dad, everyone.

I was angry that I never got the chance to be who I truly am with him. But then I also wonder, would he have accepted me. A big part of me thinks – NO he wouldn’t have. But it’s a chance I will never have now. So yes, I have spent my life being angry. I am angry at the lost opportunity, I am angry at myself for never being strong enough. I am angry for never being able to be myself. But I have also spent the last 22 years being ashamed because I was not there for my Dad when he needed people around. At that point he needed family, all his family, and I was too self-centered to be there for him.

I have discovered that Transgender have many losses in their lives. They have lost opportunities when they are not strong enough to speak up and be themselves. They lose family and friends when they find the strength and even if they do manage to keep those, the relationships are changed so much that they may as well be lost. And we face loss of rights because of blind, backward, conservative people that want to force us all to be the same as them. And all they can do is fall back on some religious beliefs, trying to limit me because of their own lack of understanding. But mostly my thoughts are about losing a parent who never really knew the true me.

I know that some find comfort in faith, religion and belief in God etc, but those are things that I have never had. Oh I have tried over the years, but never quite made it. My Dad was pretty much an atheist and my Mum was an occasional church goer and I was raised to question everything and simply be the best person I can be. I have never felt what people of faith describe. Never have I sensed anything, felt that anything was around me, close to me or helping me in any shape or form. And when I have read parts of the Bible, well the words just done appeal to me. Nor do some aspects of any other religion, and I have studied most of them over time. Even back in school there was a calls on religious education, not much on Christianity, since that was the dominant religion, but covered Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, even paganism. And I loved that class, but at the time I thought it would not be cool to take it into my 3^rd year. I was easily influenced by what I thought was cool back then. Perhaps another aspect of my trying to hide the real me.

So because of everything I have learned, I often find one religion to be too limiting and lacking a proper explanation for what life is and so I have never been able to believe in Christianity, or any other religion individually. I think that only together can they give you even a glimpse of what the divine is. But the problem is - where is faith in that belief? And does a creative being really give a toss about people? Sometimes it sucks to have so many questions and no faith and no one to help me find even a few answers. I have no answer for why I was born Transgender. I have no answer for why my Dad was taken without even knowing me. And I have no faith that there is a heaven, or any other place. I lean towards the idea that there must be something, but is that something any better than what this currently is? Sometimes it might be so easy to just have faith and let it all go, but that is not in my nature. I take things apart, I dig into them and look for my own truths, but again there is no faith, nothing to reassure me that I am doing what I am meant to be. Nothing to reassure me that there is a reason for life and challenge and that its not all just happenstance. Nothing to reassure me that the losses are worth it. And nothing to really help me move beyond my youth and the regrets and shame that I have. Now that I am no longer drowning my problems in drink, I need to process them. But how????

Well I am done rambling for now. I am going to see if I can get some sleep. I am hoping that my mind will be quiet now. I need to get up for work in a couple of hours. I will be posting this sometime later.

A Trans Story - Ups an Downs

A Trans Story – Ups and Downs

Recently I have been contemplating a lot of things. Thinking about the past, the present and the future, and wondering what path I am on. I have also been a bit of an emotional basket case. Granted another allergic reaction to medication hasn’t helped, all because my stupid insurance went and switched brand on me, very aggravating.

But its more than the meds, its pretty much life, and society in general. I am getting weary of fighting against the galactically stupid right wing conservatives. Now I do believe that everyone has the right to their own beliefs, that’s not my issue with the right. No my issue with them is that they feel the need to try and ram their beliefs down my throat. They don’t have to accept me or mine, they just have to accept that I have the right to be who I am. And they just need to stop legislating against me. All these thoughts keep bringing me back to the pointlessness of our society and my belief that we have lost our purpose.

So I will fill you in on what has led up to these thoughts and my emotional downturn.

Firstly as I approach my two year anniversary of coming to accept myself, I have been thinking a lot about how I got to where I am. Yes its been almost two years. It was around my birthday in 2015 when I seriously started to consider just how much longer I could keep living the lie that my life had been. My first appointment with my therapist was 8/14 – just two days after my 40^th birthday. At that time I had been questioning my job and was faced with the same questions that plague me today. I started looking for a career counselor, but ended up finally admitting that I was Trans – quite a leap, lol. While I didn’t get to answer any of my questions regarding employment, atleast I got started on this amazing path that I find myself on right now. Yes I have many doubts about every aspect in life, but I know for sure that I am and always was supposed to be a woman. Probably the reason behind my contemplative thoughts is because I have a therapist appointment on the 24^th – 10 days after my 2 year anniversary. Before any appointment, I usually become contemplative to see what I want to cover in my upcoming session. This thoughtful journey has taken on an interesting aspect this time.

I believe it all started when contemplating my job. My particular form of employment is something I have always struggled with. Oh don’t get me wrong, I am perfectly willing to work and I do work hard, but the field I am in is so beyond pointless to me. Lets face it what is Accounting but the moving around of numbers to show that businesses are making more and more money for their owners. There are aspects of it that can be challenging and when starting a new position and being able to learn then its interesting. However that interest never stays, particularly when I master what I am doing, which happens often. This time it only lasted 6 months. Six months after I started my new job I am wondering what else I can be doing and trying to convince myself that it’s a good job. Oh technically it is a good job. Its not difficult and I don’t have much in the way of stress anymore, but still it is completely and utterly pointless to me. Added to that they have taken a new direction and are now hiring a bunch of entry level Accountants, who are getting to learn every aspect of the office I work in, while those of us without degrees are not getting any opportunity. So now I am feeling like a second class citizen, simply because I do not have a degree, even though I have 12 years of actual on the job experience. And my experience is in Accounting, dealing with month end, journal entries and more. I would hold up my experience against any degree, but right now if you don’t have a degree you are getting kicked to the curb, or that is how it feels.

So it began with the job and me contemplating what I should be doing. My dream has always been to be a full time writer, but that’s going to take time, luck and perseverance and in the meantime I need a way to earn money – which is where my job comes in, but I also have a need for change, challenge and something different, which you don’t typically get in the Accounting field. Such was my dilemma that I even started having nostalgic feelings about my last employer (a place that had me so stressed out that I had an emotional meltdown) – it was a place where I was challenged, that’s for sure. Anyway the nostalgia was so much that I actually applied for a few positions, but that didn’t help me feel any better, the reverse actually. Now I feel guilty and like I am cheating on my current supervisor, lol.

Thoughts about my job, the purpose of it and the direction I should be going, always lead me to thoughts about society and how utterly pointless it really is. Society has always been confusing to me, and I have never really fit in. A large part of that is down to being Trans, but its also the lack of purpose I see in our society today. I mean, what is the purpose of it. What goals do we have as a society and how does our existence further creation? What good do we do? In the grand scheme of things, what use is the human race? Atleast several hundred to thousands of years ago, society had a purpose. Now we have lost it. Now our society is completely driven by commercialism. The driving need for people to gain more and more wealth before they die. And really what good will that do? No matter your beliefs of what comes after, accumulating wealth will do you no good when you die. Every aspect of our society has been given over to commercialism and a driving need that serves no real purpose whatsoever. And that leads me to wonder how I fit in here, since I don’t care about commercialism and I see it as being pointless. Most every job is designed to make companies more and more money.

I often think that I was born in the wrong millennium. Some aspects of our modern day are beneficial to me, such as the health care and the ability we have to aid the Transgender. I would have hated it back in the day when there were no alternatives for that. But other than the health I see no benefit to this society at all.

To me, the society of BC had more purpose than we do now. They were learning, living and growing. The world full of challenge and adversity. There was good and evil and the constant fight to strive for good and growth. That is purpose to me. What have we now? We have commerce. We have a group of people trying to diminish minorities by using their religion and their limited understanding of a divine being. People say we have progressed and are more advanced, but often I am forced to wonder. Are we really so advanced? We are so advanced that a religious cult tries to determine the rights of everyone and tries to force us all to be the same. Yes that is progress.

So now I find myself trying to determine my place in the grand scheme of things. Even were I to become a full time writer, I think I would still question my place in this society, and I would still be trying to figure out its purpose.

So there have been Ups and Downs on this journey so far. I am far more confident now (in a dress and heels at any rate) – which is an interesting side note – during this questioning phase I wore jeans and flats for two days in a row at work, and I discovered that I don’t feel nearly as confident in them as I once did. I think its because I wore those items pre-transition. But the long and short of it is that I now feel at my most confident when I am in a dress and heels. So aside from more overall confidence, I also have more overall happiness. But the downs – I am still questioning my place, my existence, my role and my purpose.

Adding to the confusion is my allergic reaction, which is making me wonder if someone is trying to tell me something. Oh I know that’s most likely not the case, and it’s a matter of finding the right medication for me, but a part of me, a deep, dark part of me was wondering if indeed I was being told something. Was I being told to stop and be miserable for the rest of my life? Mostly I think no, but there is always that sliver of doubt in there, doubt worsened by this pointless, stupid society that tries to judge everyone by the mistranslated words in one book.

So just what am I supposed to do? I need a job, but any job that I do gets old real fast, mostly because it is dull and monotonous with hardly any challenge whatsoever. Add to that and its all dealing with numbers – have I mentioned that I hated Math when I was at school, lol. So here we are. What I dream of is being a full time writer, but I know that will not come any time soon, unless I am lucky, and so I need to work at a pointless job, for a pointless company in a pointless society. Does it get much more pointless than that? How does one find their path in this life? How does one work toward their dreams? Can you have a work path that is tolerable while you strive to achieve your dreams?

From this you might infer that it has been a time of emotional turmoil and to a degree it has, but it hasn’t all been bad. Oh I have been a tad emotional lately and yes right now I am an emotional basket case, but that will pass. I still wake up happy and content in the knowledge that I am slowly progressing toward the person I have always dreamed to be. I still get to look fabulous in my dresses and shoes and I am in the middle of a wonderful adventure. Granted I have questions and doubts, but how doesn’t? What is life without questions? I am happy, atleast happy with myself if not my job. And I am excited to see whats going to happen next and excited to learn about myself as I continue down this path. One thing transitioning does is teach you about yourself. You learn how you are at your lowest and at your highest and you learn those peaks a lot, but no matter what happens its still a fascinating journey.

I realise that I still have so much to look forward to. Life can be wondrous if you but embrace it. I have my continued growth ahead of me. My future awaits and I have lots more to write and in the end, which I will consider my beginning, I will have my surgery and then I can be who I am truly meant to be. And then I will have so many other things to learn. I do have so much going for me, so much to learn and do and these incidental questions might be answered, or they might not, but atleast they give me something to ponder in the quiet moments.

Life is magical, embrace it. Be who you are meant to be.