Being

Grandma used to say "betwixt and between". Can there be anything as simple and boring and wonderful as this? I am a 'tweener at the moment; not a man anymore and not showing the world a woman yet. You don't hear people use that sort of language anymore. Perhaps I will start it up again because I am at about the right age to be given lots of leeway as a member of the older set; an eccentric member too. The good news is, I am generally well liked by the people who matter in my life, with good reasons for simply being me at the moment. 

Two months ago the post The Drive to Be, Simply Be introduced you, gentle reader, to K, my first girlfriend. You were also introduced to my inner debate whether to bring her into a small group; those who know that I am transsexual.

Among the comment stream Tom reflected the heart of my considerations with three essential questions he posed:

"Do I really need this?"

"Does this aid or hinder my journey?"

"Am I aligning myself with spiritual winners or losers?" 

During the two months since those comments, K and I have continued our old fashioned correspondence, and it became clear that we should meet. It happened that a family commitment was to bring her relatively nearby; an opportunity that should not be wasted.

We exchanged phone numbers and I warned her before calling that there was something very important and serious coming in the content of that conversation.

As a few people have mentioned to me and I have confirmed, coming out is different for each person. I ended up blurting again, just as I did for my kids back in the spring. K didn't hang up, or tell me how sorry she was. What she did was ask really good questions and then tell me that little things I had included in our email exchange had made her wonder.

And so we did meet, experiencing that wonderful sort of communication that only happens when you are in the presence of the other. There are things that haven't changed in over forty years. She is a super interesting person, open and definitely a spiritual winner; what I call a balloon. It seems clear that resuming and developing our friendship will further two journeys; hers and mine; a wonderful feeling as though I am back on track somehow, having lost an essential part of myself and now having the chance to find it again. 

Do I need this chance to be a different sort of friend; perhaps a better friend than I could be so many years ago? Could this growth I feel being with her again be anything other than an essential part of my journey to fullness?

While it might seem that this was a momentous choice given huge thought and consideration, in truth it was a simple thing. I have spread it all out for you to make a nice bit of reading. There is no other way this could have happened, given who she is and who I am now; no longer conflicted. Just the way it is when one is simply being.

Thank you for the ear-worm dear K...

Maybe now we could be lovers

We'll share all the darkness in our souls

Don't you tell me lies

I could always see the truth in your eyes

Please don't lead me on 

Better just to crush me now and be gone

Way down here under the red lights

We carved our futures on the wall

Somedays seemed too much

I would always bend right under your touch

Morning comes again

I've already move way past all the pain

Gotta rise up

Rise up and take the sky like a new morning sun

If we walk away

Then we walk away never knowing what we could have done

Maybe you're right 

We lose sometime

Stand around to see what's fine

Or what will come

That's the risk that we run

Run

Now we can hear everyone talking

Well our world's getting smaller everyday

All our games are played

We gotta live with the mess that we made

Don't you walk away

I can hear every word that you say

Just for fun

Wondering why is perhaps the longest running impulse we carry from childhood. I know I can hardly wait (think irony here please) until our granddaughter discovers the word.

Asking why is far from childish. After all, in order to fix a problem it is truly helpful to understand the causes. Fixing things is what we often think of first for some reason and in my own case, it seems to me to have been part of my male façade; a male preoccupation. This is not being judgemental at all; just talking about me right now please understand.

For so many years I twisted in that whirlwind. "Why am I a woman and how can such a thing possibly be? What can I do to stop myself from feeling feminine and wanting everything women want?".. and on it went. Of course, the other classic is "Why does this happen to us?" once we meet others who feel the same impulses. We want to validate our own feelings so we do not feel so other.

The thing about all of this is, because you can't go into your brain and alter it, there is no fix in that direction. The fix if you want to call it that, is to accept who you are, and acknowledge that is right and proper for you. You are not flawed; the world is flawed. Put another way, god doesn't make junk.

What we can understand, and then fix, is how we live and act in the world. We can even come close to fixing our body. If fighting our innate feelings has caused us to be deceitful, bitter or withdrawn for instance, as I was, we can stop all of those things. We can find our own way of relating to the world that does not fight against our deepest feelings.

For so very long, Halloween was a time of terrible conflict for me. Dressing as a woman at this time of year is a tradition for many transfolk, and I get that, but somehow it felt like doing drag, and now I understand my dislike was because that meant I was a man in a costume. Women do drag sometimes. One of my favourites is the Charlie Chaplin look, with moustache, long coat, oversized shoes, bowler hat and cane. A tiny woman can pull that one off just fine, and get some laughs.

This year, I joined some fabulous girlfriends for some of the weekend, and we dressed up and went clubbing on Saturday night. I will leave it to them to post photos and such, and I know they will do that and tell the story much better than I. Let me simply say our time together was fun for me, start to sad finish.

Plans are in the works already for next year, but before that, there will be lots of time to spend with good friends just being me, not just for fun, but because that is what friends do.

We love and laugh and cry and care about one another.

Here we are! April, Alice and Cass and Dea!

Alice, Cassidy, April and Deanna

It Really Is That Simple

If only everything could be explained this easily