Daily Archives: November 11, 2015

Yes, I’ma still pounding on my hair metal drum like Tommy Lee banging out “Shout At The Devil” on his spinning drum kit…Genre is unimportant when the message is loud and clear in the lyrics.

This one is for all those who have served or are serving. You are appreciated.

This blogpost, posted by Hannah Crowley on Healthyplace.com, took the words right out of my mouth! Feel like a fraud, feel like I am not good enough, all that is spot on. Now just waiting for the recovery after the relapse. How can this happen to me over and over again? And yet, each time it happens, it feels like it will never end, It feels like I’ll never get better, the hopelessness, the shame, the self blame and recrimination, the gut wrenching heartbreak, not pretty. Just waiting it out, don’t feel good enough to do much else. Tomorrow, I will go to the gym, tomorrow, I will feel better, tomorrow, I will be me, I promise.

http://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/toughtimes/2015/11/09/mental-illness-relapse-recovery/

Still haven’t’ heard back from my doctor about how my meds are working. I don’t think I’m gong to because he says he’d rather have me sluggish than up.  SO saying I” ve slowed down some won’t budge him.  Just hoping to do better in the coming days.,

I have finished all but one project for my college class. I still have to have one more workshopped, so I may wind up revising it somewhat.  But otherwise, I’m just about all set.  I still need to write an “artist’s statement” which I’m not sure what that is.  I think I will Google how to do that and see what turns up.  That’s 10% of my grade, so I need to do it right, also.

Waiting for the middle one to come home so I can show her how I finished one project she helped me with early on, teaching me how to use PowerPoint.  So that will be nice.  It’s a heck of a lot more complicated to do than it looks once it’s finished.  Hopefully that will be taken into consideration.

I’ve finally run out of stuff to send off :).  What short stories and essays I have handy have either been published or are under consideration somewhere.  I need to do more, I suppose.  Trouble is, I. haven’t had a good idea for more in quite some time.  But I’ve published my esasy, “Day by Day”, my short stories “Ave Maria” and “Holding or On”. “Freedom to Breathe” is slated for December, and I sent off my novella “Looking for Home” and my poetry collection.   ANd I’ve published at Defying Shadows. SO I relly have a nice list of publications at this point.

Yes, this, this is the feeling! To be young, innocent, in the moment, with a faithful companion, engaged in what you’re doing, and when you see something fun, jumping in with both feet!

The little boy walking his faithful dog, upon seeing the puddle, jumping in, how sweet and joyous! So much fun, he does it again and again, first cautiously, then confidently, with a running start, fun, fun, fun! And the dog, equally as adorable, he stands and waits for his little master, all the while with a look of “Are we doing something wrong?” on his face, a look of “Oh boy, this might get us in trouble!” But still waiting steadfastly for the little boy.

And the mother or the father who is filming this heavenly little vignette, is patient, positive and allowing this little boy to have fun instead of dragging him away because his shoes and socks might get dirty.

A moment of pure fun, pure perfection, simple, yet so much more. How many of those are we allotted?

Oh, look what came to my door!  White roses.  My favorite!  Thank you, Me!

Two minutes silence alone today, for my ancestors – the ones who died in the Great War and the ones who have died since, but always remembered their deaths, for my mother who made a pilgrimage to Ypres to pay her respects and for nextofkin and me, who are the only ones left to remember. […]

I remember that field and that body and my undeniable ecstasy before waking.

I was ashamed.

I was so ashamed of being transgender that I held out for years, thinking if I waited long enough, this part of myself would retreat into the dark spot of my mind – the trapdoor where all the bad memories fall in and disappear.

When the gender therapist asks me why I waited until now to start testosterone, I want so badly to explain that I didn’t think I would need it – I had the headstone picked out, the flowers – because I believed that this part of me would die quietly if I was good, if I was patient, if I was persistent.

With my hands over my ears, I shook my head when friends used to ask, “But can you imagine if things stayed the same?”

I threw blankets over mirrors, I kept my eyes fixed on the wall, I tried to forget my body the way we try to forget bad dreams.

Maybe the secret can be found at the bottom of a bottle, I said, or maybe it’s underneath my skin. But drinking didn’t destroy my queerness – just my liver – and not a single drop of blood could tell me where else to look.

I want to say I’m sorry now, sorry to everyone that was afraid for me. You remember and I do, too: Sprawled out on the floor of my childhood bedroom, hysterical because I had dreamt for the hundredth time that I was running through a field in a different body.

That was the night I said that I would wake up tomorrow and be cisgender or I wouldn’t wake up at all.

When the gender therapist asks me what I am looking forward to, I remember that field and that body and my undeniable ecstasy before waking. I remember the way the sunshine fell on my back and my beautifully broad shoulders. I remember feeling so light.

I tell him that I’m looking forward to being able to carry things. Testosterone gives you more muscle, I say with a dreamy smile.

Maybe I’ll be able to lift the heavy things (I think of moving last summer, how my knees buckled as I tried to carry my belongings up two flights of stairs) or the heavier things (like the years of denial and the lies I told my family).

I have a running fantasy.

It goes like this: I gather up every lie about my gender that I’ve ever heard, starting with birth. I return to the field. I plant every mishap – every “she,” “ma’am,” “her” – and I bury them like seeds. When I say my chosen name, its rich and deep resonance is like an incantation. Flowers, flowers as far as the eye can see, burst from the ground, opening up to face me.

They cannot hurt me now.

The gender therapist asks me when I realized that testosterone was necessary. May 1^st, 2015, I say. Why that day, he asks. I tell him the truth: It was the day I became afraid to look at my own face and too embarrassed to leave my house.

Do you know what it’s like to feel naked even when you’re not? I ask. I think better of the question. I don’t wait for a response. I tell him that one feels naked all the time when their body is betraying them.

The gender therapist says he’s honored to be a part of my journey. I wonder if he says this to everyone he sees. I wonder if he means it; I decide that he does and I tell him that I’m glad, too.

I hold the consent letter in my hands and I run my fingers along the edges. My body is trembling. I walk downstairs and I let the clinic take five vials of my blood. December 7^th, they tell me, and I whisper that date under my breath a thousand times as I step out into the cold autumn rain.

I’ve waited for this. Even when I was afraid, I was always waiting.