Life is Good! December 8, 2008
Posted by Marybeth in acceptance, happiness, peace, separation, transgender, transsexual, work.3 comments
Monday, December 8th 4:21 am
Good morning everyone!
Welcome to a special blog entry and to the beginning of a new direction in my blog.
My life has changed so much over the two years that I’ve written this journal and I’ve done my best to chronicle my thoughts and experiences every week to give those of you who aren’t transsexual some glimpse into the mind of one and to those who are transgendered one or two things you might be able to identify with. This journal certainly has been very therapeutic for me.
I think that my writing in this journal has laboured a little unnecessarily on the many angsts of being transsexual and hasn’t spent enough time chronicling the experiences and feelings I’ve had every week – in short, in many of my entries I am not there except as a somewhat clinical observer. I intend to change that beginning with this entry.
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This past week has been a whirlwind of activity for me. Sometimes I find it difficult to find any sense of logic in the things I do or when I do them. All I know is that in my heart I feel that I am moving in the right direction.
I spend my time right now divided between four principle locations – work, my soon to be ex-partner’s place, my friend’s place, and my apartment. In each of these places there is a different set of expectations and sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the almost contradictory demands they imply but each of these places contributes to my growth and my transition.
At work I continue to do well at my job but at this point in my transition I am definitely not seen as a man and it confuses people sometimes. I will transition when I am ready but in the meantime it bothers me that I can’t be totally honest with them so that these very intelligent people can have some kind of explanation for the very real changes they have seen in my physical appearance over the year I’ve known them.
At my soon to be ex-partner’s place I live in strange kind of world where I am expected to be ‘him’ and it often ends up really making me very uncomfortable. I think that my blossoming femininity is making her uncomfortable as well so the mutual discomfort means that I am spending less and less time there. We have pretty much concluded that we will divorce in the new year so that we can give each other the space to be ourselves.
At my friends place I am being challenged in so many fun and exciting ways. She is pulling me kicking and screaming out of my shell and it feels exhilarating!! On Wednesday we went shopping where I picked up my first pair of comfortable winter boots, a beautiful faux-fur winter coat, a set of soft pink gloves, scarf and toque and a wonderful perfume that makes me smell beautiful! On Thursday she called me out of the blue to invite me out to her place and we listened to music, went to a bar to meet up with a few of her old friends and laughed along to a drag show at a night club nearby. Then on Sunday we went for a pedicure – my first!! She is an amazing person with so much energy and so much patience. Her advice and, let’s face it, her ‘prompting’, has given me the confidence I need to more fully express my femininity. I am almost free of my constricting cocoon and the sun on my body feels wonderful!!!
My apartment is my home and refuge. Away from the confused stares of my workplace, the discomfort of my soon to be ex-partner’s house and the excitement of my friend’s place I am able find peace and contentment. It is the place where I can most fully be myself and the place where I can catch my breath.
In all my dreams about how I would transition I could never have imagined as interesting a life as I lead now. I have a good job and I think they will be very accepting of my transition. I have an agreement with my soon to be ex-partner that I think will resolve our differences and perhaps give us the chance to remain friends. I have a very supportive and provocative friend who wants me to be the best woman that I can be. I have a place of my own where I feel safe and comfortable.
Life is good! It is very, very good!!
Love,
Marybeth
Dreams, Transition and Reality November 23, 2008
Posted by Marybeth in acceptance, appearance, family, hormones, marriage, past, separation, society, transgender, transsexual, work.1 comment so far
Sunday, November 23 6:13 am
Good morning everyone! It is a quite cool minus twelve degrees under a clear sky at my wife’s house today. How do I know that? Well, I thought it would be neat to write outside so I went out to see how it might be and, while it is amazingly beautiful, it is way too cold to sit out there and write! So I am back inside with my trusty hot mocha by my side for inspiration and I’ll see what I can cook up for thought this week.
I think that I can sum up this past week in four words – ‘the reality of transition’.
I have lived with the idea or theory of transition for many, many years. I have thought about how I would go about it ever since I was a teenager dreaming about how I could live my life the way I wanted to. I had so many ideas. I thought at one point that I would join a circus and be their female impersonator attraction. I thought about going away to college and going to class as a boy and living as a woman in the evenings and on the weekends. In that scenario I even planned out how I would have two closets, one with male clothes and one with female clothes – which is funny because what I ended up with in reality was one closet of civilian clothes and one closet of uniforms!*
* Yes, I find that I can laugh about it now…!!
During this past week I realized that almost all aspects of my transition were coming together. My lifelong dreams are becoming real and it feels so amazing but at the same time, so daunting – sort of like stepping onto the high wire, realizing that you can keep your balance and that you just might be able to make it to the other side. The decision point is past, I am on the high-wire and the only path is forward.
Some might say that I made that life-changing decision a year ago when I took my first estrogen pill but I would argue that because of the gradual nature of the effects of estrogen that decision and other similar ones were just the preliminaries – the equivalent of climbing up the ladder of the high-wire platform – I could have decided to climb back down at any time.
What I recognized this week, the reason that everything feels so much more real for me now, is that the effects of all those preliminary decisions have coalesced into the reality of how it feels to live authentically.
Last week I lived as Marybeth both at my apartment and at my partner’s place for the whole week – it was great. This week, I lived at my partner’s place for the first part of the week and at my apartment for last days of the week. When I was at my apartment I went out with my friend, used public transit, went to the bar, went shopping – all as Marybeth and no one raised an eyebrow or made any snide comments. I was myself – I was real. My clothes were appropriate, the hormones have made my features more feminine, the electrolysis has removed most of my facial hair, my apartment is comfortably feminine – I lived my life, outside of work hours, as female with no problems. Add to that the reality that the separation with my partner has moved to the practical stage and the fact that some friends who weren’t aware of my transition now are and it all adds up to the immense relief and exhilaration of finally becoming me – of becoming real.
It has been just over two years since I began writing this journal and over a year since I made the decision to begin hormone treatment. This week I will introduce myself to some very close friends, in three months I will have my scheduled scalp advancement surgery in Boston to remedy my overly masculine hairline, in six months I plan to transition at my workplace and this summer I will officially introduce myself to relatives and family friends.
I have always dreamed about how I might end up becoming real and now I am finally experiencing it. My lifelong dream is becoming a reality.
I stared at the high-wire my whole life, never believing that I might one day walk across it to the other side.
I sought solace from the perceived impossibility of living authentically by finding my true love and marrying her. As my transition progressed I began to realize that the unhappiness caused by my disappointment at the impossibility of ever becoming real resulted in those around me to being uncomfortable too – the reality was that my marriage, my work and my friendships were all suffering before I began my transition. Jean Vanier wrote in his book ‘Becoming Human’ that to truly love others, you must first love yourself and through my transition I am slowly starting to love who I am. I know this because I used to seek the acceptance of others for validation and I don’t as much anymore. It is nice to be smiled at or to be congratulated for doing something special but these days it is enough for me to just be myself – I smile spontaneously more often now. My partner, my true love, may be suffering as we go through separation, but I can only hope that our love will just get deeper because I am only now beginning to truly love myself.
Walking the high-wire, which was once seemed so inconceivable, doesn’t seem so daunting anymore.
I have climbed the ladder and begun walking across it.
I know that I will keep my balance and make it to the other side!!
I am happy.
I am peaceful.
I am myself.
And it feels so, so very wonderful!!
Love,
Marybeth
Learning and Unlearning November 16, 2008
Posted by Marybeth in acceptance, learning, reflection, separation, society, transgender, transsexual, work.3 comments
Sunday, November 16, 6:16 am
Good morning everyone! It is a cool two degrees Celsius mixed with a bit of a wind and rain outside at my wife’s place today. I am nicely bundled up and have a cup of hot mocha by my side but as I type I can already feel the cold creeping up my legs and despite the inspirational goodness of such a beautiful morning I might find myself seeking warmer climes soon.
Life is busy for me these days – I guess that isn’t so surprising given that I am moving out of a house (and a relationship) that I have shared with my partner for almost ten years. I did manage to take a week off work for the most part this past week which was a relief (I only spent a few afternoons playing Blackberry volleyball…). But as the ‘holiday week’ draws to a close I can honestly say that I didn’t get much time for the relaxation and reflection that I was hoping for. On the other hand though, it was extremely productive and, in parts, really fun!
The neatest part about the past week was that I didn’t stop being Marybeth once! Of course, there was the odd ’sir’ from time to time (but that was only yesterday prior to an electrolysis appointment, I hadn’t shaved for a week and I had no make-up on!) but there were many, many more times that, even with only minimal or no make-up on I was .me. completely. Even my partner uttered my name during a lunch at a nice Italian restaurant (in which I was consistently served first! – Yay me!). So overall, a very good week. Next week I will be ‘him’ the whole time at work but even there I am not really ‘him’ anymore – there are shades of grey in this life and I am definitely very ambiguous (and very happy) these days…
One thing I have noticed about my transition process is that has been, above all, a gradual but ultimately irresistable process. Like the way that water flows over the rocks in a stream, it washes over their hard edges and wears them down.
I am becoming myself more and more these days and it feels great! I was at a discussion group of trans-people about a month or two ago and, in the group there were a few women who were transitioning, a few others who were part-timers and some who had considered it at one point and maybe still were. When it was my turn to speak I mentioned to them that in my experience of being transsexual, my female side wasn’t something that I could just ‘put away’ when it became inconvenient or ‘not fun’ anymore.
I am female, have always been female and always will be – there is no other way that I can understand it.
Despite the many years I spent trying to appear male, I could never ‘not be’ female. Maybe this is the same thing that gay people talk about – if you are gay, you are gay there isn?t anything you can do about it – otherwise ‘gaydar’ wouldn’t work?! I think my ‘femaleness’ was always present and that it was the one thing that prevented people from fully trusting me. ” ‘He’ seems like a decent enough guy but there’s something not quite right about him… there’s something ‘he’ isn’t telling us…?, some people might have been heard to say about me. Well folks, I am not an axe murderer after all, I was just a woman masquerading as a man, sorry about the confusion I caused, I was as much a victim of it as you were.
I think one of the most amazing things I am finding these days is learning about what it is to be me! Whether I am in a suit pretending to be ‘him’ or in a nice blouse and skirt I am always me.
It is an interesting contrast to how it was when I was growing up. When I was six or seven years old and learning what I had to do to meet the expectations of others I had to adjust my behaviour to fit ‘their’ expectations. I had to adjust my natural inclinations or modify my instinctual responses so that I fit in and didn’t get picked on at school or at home. Now it is the reverse but now all I have to do is to remember not to modify or adjust my behaviour!!! I am finally allowed to be me – unfiltered!!! (And yes, that can be very, very scary at times!!)
This realization came to me most profoundly when I was out ‘letting my hair down’ with a girlfriend at a bar this weekend. At first I was my ‘normal’ quiet and reserved self and then after a few hours I became totally relaxed, smiling, not awkward, talking to people, being me, totally comfortable – being a the woman I am – no apologies!!
I don’t have to get drunk to be myself, but I think that if it wasn’t for going out on Friday and having those drinks I wouldn’t have realized how much I was restraining my behaviour – how much of a hold society still had over me.
Transitioning, above all else, is a learning process, but it is also, in equal measures an un-learning process.
On ne nait pas femme: on le devient! – One is not born a woman, one becomes a woman!
- Simone de Beauvoir
Like all girls who become women I have some learning to do but unlike most girls, I need learn to trust my instincts and act the way I feel.
For me, growing up transsexual was about not trusting my instincts and mimicking the actions of the ‘other’ boys. If they were pulling the girls hair – I had to too. If they were getting crushes on girls, then I had to too. If they were jumping out of airplanes, I had to too.
It makes me so sad when I think about the girlhood I threw away.
It makes me so happy when I think about the woman I am becoming.
Love,
Marybeth
Love and Irreconcilable Differences November 2, 2008
Posted by Marybeth in acceptance, family, love, marriage, separation, society, transgender, transition, transsexual.add a comment
Sunday, November 2nd 4:48 am
Good morning everyone! It is a cool minus four degrees Celsius outside here on the porch of my wife’s house this morning. The sky is crystal clear and the light of the stars is reflecting faintly off the scattering of snow on the lawn.
The touch of the cool air on my skin, the smell and taste of hot mocha, the sound of impatient Canadian geese in the distance and the peaceful majesty of star-filled heavens, inspiration for every sense, I am overwhelmed!
As I sit here I can hear the chorus of one of John Denver’s most famous songs echo in my mind ‘You Fill Up My Senses’. What a beautiful way to describe love! Love sets every sense afire! Every moment that you are in love is like the most perfect Valentines day you can imagine!! You drink in the sound (of her voice), the touch (of his hands), the sight (of the setting sun), the taste (of the bittersweet chocolate truffle) and the smell (of the beautiful red roses). Each of the senses can inspire passion and creativity individually but when they all come together, as it can be when you are with someone you love it can be so overwhelming you can easily lose yourself in it.
Why talk about intoxicating love when I am in the midst of separating from the love of my life?
I won’t lie and say that this week hasn’t been one of the most difficult times of my life – it has been. But amidst the insinuations and recriminations, the tears and the hurt, the one thing that has remained constant despite the implicit contradiction – is our love for each other.
I don’t know how to describe it and I don’t want to cheapen it by trying.
We just know that it is still there even though we both admit that it would be far easier to do what we are attempting to do if it wasn’t.
All the times we spent together, experiencing the world and sharing our joys and sorrows with each other, filled our senses, filled our lives and, often, overwhelmed us.
It is so, so sad that I couldn’t ‘beat’ my transsexuality. The hormones and anti-androgens that have given me peace and happiness have challenged her faith and threatened her sanity.
We have tried for over a year to accommodate each other, I suppressed and masked my growing femininity and she ignored and discounted her increasing anxiety over the conflict between my physical changes and her Catholic values. We willfully created a ‘limbo of love’ where neither of us could move forward because neither of us wanted to confront the reality of our increasingly perilous situation. We trusted our love to protect us.
And we almost lost ourselves in it.
It wasn’t until last weekend when a friend pointed out the obvious hurt my wife and I were causing each other that I was shaken from my self-imposed stupor.
It wasn’t until then that I realized despite the deep love that we have for each other, her values and my transsexuality were irreconcilable differences.
Irreconcilable.
My sympathy for my wife is infinite. Our marriage is strong but there is no rule-book, no Catechism (Catholic teaching) for when a beloved husband becomes a woman.
I have changed and I continue to change. My beard is essentially gone, my hair is long, my skin is soft and I have bumps, lines and curves that I didn’t have before.
I am a happier, more peaceful person now.
She can see that and is happy for me intellectually.
But I am not her husband any more (in the traditional sense of the word).
Our love is strong and it has kept us together.
But, for the past year, we have been living under false pretences.
She pretended I would change my mind about my need to transition.
And I pretended that she wouldn’t mind me transitioning.
Irreconcilable differences.
She filled up my senses for so many wonderful years it is difficult to imagine us being apart.
Our love is still strong.
But we must move apart from each other to preserve it, the ‘accommodations’ we were making for each other were suffocating each of us and our love for each other.
Our love will survive only if we each, individually, persist and flourish.
We must live separate lives to grow and be happy.
To find myself again, I will move out and learn what it is like to be fully Marybeth in this world.
She will regain control of her life, be able to re-center her life on her values and rediscover herself.
And when we both become whole again, maybe then we can learn how to express our love for each other again.
No longer lost in a desperate love.
But found.
Different.
Evolved.
But the same.
Because our love remains.
Love,
Marybeth
Pride and Being October 26, 2008
Posted by Marybeth in acceptance, family, hormones, marriage, separation, transgender, transition, transsexual.2 comments
Sunday, October 26th 5:05 am
Good morning everyone! It is a cool five degrees Celsius outside here at my wife’s house today. The rain from yesterday is keeping everything humid and the silence is almost complete. The most stunning thing that I notice as I look up from my computer are the stars in the sky. I can see Orion right above me, his studded belt shining in all its’ glory, his arm outstretched to fight off his nemesis Scorpio. Everything is beautiful, peaceful and full of inspiration.
It has been an eventful week for me since I last wrote. My wife came back on Tuesday and with her arrival, Marybeth’s temporary reign as Queen of the household ended too. I am happy to have my wife back home but I am not happy having to be ‘him’ again now that she is back.
Before my wife left on her trip I was getting increasingly uncomfortable with my one-day per week existence (ie Sundays at my apartment). Her being away allowed me to be myself as soon as the suit and tie were discarded for more appropriate attire and behaviour. I am not ready yet to transition at work but being able to be myself away from work at all times has done wonders for my sense of well-being.
I am afraid that I am at the point of no-return of being able to switch back and forth between me and ‘him’ now.
‘He’ doesn’t exist anymore outside of the eerie similacrum at work. And at work I am finding it more difficult to continue the charade as well. My physical and psychological changes are becoming more ‘pronounced’ so I am increasingly feeling burdened by the weight of that particular costume. And, I am beyond caring if people think I am a little bit too feminine for a guy at work.
For the last two weeks it felt so good to take off the suit and tie when I came back from work. When I took them off, I took off all those expectations and insinuations – I could breath again. It didn’t matter what I wore in place of the suit and tie, all that mattered was that I could be myself. No one to insist that I act like a ‘husband’ and no one calling me ‘his’ name. I could be.
As the date for my wife’s return came closer, I could feel the tension returning. My friend asked me why I was so on edge and all I could say was that part of me wasn’t looking forward to my wife coming back and it made me sad.
It made me sad to think that I was dreading the claustrophobia that I would feel once she was back here.
It made me sad to think that the love of my life made me feel uncomfortable and stifled.
It made me sad because of the implications for our marriage.
I love my wife with all of my heart and soul but she doesn’t accept Marybeth so I must leave.
We have had ‘the talk’ a few times since she has been back and we both agree that separation is the best option for now.
But we both can’t imagine living a life without each other.
But I am Marybeth now.
I am happy and peaceful.
‘He’ is gone.
And, so, in a very real sense my wife and I must renegotiate our relationship. Still husband and wife in the eyes of God but two women in the eyes of everyone else.
When we got married I was trying with all my heart and soul to be someone who I was not. An essentially conflicted and flawed person that she somehow fell in love with. A person that turned to escapism and alcohol to tame ‘his’ demons.
I am not that person anymore. The ‘demon’ has escaped her bottle and she is alive and well.
And peaceful.
And happy.
I spent my life running away from myself. Hiding myself away so that I wouldn’t hurt those around me. Trying to mould myself into their expectations so they wouldn’t get upset and I would be safe.
In so doing I ended up almost killing myself and I hurt more people with my charade than I helped.
I won’t let that happen anymore.
Like the Orion of Greek myth, I thought I was protected by my ‘hardened’ skin – the ‘man’ I pretended to be (Orion wore the skin of a lion to protect himself from the many beasts he had to slay to win the hand of the King’s daughter). I thought that ‘he’ protected me from harm. But it was an illusory protection because, as with Orion, all it did was keep me from true fulfillment (the King didn’t want Orion to marry his daughter so he kept adding to the list, making it impossible for Orion to ever win her hand).
I could have continued fighting myself until the end of time and I would never have found my true self. The story of Orion ends tragically with, depending on the version you read, Orion bragging that he could slay any beast and Artemis, the Goddess of the Hunt upon hearing that pride-filled boast, sending a giant scorpion to battle Orion. The battle waged on and on but eventually, the scorpion fatally stung Orion. The father of the Greek Gods Zeus, then placed both the Scorpion and Orion in the heavens to remind humans of the danger of Pride.
I too boasted that I could ‘beat’ my transsexuality.
‘He’ was my lion’s coat.
‘He’ was my protection.
‘He’ was the symbol of my Pride.
But now I have realized that the ‘beast’ I was fighting was myself.
Now I have realized that I am a beautiful person who can contribute to the world.
Now I realize that it is O.K. to be me.
I am beginning to learn to love myself.
For too long I have let misplaced pride get in the way of love.
I won’t make that mistake anymore.
I imagined ‘him’ to protect myself and others.
I only ended up hurting myself and others.
It has taken me forty years, but I think I am finally learning the lesson Zeus placed in the sky all those years ago.
My pride led me to hide from others and myself.
Now that I have finally understood my error I need to be Marybeth.
‘He’, my pride, must make way for me to be.
I love my wife with all my heart and soul but she loves ‘him’, not me.
So I must leave her.
To be.
The dawn is coming, the crescent moon is rising and Scorpio has chased Orion from the sky.
Good morning!!!
Love,
Marybeth.
ps. Sorry about the late post but my wife and I are in deep discussions about separation so it has been a rough couple of days…
Change and Separation September 21, 2008
Posted by Marybeth in acceptance, appearance, family, happiness, hormones, separation, transgender, transsexual.2 comments
Sunday, September 21st 6:00 am
Good morning everyone!
It is a cool and windy nine degrees Celsius outside here at my apartment this morning. I am sitting on my comfy chair on my balcony overlooking the Ottawa River and the rising sun in the East. I’ve got a cup of hot, strong coffee with freshly made cinnamon whipped cream to add sweetness and spice! All the ingredients for a truly inspired blog entry!!
I am at my apartment because my wife and I have decided to spend part of each weekend away from each other to ‘soften the blow’ when it comes. I know what my wife’s boundaries are and I respect them. I don’t understand them (though I sympathize) and I don’t agree with them (we still love each other deeply) but there is no sense in pretending they don’t exist so I am beginning to spend at least most of one day per weekend here.
Part of the reason I like to spend time here is that it truly is ‘my place’ and I can express myself fully when I am here. I practice my voice, I practice my make-up, and I dress how I want to. I relax, I think, I reflect and I plan.
My wife is beginning to get more and more uncomfortable with my transition. I am treating her like a queen and am becoming so productive at home(and work) that she can’t argue with how positive my transition has been for me so far. Yesterday for example, I helped her with make brunch, made pumpkin muffins (from the frozen pumpkin that has been in our freezer for years!), dusted and mopped the basement, helped her with her gardening, made supper (soup with tortellini, beets roasted in olive oil sprinkled with fresh rosemary and small toasts with melted cheese on them), did all the dishes then cleaned, swept and mopped the kitchen out (wow, I got tired all over again just typing that out!). I am not bragging since that performance isn’t all that unusual these days. My transition has also been good for our relationship, which would have, in all honesty, self-destructed without my move towards self acceptance. Her difficulty, and this is where I have a great deal of sympathy, is that she just can’t adjust to the evidence of my physical change. I don’t have stubble very much anymore. I don’t have rough skin. I have hips, a waist and breasts. I have changed and continue to change.
I am not man-shaped anymore.
I am becoming more and more physically female and she wants a husband not another girlfriend.
It isn’t that we don’t get along. Our relationship is the best that it has ever been. We talk more, we share more and we just enjoy each other’s company more.
The thing is, my breasts get in the way.
I love my breasts, I love my hips, I love the way my butt looks in jeans! I love my long hair, I love my soft skin, I love the polish on my fingernails! I love the shoes, I love the skirts, I love the pretty blouses I wear!
I love being me!
I didn’t used to enjoy life so much. I used to enjoy it so little I numbed the experience with alcohol and escaped through computer games.
So this morning I sit at my apartment, blissfully drinking my coffee and writing my thoughts in my journal. My long hair blows gently around my face brushing against my shoulders, a delicate gold chain with a blue aquamarine adorns my neck. I have a light coat of dark red on my lips that matches the colour of my blouse and a touch of mascara on my eyelashes.
I am completely at ease with the world.
I am fully expressing who I am – no compromises.
I am happy.
I am sad.
I love myself now.
But I love my wife so much I could cry.
She isn’t here.
She can’t bear to be.
She wants a man in her life.
Not the woman I am.
I can’t be that for her anymore.
(I was never really great at that job anyway.)
So I here I sit, at peace with myself for the first time in my life, alone.
I think, I reflect and I plan.
It is the right thing to do.
It isn’t a choice.
Just as there really isn’t anything else that my wife can do.
She is a woman.
And so am I.
Love,
Marybeth
ps. For those of you who have made it to the end of what turned out to be a somewhat depressing entry. I have a treat (?)! Here is a picture that was taken of me at work for inclusion in the ‘who is doing what at HQ’ section of our departmental directory.
The receding hairline is still (painfully) noticeable but I think the rest of me looks pretty feminine huh?
The Same but Different July 27, 2008
Posted by Marybeth in acceptance, appearance, differences, family, separation, transgender, transsexual, work.add a comment
Sunday, July 27 6:36 am
Good morning everyone!
Is that getting a bit tiring? That, the weather report and some flowery description about how amazingly beautiful the morning is out here at my wife’s place?
Oh, and don’t forget the throwaway line describing my piping hot mixture of whatever is I am drinking…
Well, I hate to disappoint, but it is another beautiful cool summer morning, the birds are awake and making themselves heard (oh what a joyful noise!) and yes, I am drinking a hot mocha beverage (coffee, milk and Dagoba Xocolatl hot chocolate mix!) to get my eyes open a bit wider than they would be given my current energy level.
Boring and expected, I know.
But inspired!
There really isn’t much I can do about that though.
I am who I am.
Who I’ve been.
Just different.
I might feel freer with my emotions. I might understand that I don’t have to go to ridiculous lengths to prove a phallacy. I might l have curves that weren’t there a year ago.
But I am still essentially the same person.
I just don’t have to act anymore and I don’t want to act anymore.
I just spent almost forty years pretending to be something, someone, whom I thought that people wanted me to be.
They kept telling me that they only wanted me to be happy.
So, after a long struggle, I accepted their advice and now I am happy.
So where did they go?
I guess they never contemplated that perhaps my being happy might make them uncomfortable or embarrassed.
That being around a ‘happy’ me might make them ‘queer’ by association.
Maybe they are reconsidering their advice?
To be fair, not everyone is abandoning me but I never let that many people get close to me in the first place.
Because I knew, deep down, that it would hurt more when they left, I pushed them away before I, or they, cared too much.
The only person I let myself love.
The only person who loved me back.
Is abandoning me now.
Will she change her mind?
I hope so but I am very afraid she won’t.
Why should she?
She wants to be a wife.
Not a lesbian.
When we go out together now we are seen as two women – not as a husband and a wife.
That makes her embarrassed.
So our marriage has ended.
But our love endures.
Until death do us part.
Or embarrassment makes our marriage unbearable.
I am no longer living a lie so I am no longer hurting myself.
My wife wants me to turn back the clock because I am hurting her.
She wants her husband back.
She says that it would make her happy.
Before I started hormones my depression made her unhappy.
Now I am smiling and cheerful but my appearance makes her unhappy.
My colleagues at work and my few ‘friends’ who still don’t know, keep guessing, keep waiting, for the punch line.
Am I making them uncomfortable too?
Do they prefer the unhappy disengaged individual I used to be?
To the smiling energetic person I am now?
In many ways I am still much the same as I used to be but my body now reflects my feminal truth.
Perhaps it is the coincidences that make the increasingly obvious changes so unnerving to them?
Like seeing the ghost of a person they once knew?
The old me is dying and the new me is spreading her wings, learning to fly.
But the echoes of the old me still reverberate in me and I know that it can be disconcerting at times.
There are times when I wonder whether it is worth the disruption and loss but then I remember how depressed and afraid I was before I accepted myself.
I remember how many months and years I squandered trying to run away from my truth so that people I let get close to me wouldn’t have to be uncomfortable or get embarrassed.
So today I am curvy and happy.
But I am still (very often) boring and predictable.
I am the old me in an authentic package.
The same but different.
My name is Marybeth Allison and I am a woman!
That wasn’t so hard.
Now, what are the next eleven steps…?
…and can I bring a few friends with me?
Love,
Marybeth Allison
Dilemmas and Hard ‘Choices’ May 3, 2008
Posted by Marybeth in acceptance, appearance, dysphoria, love, separation, transsexual, uncertainty.4 comments
Friday, May 2nd 10:48 pm
Good evening everyone! It is late on a Friday night and I am finally finding the time to set down my thoughts of the past two weeks.
I really don’t know where to begin.
Life happened.
I was very busy at work, I saw my therapist, I had a really good coffee/tea with a trans friend of mine, my older brother whom I hadn’t seen since Christmas and my two cousins whom I hadn’t seen in many, many years visited my wife and I, I had lunch with some work-related friends who haven’t seen me for a year or more and I had a really empowering trans-discussion group meeting. So many things, so many issues, so many emotions…so much!
After a little over seven months on hormones my body has changed perceptibly if you know what to look for (and even if you don’t I guess…). I look decidedly less male but my receding hairline prevents anyone from jumping over to the feminine pronouns immediately, no matter how much my chest and soft feminine facial feature proclaim it these days.
My therapist says that I am ready to go full-time.
My brother couldn’t believe the physical changes I have gone through since Christmas.
My cousins were cool about my transition and one said that he had never seen me so happy and peaceful as I am now.
My work friends looked at me strangely (one of the friends I had lunch with is female and she studied my face for a while wondering whether she should say something or not…) but accepted me since I was smiling more and wasn’t so distant as before.
The new people I met at the trans discussion group were really cool and I left the meeting thinking – I am ready.
And I am ready.
Except…
My wife needs me and she won’t tolerate me living with her once I go full-time.
And (vanity strikes) my receding hairline makes me hesitate a bit too.
The second one is relatively minor (though passing is very important to me once I go full time) but the first one tears my heart in two. My wife has had so many disappointments in her life and it looks like now she can add me to the list. I feel so bad about how this has turned out. She is sick and she needs someone to look after her and keep her sane but it looks like she won’t let me be that person for her.
For my sanity I need to transition fully, being in-between is increasingly painful.
Losing her would be very painful.
If I transition I lose, if I stay with her I lose.
I lose.
I am so happy when I am with her and I am so happy when I am Marybeth Allison in the world.
By not transitioning I am delaying the inevitable and prolonging the pain.
By leaving my wife I am losing my true love and my best friend.
I am ready. I need to transition. I like being happy and when I am happy my wife is happy - just not when I dress and act appropriately for my gender.
“Be a man and have faith in God” she constantly implores.
But I have faith in God. I have prayed my whole life. I have watched for the signs.
The overwhelming crux of my life has been my dysphoria. With transition I am finally becoming whole. Every part of my being is discovering its voice and singing a harmony that is heartbreakingly beautiful to ears that have been deaf. My mind, my soul and my body – singing together in perfect harmony.
If that isn’t a sign then perhaps I am destined to be deaf and blind.
But to transition I will have to betray and abandon the love of my life.
It is a dilemma that will tear me apart whichever option I ‘choose’ so I will leave it unanswered for now and hope for the best – though, perhaps, a whisper of the resolution can be found in this famous verse:
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
-William Shakespeare
Love,
Marybeth Allison
Realizations, Hopes and Reality April 6, 2008
Posted by Marybeth in acceptance, appearance, family, separation, transsexual.4 comments
Sunday, April 6th 5:12 am
Good morning everyone! It is a pleasant zero degrees Celsius outside my wife’s place this morning. The sky is crystal clear and, looking up, I can see the stars as they shimmer in their mysteries and hold bright Venus in tight embrace. I am hoping that I am sufficiently recovered from my flu that I can spend some time in the inspiration of the freshness and beauty of the emerging day, so I sip on my honey apple cinnamon tea and await my muse.
I think that I can honestly say that this is the week that reality set in. I had always known that given my situation I would not be as free as I would have liked to be in the setting and the implementation of my transition timetable but this week I have become more aware of just how true that is. I will have to adjust to the needs of others and have the patience to let my body and my too long repressed femininity adjust and emerge.
As I’ve written before, my wife hates the fact that I am transitioning but recently she seems to be more willing to accept some of the changes I am going through. I am much more optimistic than I have ever been before that being patient with her might save our marriage and our friendship so I have decided that I will be patient and hopeful, despite my impatience to transition. I will give her some more time and perhaps some space to adjust to my transition. I really want to help her recover from her illness and she is dependant upon me for that I help. I don’t want to abandon her but, at the same time, I won’t stop my transition because it continues to give me great joy. I hope against all hope that we can reach an understanding that will let us both be happy.
I also realized that, despite how much I would like to continue our marriage / friendship as before (I am still the same person after all), with my transition our partnership together changes at a very essential level. To save our relationship we both may need our own space to adjust to the reality of my transition. We may have to separate so that I can practice my femininity and become more comfortable with my female self both at home and outside of the home and she can adjust to the reconfigured me at her own pace. Right now I only dress and make-up when my wife isn’t around or is asleep and that makes me anxious and forced in my femininity not relaxed and at ease. I would really like to dress how I feel – a sunny skirt for a sunny day or a pretty blouse and slacks for going out shopping. My wife isn’t ready for that (and truthfully may never be) and I am so, as much as I hate to contemplate it, I may have to move out on my own (as opposed to being kicked out) so that I can .be. and she can adjust (if she wants to). That is a really hard reality.
I hope we stay together.
As for passing, the hormones help – I am much more relaxed and happy now but I realized that I need to work a lot more on my appearance, my voice, my deportment and my comfort level being out in public as female. I have also realized that despite maintaining an optimistic and patient approach to my hairline I will have to plan for something more drastic (a scalp advancement and/or a hair transplant) so that when I transition I will be recognized as female and not just as some middle-aged male living out a bizarre fantasy (I know sounds drastic but I know that is what some people think about transsexuals and I don’t want to encourage them). Programming this surgery in will mean that I might not be able to transition as soon as I would like to despite my growing impatience. I know that at some point you have to ‘just do it’ and I am doing small things everyday to build my confidence and my femininity (baby steps!) so that when I start my real life test / experience, I am as prepared as I can be.
I hope I can pass.
As I write these ‘harsh realities’ of mine down I realize that many of you out there are smirking a bit and thinking ‘welcome to being transsexual’. I know now that perhaps I was being too optimistic – I thought that I could beat the odds and manage to hold onto my wife / best friend and transition easily (without surgery) into a reasonable facsimile of an average middle-aged woman.
I guess the reality of my situation finally set in this week and I now realize that the hurdles so many others have faced will be part of my experience too. I know that in the end the rewards of transitioning will more than make up for any losses but looking at them from my current vantage point they seem quite daunting.
I know that there is much hard work and heart-ache ahead but I know I will meet and overcome these challenges.
Because I have always known that I’m a girl.
And that is reality.
The birds are waking up and their songs fill the morning air with their hopeful expectations for the new day just dawning. I take succour from their faith that no matter how long and dark the night may seem, a glorious new day will eventually dawn.
Love,
Marybeth Allison
What Choice? November 25, 2007
Posted by Marybeth in acceptance, appearance, estrangement, separation.4 comments
Sunday, November 25, 2007 07:07:39
Good morning everyone!
It is a cool white morning, though not as cold as it has been recently. I am sitting outside at my wife’s house writing this today. We have a visitor so I can’t just disappear for a morning or more to write and relax in peace at my apartment though that is increasingly my preference.
Not to say that it isn’t peaceful here or that, in the bigger picture, I am not multiple times more peaceful generally than I have been in quite some time (my whole life?….). It is just to state that in many ways I feel constricted in my actions and behaviours when I am here whether ‘our friends’ are visiting or not.
I had always thought that I would only leave if my wife ‘threw me out’ but I am beginning to realize that I may leave on my own because I feel limited by the expectations and comfort levels of others.
My wife currently accepts me around her place because the changes that I am going through have been so gradual. My skin is gradually softening. I am gradually losing muscle mass. My hair is gradually getting longer. I am gradually getting lumpy and curvy in places that I wasn’t before. I am more and more in ambiguous territory gender-wise but clues to the old me are still there if you look for them and want to see them. In the same way clues to the real me are there if you look for them too.
I can separate people into roughly three groups and their usual reactions.
1) People who see me regularly and haven’t really noticed the changes – they treat me more or less like they always have;
2) People who know me but haven’t seen me for some time – this can be a very problematic group because they sometimes don’t recognize me until I am pointed out and then they squint a bit while they come to terms with the new me; and
3) People who don’t already know me – they find my ambiguity somewhat challenging because they start from scratch and add up the points for he and the points for she to tally up either a sir or a ma’am.
The reality is that I am getting more people that don’t know me sometimes addressing me ma’am initially and then, because I am presenting in male mode most all the time these days, changing the score to sir.
What a thrill it is to pass as female when I am presenting as male! I smile a bit when they realize their ‘mistake’ but I don’t correct them.
The closer I get the more giggly and euphoric I feel. Pinch me I must be dreaming! One day soon I will wake up and God will have made me female. Fully female. Finally.
The cold splash of reality in my face is my wife and her constant struggle to hold on to the husband she is losing. As her dream of a normal life shatters around her, I see the crack in her smile get a little wider. I feel guilty but happy; sad but, increasingly, stoic.
I feel sorry but not sorry enough to end my life so that she can hang on to her normal life.
She says that I will go to Hell for doing this and maybe she is right – but I am sure of three things:
1) I know that if I end my own life I will go to Hell;
2) I know that if I try to be male I will go crazy and while I am depressed or crazy I might do or say something stupid that will send me to Hell;
3) I know that the process of transitioning has given me glimpses of a joyful and peaceful life – and then I will go to Hell.
I think I’ll take my chances and hope that she is wrong.
What other choice do I have?
Love,
Marybeth.
Marriage and Partnership September 30, 2007
Posted by Marybeth in separation, transgender.add a comment
Sunday, September 30, 2007 07:28:52
Good morning everyone. I notice from the time at the top of the page that I am a little ‘later’ than I normally start writing. I usually have a pretty good first draft by now!
The reason I am tardy this morning is that my wife and I had a ‘talk’ again last night. We spoke about many things – expectations and disappointments, relationships in general, about life and about love. Apart from trans-people, I think that the partners of trans-people know more about gender dysphoria than anyone yet my wife can’t admit that attraction to me is not primarily physical. She seems fixated on my being male – not on everything else in our relationship. Of the time we spend together we only spend about 5 percent of that time is spent being physical with each other (hugging, etc…) – as I have written before due to her illness our sex life is basically non-existent.
It seems petty really – limiting in an unconditional way. She is female so I have to be male otherwise we can’t continue our relationship. My wife continues to want to limit our relationship to a male/female binary when in fact we connect on so many more levels than that.
Catholicism states that a marriage is between a man and a woman and I am more or less fine with that definition – if the stated purpose is ‘just’ procreation. A man and a woman are essential for that purpose.
But what about a marriage that goes beyond the birthing of a fresh new crop of Catholics? What about a marriage that is loving, nurturing, and fully ‘completing’? I agree that marriages begun with the intent to procreate can be that too but what about all the others? What about all the other marriages that combine the very best of friendship with shared obligations, rewards, reciprocation and joy but aren’t blessed with children?
To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, in sickness or in health, for richer, for poorer, to love and to cherish until death do us part. Where is the part about ‘for the raising of children until they leaveth the nest’? If that condition isn’t explicitly stated, then it seems to me that marriage must then be more about partnership than procreation. Fine, if that serves as a beginning, but it can’t be the only purpose. A marriage is so much, much, much, much more!
Which is why I can’t understand why my wife always reduces it down to ‘When I married you, I was marrying a man, not a woman’. And I always come back with ‘You married me because you loved ME’. There were plenty of other men out there that she could have married but she chose me because I was different from the other men she had met. I married her because she was different from the other women I had met. My attraction to her did not change one bit when she became ill.
I am a rational person and I, even after having written the above, can comprehend that she wouldn’t have married me if I had been female when we made the decision to be together. I wouldn’t have asked her to marry me if I had been female then either. But that doesn’t change the fact that we married each other and have stayed together in sickness and in health for reasons other than simple gender opposition. In each other we have found someone who ‘completes’ each other in so many ways – gender seems so irrelevant!!
My wife and I had ‘the talk’ again last night. We went over ground that we have covered so many, many times before and the conclusion hasn’t changed. I am glad we talked though, it makes so many things more clear and, in a way, more comfortable for both of us. We have agreed on many things but we disagree on one small detail.
I won’t say that I don’t ‘understand’ but I will say that it makes me very, very, very, very, sad.
Love,
Marybeth.
‘Safe’ in the Nest? September 10, 2007
Posted by Marybeth in separation.2 comments
Monday, September 10, 2007 19:12
As I write this I am sitting in a silent house on a Monday evening reflecting on choices. Choices I have made and choices I must make.
The house is quiet because my wife isn’t here tonight. She wasn’t here most of the day yesterday, she will be out every evening this week and most of Saturday as well. She is taking a course on mindfulness and encouraged me to join her but I decided to take the time she is away and reflect a bit myself.
Yesterday I really got a chance to relax and do things that I wanted to do, both the chores I needed to do and the relaxing diversions that seemed like good ideas. The change in atmosphere was palpable – it felt like the pressure evaporated and I could be myself. Myself without the fear that I might offend. I feel the same way now and it is truly exhilarating.
My life could be like that everyday but for a sense of duty. A sense of duty and a reluctance to venture out of my somewhat cramped but nonetheless ‘safe’ nest.
This summer I had robins nesting next to my front door. They looked like a happy family, a clutch of eggs and then, suddently, three tiny voracious chicks and two very busy parents. One afternoon the mother stopped bringing food to the nest and instead encouraged her chicks to fly out to her to be fed. Before going to bed that evening I checked the nest and saw that two of the three chicks were gone – and so, it seemed, was the mother. The remaining chick cried incessantly and then, every so often, it would go deeper into the nest, with only its’ open beak visible about the rim of the nest, waiting for food that wasn’t coming. The next morning I took a look at the nest and, sure enough, the last chick was still in the nest. I scanned the nearby trees for the mother but she, the mother who had ‘dive bombed’ me constantly earlier in the week, was nowhere to be seen. I went closer to the nest to see if the chick had passed on and then I heard the sharp ‘chirp’ of its’ mother and saw that she had not yet given up on her final chick. The chick then peered over the side of the nest unsure of what to do – unwilling to leave the ‘safety’ of the nest.
I know it sounds corny but I feel like that last chick right now. I know that my nest isn’t really safe. I know that I will suffer and ‘die’ if I insist on remaining in the nest but, maybe it is because I am too scared or maybe it is because I am not hungry enough but I keep finding reasons to justify staying with my wife – for just one more week, one more month, … I know that she has fundamentally moved on with her life and now is just taking advantage of my kindness to her. ‘Manly’ chores around the house that need to get done, preparing meals, cleaning the house, nursing her, etc… My sense of duty to her keeps me here. I know that the sense of duty is not reciprocal and hasn’t been for some time, if ever. So I resemble the chick in another way too, except that in my case I have my hand out waiting for reciprocity. The final way I resemble the chick is… – SPOILER ALERT (if you haven’t been reading my blog you may want to stop reading and go back to read the past two or three months of entries and then come back read the end of the sentence) – … that I whine all the time.
When I saw the chick peering over the nest, wondering what to do, I thought about what might eventually happen to it. Would it work up the courage to fly out of the nest or would it simply waste away from lack of nutrition? I felt sorry for the poor chick seemingly content but mildly distressed in the ‘safety’ of its’ nest so I made a snap decision – I made a quick movement in the direction of the nest – and, sure enough, was rewarded by a load sqwauk! and a flurry of feathers from the direction of the nest. The baby robin flew about 30 feet and landed on the lawn to be met soon after by its joyful mother. I don’t know what became of that chick but I do know what would have become of it had it decided to stay in the nest.
I also know what will become of me if I linger too long in mine. There may be never be a ‘right’ time to leave but when I do leave, I just hope that I am ready to fly.
Love,
Beth
Accommodation and Accommodations September 1, 2007
Posted by Marybeth in dysphoria, separation, transgender.4 comments
Saturday, September 1, 2007 04:46
Hello everyone! I am taking the opportunity this early morning to write you from the comfort of my perch outside my wife’s house under soft glow of gentle moonlight.
I thought that this morning I would write about accommodation – both flavours. In my last post (I apologize for the lack of a post last week perhaps this entry will go some way towards explaining my neglect even if doesn’t manage to atone for it), I wrote about the difficulty I am having getting used to the idea of being in a marriage with very separate residences. To me the reality of having a home separate from my wife’s felt like the shattering of the bedrock my marriage. This was the most obvious sign of my marriage disappearing.
Given that I have my own place now you may be wondering why I am continuing to correspond with you from my wife’s house. It is a valid questions given the amount of words I have dedicated in this blog to whining about the fact that I am separating from my wife (being kicked out is actually more descriptive). The answer to that question lies in the fact that my wife seems quite lenient towards when our actual separation should start and, as you may have surmised, I am quite reticent to leave.
My marriage is transforming in front of my eyes. As I try and maintain a ‘glass half full’ approach to life, I could attribute this change to a realization on the part of my wife of how much she loves me and how she doesn’t want to lose me no matter what physical changes I might undergo. My ‘glass half empty’ self might look at the same situation and note that my wife’s hip has deteriorated a bit more or that she is scheduled for a surgery in the fall and therefore attribute her change of heart to a more visceral need on her part for assistance. My ‘inner Canadian’ would look at note the merits of both points of view and suggestion that perhaps latter begat the former or even that, having seen that I do intend to, perhaps, ‘call her bluff’, and transition even if it means losing her, she is finally realizing what she might lose too.
I am struggling with what to do about my marriage and my reconciliation right now. On the one hand I have a place of my own and I should be staying there more and more so that I can feel free to be myself. On the other hand, I love my wife deeply and I don’t like to see her suffer – she really needs my help prior to, during, and after her operation. I feel smothered by her constant need for attention and her extreme disapproval at any too obvious expression of femininity from me. I feel self-conscious if I am writing in this journal when she is hovering near by so I usually stop – that is why most of my entries are initially drafted very early in the morning (it is also why I didn’t manage an entry last week – she had just returned from a two-week visit with her sister and her demands on my time didn’t allow for a reasonable block of time to write). So my dilemma is, in the immortal words of ‘The Clash’ – ‘Should I stay or should I go now?’ ( http://www.lyricsfreak.com/c/clash/should+i+stay+or+should+i+go_20031789.html )
If I am feeling positive I muse that perhaps my marriage isn’t really over – it is just going through a period of adjustment. If I am feeling depressed or cynical I conclude that my marriage really is over and I am just a momentary convenience.
When I admitted that I needed to deal with my gender dysphoria I knew that there were many risks involved but judged that benefits of transition outweighed them all. I knew that my wife would probably react the way she has despite the many adjustments I have made to my lifestyle to help her through her illness but the almost clinical way that she just told me to leave and the ‘gifts’ she has given me for my apartment (she bought me a set of dishes and pots and pans) still tore my heart out. I didn’t feel an ounce of regret from her as she pronounced her decision and then helped me out the door and it hurt. It seems that she is doing her best right now to hang on to the parts of me that she likes, perhaps taking advantage of the guilt I feel for leaving her under these circumstances. She wants me to help her through her operation and, of course, I can’t refuse. She will accommodate my strange changes (so long as I keep them as unobtrusive as possible) so that she can benefit from my assistance during this difficult time for her but (I know) as soon as she recovers – I am yesterday’s news.
In my marriage I done my best to fulfill my vows and so far, I have spent a great deal of time dealing with the one about ‘…in sickness and in health…’. I thought that a demonstration of my commitment to my vows would engender a reciprocation from my wife if a similar situation should arise but it appears that I didn’t note the ‘asterisk – *’ beside our vows. It seems that a partner changing genders is essentially a ‘get out of marriage free’ card. I knew I should have read the vows more carefully!!!
The question remains though – ‘If one partner accommodates the other but the other doesn’t reciprocate or just reciprocates selectively, does that constitute a marriage at all?’
It seems to me that a marriage that doesn’t have equality of accommodation at its’ foundation eventually leads to separate accommodations.
And perhaps that is the answer to the dilemma I posed at the beginning of this entry. Both sides of the argument have merit but without reciprocity the marriage is gone. But that doesn’t mean we can’t still help each other selectively. Because I value my friendship with my ‘wife’ I will help her through this difficult time but I won’t sacrifice my transition to do so. I will honour her feelings about my gender change so I won’t make it too obvious when she is around but I won’t postpone it any longer either.
We both deserve our health.
Love,
Beth
My Apartment – My Wife’s House August 19, 2007
Posted by Marybeth in acceptance, gender, separation, transgender, transsexual.3 comments
Sunday, August 19, 2007 13:53
Hi everyone!
This has been an extremely difficult entry for me to write. With so many stressful things going on in my life I find it difficult to concentrate on any one topic long enough to write something coherent. That said, I have decided to treat this entry like I would when trying to unravel a jumbled length of rope – I will just start somewhere and hope for the best!
My wife has been away the past week so I took a few days off work to give myself a five day long weekend. I had intended to use the time to pack my things and move into my new apartment but ultimately it seems that I just managed to plan what I needed to buy for the apartment and send in the order – Ikea and on-line ordering are a wonderful combination!
I ended up getting side-tracked a bit because I couldn’t find a bookcase to my liking anywhere so I decided to design and build one myself (nothing fancy I assure you). I then decided I had to replace a step around my wife’s house (my apartment – my wife’s house – that concept may take some getting used to). Anyways, I went overboard with that job and ended up building what amounts to an addition to the front deck – a three day job instead of just the one-hour repair it should have been.
I knew when I decided that I needed to transition, that it would there would be many challenges and a great deal of changes. Transition is by definition life changing. It challenges all of your expectations and assumptions about your life and your relationships. I have quite a bit of sympathy for my wife, my family, my work, my friends, etc… After all, a pretty basic assumption of theirs about me has just been put in question. But, not to complain too much, the person who is transitioning is at the epicentre of everyone else’s feelings of betrayal and loss. That is quite a bit of guilt (and feelings of responsibility, shame, etc…) to focus on one person at any time, it is even worse when that person isn’t very happy about the whole situation either. For me it just adds to the intensity of my apprehension and lessens my resolve to do something that I ‘know’ is right for me. Trying to justify my decision to everyone all the time is really stressful.
Q: How do you know that you are a boy or a girl?
A: You just know.
I get the feeling these days that I am standing on the edge of a precipice, looking forward to either a glorious new fulfilling life or of a complete disaster (my wife assures me it will be a disaster…). The only thing that keeps me from turning back is the knowledge of the big black hole behind me. In my weaker moments I am sometimes tempted by the ‘comfort’ and familiarity of that pit. It may be a life built on a false premise but I am proud of what I built and I want to hold on to as much of it as I can. I am hesitant to give it all up for the promise of authenticity. What if authenticity is overrated?
One thing I know for sure is that I experience moments of great joy when I can express myself and be myself just the way I want to be whether it is wearing a dress and make-up or just jeans and a t-shirt – long hair or short hair. It is those feelings that propel me onward.
Add to that that my wife has said that after she recovers from her illness she would like to have a healthy sex life (we have none currently and haven’t for the entire duration of her illness – to save you the bother of reading past entries, that is about seven years – essentially our whole marriage). With all the spironolactone I have been taking I am essentially a eunuch – a happy eunuch but a eunuch just the same. At this point stopping the spironolactone is not an option – I don’t like the person I remember being (and neither does she come to think of it) so I doubt I would be able to be the sexual partner she anticipates needing – so it seems that the idea that I could easily go back to the ‘safety’ of my old life isn’t really valid.
Which brings me around to why I didn’t pack and move during this past week when I should have. After all, I have made my decision – my gamble – for a chance at authenticity, for the hope of maybe finally feeling comfortable with myself and my wife has made hers.
I didn’t pack because I am not quite ready to believe it is over.
My apartment.
Her house.
Separate lives.
I pray that this is the right thing to do.
Love,
Beth
A Page Turned and a New Hope August 12, 2007
Posted by Marybeth in hope, love, marriage, separation, transsexual.6 comments
Sunday, August 12, 2007 07:02
Hello everyone! It feels so fresh out here this morning. The air out here is so much nicer outside than the stuffy air inside.
I am not sure what to write about this morning. I feel tapped out. I have spent the last week planning the furnishing and set-up of my new apartment. Out of respect for my wife I haven’t been spending any time over there but she leaves tomorrow to visit with her sister so I am taking most of the week off of work to do it then.
Speaking of my wife, she got some good news, they have found a donor so she will be getting her bone marrow transplant done this fall. We celebrated with a meal at a really nice restaurant. Over dinner she mentioned that we would both be going through ‘transitions’ this fall – she will have [fingers, toes and eyes crossed] a successful transplant and I will have [ditto] a successful transition. She said it with so happiness that it makes me think she probably would have left me once she got better no matter what I did. My transition just gives her the ‘moral cover’ she needed. I am such an accommodating ‘husband’.
I can’t help but think how ‘right’ this all feels and how uncomfortable and stuffy my marriage feels these days. A marriage has to have enough love and acceptance in it to allow a person to grow and change. As I wrote last week my marriage has become suffocating so I anticipate my move will offer the same experience as coming outside this morning to write. I will be able to live unselfconsciously and that will be like a breath of fresh air.
As my marriage comes to an end I am forced to ask myself if I have any regrets and as I write this not many come to mind. Rather than regrets I am just unhappy that things turned out the way they did. It is sad that a person can’t see beyond their own selfishness to accommodate the needs of another. I am sad that she doesn’t love me as much as I love her. It hurts me that she seems to be ‘rushing me out the door’ these days. I am sad that I am looking forward to escaping from her ‘tyranny’. For the last eight years my life has been centered on making sure that she was happy. It will take a while to stop feeling guilty for focusing on my own happiness instead.
I know that the coming months will be difficult, I will have to inform my parents that my marriage is over, I will have to inform my employer that I will be transitioning and I will have to deal with the fallout in all my other relationships. I have to say though, it feels like there is a light at the end of this particular tunnel. I don’t think I can see it yet but my intuition tells me it is there. The reason I was getting more and more depressed before is that my subconscious knew that it was a dead end with only my stubborness and my love for my wife were standing in the way.
For those of you who continue to read this blog, I can’t promise you that I won’t be writing any more depressing angst-filled dispatches but I can promise that the overall trajectory will be upwards and not downwards.
I think I will end this week’s entry by pasting in an entry that I wrote in my journal earlier this week:
Everytime I think about my progress towards becoming the woman I am, I get an exultant feeling.
Exultant!
I experience an overwhelming upswelling of joyousness that I can only relate to the feeling of a four year old child being told that she is right to feel, act and be the way she is.
Not the bitter hopeless feeling of a thirty-nine year old who, despite being relatively successful, is empty inside because she cannot be.
I’ll take exultant any day even though it means the dissolution of my ‘marriage’, being marginalized and enduring the many difficult challenges to come.
I am ready.
I want to – finally- live.
Love,
Beth
