I am reminded of the excellent play, "Abigail’s Party", but without the comedy. The realisation that it’s all going horribly wrong….

Wendy, in her latest blog has related an event in my life and my reaction to it, to her own feelings, perhaps at a similar turning point in her own life. Whether that is so or not, it has taken me right back to the night in question, "The Dinner Party", and what it meant to me, how it pushed me forward to actually making a decision. Perhaps it wasn’t really a decision, more a realisation that there was no choice for me. I hope Wendy doesn’t mind, but I wanted to reproduce *some* of an email I sent her in reply to one she sent me after I had commented on her blog. I’ve snipped out rather a large chunk, for my own reasons, and to save this blog filling up Trannyweb's entire server memory...

However, first some unrelated stuff on more current matters:

My heart goes out to my dear Pip, who has just had his drumkit stolen along with several microphones. The singer of their band had his front door kicked in and van keys taken and hence van stolen complete with band equipment and tools of his other trade. It sounds like Pip has come off worst, drums and cymbals and stuff are very expensive, but he’s being very brave for which I admire him. He’s a very resourceful person and has already fettled together a kit from old bits and pieces, but not the same I’m sure as his self-customised very glam-rock kit. In the past my band had a van stolen and some equipment nicked so I know how it feels. Not nice. Stay strong babe, and remain philosophical – shit happens as you say. It certainly does.

Even to me…

The guy I was in a collision with last year, just down the road from my house, has decided that it was all my fault and is suing me for hire charges, presumably while he was getting his car repaired. I don’t know why he didn’t get a courtesy car like I did, I thought all insurers did that these days, nor do I know why he has spent the ridiculous sum of four and a half thousand pounds on hiring a car. Nor, for that matter, do I know why it has taken him 3 months to make a claim against me AND now expects me to pay interest for those 3 months. Plenty more questions where those came from too. I have to say all this really upset me, at least for a weekend, before I was able to ring my insurers on the Monday and be reassured to hear that they would appoint a solicitor on my behalf, and that I wasn’t alone; someone was fighting my corner for me. I’m not a violent person but I want to slap this guy if only for refusing to accept any blame himself. He was obstructing my side of the road, 2 wheels over the central line, clear contravention of the highway code, forcing me to brake suddenly which caused my car to swerve into his, and then he audaciously accuses me of not controlling my vehicle. I really want to use a very rude word now but my mum reads my blogs now so I’d better not. Anyway, I’m only relieved that I don’t have to do this all on my own, and I am not going to take this lying down. Bastard. And that’s the polite version. Shit happens, doesn’t it Pip.

This week I’m off to London again for my second appointment at Charing Cross, which I expect will be much the same as the first, but I hope to get a few things sorted out this time. I was pleased with the way things went last time but I felt the consultant I saw was having to be a little vague, probably because of the NHS policy of requiring 2 opinions on a case of GID. In fact I never got any opinions, it would be nice to know that they don’t think I’m a deluded cross-dresser trying to live out some sort of fantasy. I’ve seen my GP and 2 psycho’s already and I still don’t know what they think of me. But I can’t say I’m worried about that, I’d just like to know WHEN they can do a trach shave and so on.

I’m going down on my own this time, so no trips to the theatre, shame. I should have some time before my train home so hope to do a bit of shopping, if only in Hammersmith, ie near the hospital, where there is quite a nice shopping arcade.

Anyway, back to the dinner party. Thanks for thinking of me Wendy, and for all the chats we’ve had in the past. Wendy is a sound person who understands people, and I always admire her posts in the forums especially on matters of gender psychology. I think her own identity, and devotion to self-discovery gives her a huge advantage over many so-called experts in the field, and basically a lot of what she says just makes sense. Here is some of my reply to her latest email. Please read her blog first if you haven’t already done so. The Dinner Party is something all of us may have to face at some point in our lives, or may have done already. It’s what you do about it that matters.

Dear Wendy,

I understand! But I am of course not the only one. It’s not something you can, or should rush into, so you are right to linger in the doorway if that’s what feels right at this time, it will just happen; if you need to tell people, then you will when the time is right. I’m glad you have your gg friend to share all this with, and that she is so supportive and encouraging. So many people think there is no such thing as such a person; that absolutely everyone will not understand, or ridicule, or disown, or detest…

That is not the case, those people are a tiny majority; in my case my dad is the only one. So hugely are his opinions outweighed by the tremendous response by everyone else that there is little pain really. I honestly feel sorry for him. Sometimes I think he is sad and pathetic, but really I feel he has problems of his own. He stubbornly hides away from reality, comforted by his self-made model world in which I and others like me are simply wrong. To admit otherwise would be to turn his world upside-down. I guess he’s too old for that, but I’m sad for him because in a way I know how it feels to hide from the truth. But perhaps I never realised that until I came from out of the shadows…

It’s frustrating because it is such a simple fact that I am not "wrong"; that I can not help who, or how I am. I am me, it’s my life, I have to live it. I couldn’t go on being a non-person. He knows all this I’m sure, and that’s why I think he hasn’t been more obstructive, because he certainly can be when he wants to. Deep down he knows I can’t help it, and therefore that I’m not really wrong, no matter what demons this brings to life for him; something is going on I’m sure, something has happened, or somehow he has been moulded this way – it’s his defence mechanism, something to shelter him from his own deep insecurity and weakness. He’s a man, and an old-fashioned one to boot; he has to be strong. Men should be men, women are second-class citizens, where the hell do men who want to be women come into the equation…?!

*Snip*

Through all this I hope you can see that it really doesn’t matter what people think, if there is someone in your life that you may lose by coming out, then that is better than to remain lost yourself, forever.

My pain is less now, and it will go on reducing. It’s all swings and roundabouts, my dad’s reaction can never make my life worse than it was. What I have lost is offset by what I have gained. And some.

I see a lot of what you write in myself. I didn’t realise just how bad my life was before it started to get better. Perhaps that’s why the dinner party hit me with such force. Reading your blog today reminded me of the intensity, which I just can’t put into words. I was dying, I thought I was just withering slightly. I was at the crossroads without realising the urgency with which I needed to choose my direction. I thought I could just stand there watching the traffic go by for a while, but I really had a bus to catch. Everything had crept up on me, I was on the verge of the abyss, about to fall. It suddenly appeared under my feet; oblivion. Seeing it so close was scary, time to change direction or fall…

It was a horrible evening for me, I’ve never felt such despair, but it was a vision, a revelation, all part of my self-learning process, and in a weird way, I now treasure that despair.

I’ve always been afraid of what people think about me, and god how I see that so often on Tweb and elsewhere. People say they can’t come out, I thought so too. But I could, and I did, and as you’ve already picked up, it’s a damn sight easier than you expect it to be. It’s your own fears you have to come to terms with, not other people’s feelings. Yes, there may be some people that you love that will be affected by it, yes you may lose someone, yes, you can keep your secret so as to not hurt them, and to save yourself from those confrontations. But at what cost? That’s what you have to weigh up.

For me, I had an out of body experience which showed me what it would cost to keep up the pretence. Actually I don’t really believe in all that stuff, but it kind of felt that way, an observer, not present. I saw myself living a silent hell, facing a death sentence, or worse, more like being un-dead. In fact it showed me what it was already costing me. My life. My existence. My Self.

Too high a price to pay.

"The Dinner Party", you have immortalised it in your own words, and I thank you for that. Such a reminder helps me to remain focused. It was a wake-up call. Wake up, and live.

Be strong sister, and never stray from your own path, it will lead you to happiness. And I hope that one day, our respective paths may cross.

Yours verbosely!

Lucy

xx

Back to my blog…

No-one could have persuaded me to transition and I would never try to do the same to anyone else. If you need to go the same route, then you will, and likely there will be some event in your life that really drives it home, that shows you that there really is no choice.

Dinner parties should be enjoyable, they’re not supposed to be revelations of how your life is crumbling around you, how things have become so precarious, how bloody awful it is to have to go on with the pretence that you are someone you are not. My verbosity stems from a need for catharsis, and I’m sorry to go on…

To save you, dear reader, from any more of this, perhaps suffice to say that I look forward to my next dinner party, wherever that may be, without trepidation; knowing that it will not leave me questioning my own existence. For now I feel like I truly exist, now I live in reality. Now I realise that out of body experiences at dinner parties just ain’t right.

Now I have an appetite for life.

xx