The Place I Used to Stand

• Posted by Ann Teve February 24, 2009 Filed in Society Girl's Personal Blogs 2,160 views
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  I didn't get the job. There was a moment were I feld sure that I would and another when I felt it couldn't happen. It didn't. They did call, however, foolishly I thought to ask for another interview. They would be looking at someone else. Surprisingly, I didn't cry. Not right away.
  
  My hours at Lee Valley have been cut back with the economy. It is dispiriting to be short of money again. It is equally dispiriting to look through the employment opportunities -- I can't imagine that I'm suited to anything.
  
  Reading the Coming Out Forum is strange for the excitement expressed about going out  '. Was it ever so for me? Looking back my early adventures out were few and private. When I came to the decision to come out, it was done in a single moment. Now, in is almost strange to read of the excitement of others. 'Being Ann' is the norm and from that perspective I look back and forward in my life and everything is different than I imagined it would be.
  
  Ann is the new normal. Certainly there are still more than shreds of Michael in my personality but I have changed greatly. There are moments of doubt and great regret -- not that I shouldn't have done what I did but that I had no choice and at the time of the choice I didn't know the losses or challenges that I would face. It is strange to see that I am now accepted at work. While it might seem as if this is something that my co-workers have actively done, such is not the case. Acceptance is the loss of interest. I am no longer of interest to anyone -- I have a new place in the social structure of work and the novelty of it is gone. I am in the fullest sense 'one of the girls'. There are moments when I wonder at this. How can this have happened so easily and quickly?
  
  I've always been lonely but only at moments over my life did it really hurt. I did find love and it was good, very good but imperfect. I was blinded by the imperfections, regardless the outcome couldn't have been different than it was -- divorce. Now, I cry more deeply in loneliness than I ever had. It comes at moments I cannot expect. It stays longer that I can control. There is this great empty space where the person I was stood. There is this great empty space in my heart. Harder still is the realization that I could not go back, cannot undo what I have done, nor would I try. In some ways, my liberation became my prison.
  
  Now, it is up to me to make a life for myself as I am, to fill this new space I have chosen, to find new dreams and new meanings, to build memories.