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It's been a hard year, but not really because of being transgendered. In many ways that has been the best part of my life for the last year. Coming out was hard and wonderful and my life is much better for it. I'm more serene. I deal better with disasters. I'm a better person Wendy is definitely running my life now. I still react to surprises with old habits, but even that is changing. I'm more emotional but those emotions are not anger. I feel instead. Not always fun but far better for me and those around me. I look at the smile on my friend's face when we are together and my insides get all warm. Finally, after years, we are enjoying each other's company like we never have before. Last night, Sunday, she wanted to go out to dinner. It was late in the day and I started to get efficient and logical ...then I just went: "She really wants to go out...forget efficiency." So i hopped in the car and drove up. We had dinner. She was WALKING. The first time she's been out of her wheelchair to go out of the hospital since July of last year. I'm so happy to see her walk. The Asian Gardens Buffet is our current favorite spot. How favorite? The staff are all smiling and commenting on her not being in a wheelchair. They knew her even out of it. Three plates of Sushi and Chinese food later (I'd missed one meal today :-P ) and lots of girltalk later we looked into each other's eyes and smiled again. We were both so happy having fun together. I offer her a job as the Makeup and Fashion Consultant for The High Stilletto (my hypothetical GLBT friendly dude[ette] ranch) She is enthusiastic and earnest. What a doll she is. We talk about practical issues with such a place. I suggested hitting some stores for "window shopping" and it was unanimous. Off we went, stopping to drop off library books and discuss the cosmetics books I had been reading. We went to the mall but it was closed. I just realized I had not a moment of dismay or upset over that...just went, "Ok, where next?" Off we went to Target, the Jewlery counter. Looking for earrings for me....she's going to pay to have my ears pierced as a birthday present. We settled on gold studs with small loops later after i get used to them. Of course, I was looking at every earring I could see for "later". Big smile. We were talking to the girl at the counter about the costs and some of the jewelry, including new synthetic stones that are gorgeous. Fire Topaz. Ok, I agreed to get them pierced today....Monday, my birthday. We went off to the cosmetics counter where they FINALLY had Neutrogena mineral makeup in stock. I'm really shifting far over to the TG side. I feel like Joni Cruz famous "jumping up and down screaming" but really, not a saying, I really feel like it....or dancing...right there in the store. I'm forgetting I'm "supposed" to be a guy and just being me....whoever me is.and I'm smiling, big smile. I don't smile like that and I've been doing it all evening. I'm talking freely about girlstuff with my friend and I'm being unself-concious about it. She's still thinking "cover stories" and i'm sort of "why bother, screw em", but laughing....and loving her for her caring. We hit the checkout with one item. We will choose the earrings tommorow (Monday). Heck, I'm grinning now thinking about it. :-D Off to Barnes & Noble's Bookstore. A long meandering through it alone and together. Looking at magazines with fashion and I'm pleased my friend says I have an eye for it, for she certainly does. She buys me a copy of THE COMPLETE BEAUTY BOOK by Helen Foster. It's a how-to book that lays open flat so you can refer to it while doing what it shows....like ways to tie pony tail variations. I see ideas that I came up with on my own and it feels really good to know I had the same fashion insight. I know I owe much of it to my friend who I learned from over 20+ years. When she tells me I have chosen the correct looks for makeup and hair or a dress for me, I feel good and know I owe it to her teaching (albiet unintentionally to her new girlfriend) and her books. She seems to be realizing this and feeling proud as well. So MUCH of girlculture is oral tradition. Learned not from books but from mothers, sisters, friends at school, slumber parties, and so on. I'm glad I read and re-read books on Color Seasons and Dressing for Success and that I have learned to understand and change around standard women's rules for fashion (like reversing dark on the bottom, light on top because they wanto to look like they have smaller hips and buttocks and we want larger ones). They don't necessarily explain why, just DO IT THIS WAY....I feel good I have figured it out and changed it the way that will make me look better....and my friend confirms my choices. Here I am, out in public, unconcerned and unself-conscious of the fact that I am pleased with being complimented on these things around others....strangers. These are the changes that are harder to see coming but are as important as coming out if we are to be ourselves. I know, despite Lucy Diamond's frequent encouragements that it's going to be much easier than we think, that I have unspoken fears that I will be confronted and rejected in public....yet I am behiaving and talking,if not dressed, in a much less than macho manner. I'm wearing a light blue hair elastic, a tiger-eye butterfly necklace and rattling along eloquently about the history of Queen Elizabeth IInd's state dresses. "That's a good choice for a state visit to Germany, I know it but I don't know why." (turns out it was based on decorations at a german castle the visit was at) I'm having so darn much fun being Wendy that I can't be bothered to be self-concious....except for very brief incidents at long intervals....quickly forgotten. I'm moving differently. A low center of gravity flow, my arms are moving differently. It's not camp or affected, it's just comfortable and right for how I feel and think at the moment. It's not male-macho-animal. It's confident, relaxed.....I think "I hope I can be like this when I'm out dressed en femme" It's RIGHT. and natural.and Goddess don't let me do it in front of a skinhead bar on Saturday night."
It's clear. The internal struggle for finding the true me is over. I'm ready to focus on the outer part. Not just what to wear or what color eye shadow but being me, naturally. I'm finding my way to being myself. I don't expect there to not be moments of doubt and terror but I'm darn happy right now with how I am.
Earlier today Lilienne offered to be there my first time out en femme. How can I explain how I felt. It's one of those strange feelings I'm not used to allowing. Oh, yes. I'm feeling that soon I will know how it feels, not just to accept myself, but to be among friends and strangers who accept me as who I am, not who they want me to be. I know I'm going to be just as happy as I was last night. If I can just make it from the car to the club without, as my tgf so colorfully puts it, "peeing my panties." I know I'm going to feel like I'm in The Emerald City. I do believe I'm going to have my life, the one they said I could not have as a child when they insisted that I behave "like a man" all my life. I won't dwell on what I lost, but on what I've gained. No time to waste. I have a lot of years to catch up on and I'm still not sure what is, as yet, undiscovered in my head...and heart.
We headed back to the hospital. Sat outside in the rain for about an hour and talked about my sexual feelings and orientation. We moved on to history, sex, biology, science, the physiological/psychological elements of "love" and how they interact. We analyzed Henry VIII relationships with his wives and the true causes based on biochemical and brain functions rather than blaming him as a "cad" for not staying in love with his wives. We put in information on serial daters and the 6 month rule for relationships where they either fade away or become long-term love instead of excitement and lust. We have little control over such things. Men and women are at it's mercy in different ways. But Fundamental Religoius doctrine and cultural imperatives distort our perception of history and cause us to lose the insights that science may give us....in the name of political correctness. Bio-psychological history is fascinating and gives us a much different meaning and truth for many historical events. Was George Washington a grim man. NO! His teeth hurt when he sat for that portrait and the artist didn't like him. But men froze and starved and died for this man at Valley Forge. He rode his horse half a day on many occassions to get to a dance. Could the John Travolta of the Colonies be a grim, cold person....based on one portrait done while he waited for the dentist to come? We see so much in life based on "truths" that are false. We see that about ourselves and yet we still buy into other "truths". Lifeforms switched sex/gender long before there were humans or even mammals. It is our evolutionary heritage, not a mistake. It's the origional design specifications for life trying to re-exert itself. We are statistically small in number, but we are not broken or perverted or a birth defect. We are archetypically true to our genetic heritage. Diversity increases survival in a species. Viva Diversity. I am a Two-Spirit. I am a gift to mankind. I should not be hiiding. I should be performing my function. To help my species survive and grow. To let the breeders breed and the offspring survive is no less nurturing those children than bearing them. Are soldier and worker ants any less part of their species than the Queen ant? We think differently. We have different ideas. Don't discount your value to humanity's survival and progress.
I've purged my random memories. I've got hard copy. I better sleep if I'm to get anything done today. When you've got to blog....you've got to blog.
Happy Birthday, Wendy. "The best in many a year."
Most recent favorite website find:
Designer and manufacturer of women's sexy high heels, stiletto boots, and exotic shoes to size 14.
