No Bed of Roses
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Not a Bed of Roses
Here be thorns.If you read this blog you may get the impression that discovering one is transgender after 60 years is too cool for school. That's not surprising.. those 60 years were full of conflict and confusion. I always knew something was off kilter. I've talked about the fact that in my generation in my immediate family, that is, siblings and cousins, four out a seven were/are gay or lesbian. And I have always added "And whatever I am."
I knew I wasn't a straight woman... as I have mentioned when I was about 20 I figured that must mean i was a lesbian. Well, let's just say that didn't work out so hot. So I just kind of shrugged, fell in love with a man, married him, and lived happily ever after...
Say what?!
No... plenty of happily but a lot of pain and confusion too. I've joked around for years that "I flunked girl school." I never have been able to pretend very well that I am female. Let's just say I could pass really well. Big honkin' boobs will do that. I managed to be sort of neutral. My heart's companion must have seen it, somehow, because instead of diamonds and pretty clothes and food processors my holiday gifts have been things like swords, a castle building kit, a Viking ax, and to go with it a matching Viking ship.. model, don't worry. he just concluded I was a weird kid and was still weird.
That is sort of the consolation prize in our relationship, as it happens. I can honestly say when he asks what form my transition will eventually take that i don't think most things would change. i would still be weird, just maybe more easily explained... guy stuff, y' know.
I started out here meaning to to talk about the 'bot-a-bed-of-roses thing. This was stimulated by listening to Alexander James Adams' song "From Neverland" about his transition from heather Alexander to the man he always really was. I listened to it twice and got choked up. Not so much what it says, but listening to Alexander say it. There is a wistful sense of being a personal success at everything but being real. I get that. Oh how I get that.
Right now, early in all this, I am thinking things like buying men's shoes from now on and asking my nieces and nephews, whom I reckon up by dozens, to call me uncle Kit. Trappings, in the long run. What I need to do eventually is start thinking about all those things that whispered at me how it was all wrong, this girl stuff... why I loved Robin Hood and the Knights of the Round Table and always found Maid Maian and Guenever mostly.. no, let's be honest h ere.. entirely annoying. And why tales of the girl who wants to be a knight and grows up to be one but then says asinine things like "My beauty is my weapon" and marries Prince Charming and let's him pawn her armor.. etc. Argghh!
Oh there's so much more.. more meaningful, more painful.. a lot of it around feeling like people saw me in a false way.. but having no good words to explain it.
I originally set up this blog to be my new professional blog, but it seems it's a travelogue instead. I suppose I can always make Shieldwall Books my pro blog. In the meantime this is helping me make sense of the changes or at least gives me a place to do so. I don't know if anyone is reading it or finds it either interesting or a little moving... I wish... or wonders "what the hell is s/he going on about?" But the blog, like my transition, is for ME.
Not a Bed of Roses
Here be thorns.If you read this blog you may get the impression that discovering one is transgender after 60 years is too cool for school. That's not surprising.. those 60 years were full of conflict and confusion. I always knew something was off kilter. I've talked about the fact that in my generation in my immediate family, that is, siblings and cousins, four out a seven were/are gay or lesbian. And I have always added "And whatever I am."
I knew I wasn't a straight woman... as I have mentioned when I was about 20 I figured that must mean i was a lesbian. Well, let's just say that didn't work out so hot. So I just kind of shrugged, fell in love with a man, married him, and lived happily ever after...
Say what?!
No... plenty of happily but a lot of pain and confusion too. I've joked around for years that "I flunked girl school." I never have been able to pretend very well that I am female. Let's just say I could pass really well. Big honkin' boobs will do that. I managed to be sort of neutral. My heart's companion must have seen it, somehow, because instead of diamonds and pretty clothes and food processors my holiday gifts have been things like swords, a castle building kit, a Viking ax, and to go with it a matching Viking ship.. model, don't worry. he just concluded I was a weird kid and was still weird.
That is sort of the consolation prize in our relationship, as it happens. I can honestly say when he asks what form my transition will eventually take that i don't think most things would change. i would still be weird, just maybe more easily explained... guy stuff, y' know.
I started out here meaning to to talk about the 'bot-a-bed-of-roses thing. This was stimulated by listening to Alexander James Adams' song "From Neverland" about his transition from heather Alexander to the man he always really was. I listened to it twice and got choked up. Not so much what it says, but listening to Alexander say it. There is a wistful sense of being a personal success at everything but being real. I get that. Oh how I get that.
Right now, early in all this, I am thinking things like buying men's shoes from now on and asking my nieces and nephews, whom I reckon up by dozens, to call me uncle Kit. Trappings, in the long run. What I need to do eventually is start thinking about all those things that whispered at me how it was all wrong, this girl stuff... why I loved Robin Hood and the Knights of the Round Table and always found Maid Maian and Guenever mostly.. no, let's be honest h ere.. entirely annoying. And why tales of the girl who wants to be a knight and grows up to be one but then says asinine things like "My beauty is my weapon" and marries Prince Charming and let's him pawn her armor.. etc. Argghh!
Oh there's so much more.. more meaningful, more painful.. a lot of it around feeling like people saw me in a false way.. but having no good words to explain it.
I originally set up this blog to be my new professional blog, but it seems it's a travelogue instead. I suppose I can always make Shieldwall Books my pro blog. In the meantime this is helping me make sense of the changes or at least gives me a place to do so. I don't know if anyone is reading it or finds it either interesting or a little moving... I wish... or wonders "what the hell is s/he going on about?" But the blog, like my transition, is for ME.