Good-bye's

I had a very nice visit today with my family. It was nice but very sad, since they will be moving very soon. I am trying to deal with things, but my emotional state hasn't been the best recently which makes this even harder. I am suddenly feeling very alone. It is a convergence of many things, some I have detailed here, but others I haven't (and probably won't.) I feel very isolated. The son who is leaving for Arizona is the one I most easily talk to and I will greatly miss him. Some other things don't seem to be working out very well also for reasons that are not really know to me. Things go up and down so fast and I am really not used to much emotional turmoil in my life.

I guess I just need to continue on as best I can and hope that life will take a better turn soon. It's ironic that I am feeling better physically, but am now falling apart emotionally. I am due for a couple of good years. The last six or seven have been very tough.

I hope your day has been great.
Love,
Shel

What can I say?

What can I say? I am feeling real down. My son and family are moving this week to Arizona. They will be taking my granddaughter with them of course which means I will not be seeing her much. It's a real long drive to Arizona! I have been sitting here being really depressed and now I am crying. I know crying doesn't solve anything, but I can't seem to prevent it. So much has happened recently and now this. I don't know how to handle this. Maybe it's all the loss in the past few years, but knowing that doesn't help at all. It's all welling up into a huge feeling of uselessness. I have been sitting at home for two days just paralyzed. I feel like everything is out of control and life is spinning off somewhere.

I am in fact tired of writing these kind of entries in my blog. Shouldn't something get a bit better sometime soon? Well tomorrow I will be seeing my granddaughter and son and his spouse and I feel I need to put on a strong appearance. I am really not sure I can do that but maybe I can avoid falling apart totally. It is strange because I was always the one who was supposed to be strong in all circumstances. I am afraid I can no longer live up to those expectations. I am who I am and I have both strength and weakness. It is unfortunate that in the past I felt that I could only be strong. I know better now.

I need to stop now. The screen is blurry through the tears so I will stop and just get it out of my system. There will be more later.

Love,
Shel

Please!

No matter how much things seem to change, some things just stay the same ALWAYS! For some time I have felt like I was banging my head against the wall of life. I still feel that way. Maybe, this is the way life is supposed to be. Another constant is the contacts between my Ex and I. Even though I have met all my financial obligations there are what I feel are moral obligations. Our relationship fluctuates between cordial and hostile on her side. This week she wanted money and I helped out. She was all sweetness and light. This morning there was an early phone call and she wanted me to make a phone call to get some information (I always had to make the phone calls for some stupid reason.) I am leaving for the rest of the week and I told her I would do it next week. Her comment (sarcastically), "I'm glad YOU have a life because I don't." Sometimes I want to scream and other times I just want to cry.

If you have read this blog a while you can realize that I really don't have much of a life. I am just now trying to reclaim a life or discover a new life. I know she works a lot and is struggling financially, but she is the one that kicked me out of the house. She didn't care or check on me when I had cancer and all the complications. Now she cares what I do? Please!

Sorry for the rant, I needed to do that. You have a great week. I'm gone for a while, without computer. See you soon.

Love,
Shel

The great Fizzle

Sometimes I just feel so discouraged. It is hard to put my finger on the some of the specifics, but there are times when it just seems that no matter what I do I just don't get any place. Maybe it has to do with the hard years I have experienced or maybe I am just tired and moody. I just get the feeling that I am never going to get out of the rut I am in. Whenever something begins to look up it seems that the same thing comes crashing down a short while later. It's so frustrating!

Maybe I should become a cloistered nun somewhere. Life would be the same each day and there would be no hopes or expectations to deal with. Now whenever there seems to be hope of something new and maybe better it fizzles (Is that really a word?)

This has been one very long day. I had three services to do today. I woke up an hour before my alarm went off and couldn't get back to sleep. I came home about 2:30 pm and fell asleep for a short while in the chair. I woke up still feeling tired. Then the possible plans for later in the day fell apart and I am not really sure why.

Tomorrow I need to do laundry. I am going to Provencetown for Women's week later this week. There is just so much to do getting ready and I only have tomorrow to do it. Tuesday is crammed full of things, a visit to my Gynecologist and then later spend some time with my Granddaughter and then a reunion of sorts at the Seminary. The one thing I really want to do I won't be doing (though I really do want to spend time with my granddaughter before she moves.)

A good thing has happened in this state (Connecticut). The State Supreme Court has decided that same sex marriages are allowed under Connecticut's constitution. This makes Connecticut the third state to make such a move (Massachusetts and California already have same sex marriages.) This pull the State out of gender enforcement rules in the most personal of relations. This is a very good thing for same sex couples. It doesn't help me very much since I seem to be stuck in a very sterile existence, but I am happy for the couples in this state.

There will be an attempt to mess this up in the state by those who feel that somehow same gender marriages devalue marriage in some way. I really cannot see how committed relationships between anyone can devalue any other relationship. Having myself been married for 31 years before the divorce I know that our differences were of our own making. No one else's relationship, same sex or not, had one bit of influence on our relationship. Though our marriage is now over we both highly valued our marriage most of the time we were married. The end didn't come because of outside influences. My internal pressures caused me to change drastically in a direction that she couldn't live with day to day. It was disappointing to me but wasn't caused from without.

This is not really helping me at the moment so I will say good night to you all. Be well.

Love,
Shel

Feeling better?

I kind of thought that I might feel a bit better after going to the therapist. Why do I feel so rotten then? I went in a pretty good mood and came away a bit depressed. Who can figure? I certainly can't.

My son and his spouse and my granddaughter will be moving to Arizona sometime in the beginning of November. I am really upset. I have been used to seeing my granddaughter weekly. I will probably only get to see her once or twice a year at most after they move. I will also miss my son. We talk frequently. It is another tough turn to my life. I am so worried for them. They both (my son and his spouse) are quitting their jobs and leaving without having jobs to go to. They will be staying with her parents, but there is a lot of uncertainty there.

Back to the therapist. I came to realize as we were talking that I have always thought like a woman. I always knew that I didn't fit as a man. As we were talking she mentioned some typical thought patterns that women have, I of course think that way. I have always thought that way. I just never associated those ways of thinking as being typically female. They have just been part of me always. I just assumed they were universal to both men and women because I was raised as a boy. It's a real insight for me to understand that I don't really understand what it was to be a man. My experience of being male was superficial and forced except for the purely physical. Mentally I have always been who I am now and that is female.

Years back when I began to live full time as female the switch seemed almost too easy and everything seemed natural. I am beginning to understand why now. That's all from a casual bit of conversation with the therapist. It's certainly not why I feel down. I have many things to think on and much to do in reclaiming my life.

You be well.

Love,
Shel

In the In and Out the Out

If you've checked my Blog in the past two or so months, you know that I have been riding a roller coaster of emotions. It has been very hard to explain exactly what has been happening, but the short of it is that I have been in the process of reclaiming my life. Possibly it would be better put that I am trying to build myself a new life. This would be a very difficult thing to do if I was a young person, but I am a mature woman. I have always embraced change in my life but I am finding this very difficult. All of the old rules are gone now and there is a complete set of new rules, gender rules and age rules. I really fail to see how being young or being old is relevant to almost anything. Since when is it bad to be experienced? Yet, look for a job in the computer industry and be over 55 and see what your experience counts! (sorry about that)

I think that anyone has trouble adjusting after Cancer or after Divorce or after great weight loss or a gender change. Any one of those things can be huge in a person's life. I have undergone all of those things in the last six years. Just thinking about it all makes my head swim, yet I am hopeful. I have survived the cancer and the divorce and the gender change and now the weight loss (though that continues.) It is the new life that I am struggling with. How do I find meaning and purpose in my life? How do I find new relationships that will help sustain me? These are my struggles. I may not always give the details, but please know the struggles are genuine. This is all complicate by the fact that I am not a person who has ever been able to be casual about almost anything I ever did. I find disappointments and rejections hard to handle, and there have been many.

Yes my life is tough right now. I don't intend to let it defeat me, though. Yes, I get down and it gets reflected here, but I am not out. My father is 97 and going strong. He did not survive so long and so well by letting life defeat him. Maybe I can look forward to another thirty years of a full life!

Peace and Love,
Shel

PS: the title is a little private joke, between me, myself and I.

Do Something!

Here is a way to do something for the election! Support Barach Obama, support yourself! The link below is to the Stonewall Democrats effort on behalf of Trans support for the Obama/Biden candidacy. If you do nothing then don't complain later!

Trans For Obama