Last week I passed my 1 year mark on my journey. True to form, I wrote about it. Its long, its raw -- and its real. Its a peek in the window :) -------------- Im not ashamed or embarrassed about who, or what, I am. Sometimes I experience the insecurity and shame that has accompanied me through my life, but less and less these days. The truth is, I fought like hell to own my body, my spirit and my mind - and Im proud of myself. Just over 1 year ago I began the journey home. Home to where? Home to right where I am. You might know what its like, to wake up and stumble into the bathroom and look in the mirror at a face, a body, you cant make peace with. The disgust is palpable, its a ball of oil in the pit of your stomach. Its dark and thick and inconsolable. It cant be cut out but knowing that doesnt stop you from trying. You try and reach through your skin to scratch an itch so deep inside, some nagging, tickling sense that wont be soothed. It begins small. Well, you begin small. Youre a little body looking around the world and trying to make sense of the other bodies around you and suddenly you have the horrific realization that something, everything, is wrong. Your body grows bigger and your spirit grows smaller and you find yourself incarcerated in a pain you cant describe, a debilitating sadness you cant control and you know you wont survive. How could you? How can anyone? Its not the same as being betrayed. Trust heals. This is your biology. Your flesh and bone. This is the thing that is fundamentally responsible for your being alive and that is the thing that is broken. It is you. You are broken. You are a lie. You are the sickness, the pain, the sadness, the inconsolable darkness. You are everything that is wrong. This is the lie that is made true in your mind. Its not a romantic story of survival and overcoming. Its the raw truth. Its ugly and painful and usually tragic. If youre lucky, you grow up. You find people like you. You find people who like you. You fall in love. You accept the pain youve been chosen to carry and day by day the echo of that horrific sadness seems to fade. And one day, youre just a little bit less sad than the day before. I dont know what it is that the human spirit is made of, but it is fortified in pain. The thing about pain is that it grows other parts of you. You compensate through compassion, empathy, humor, and insight. I am who I am because of my pain, not in spite of it. Sometimes, even now, I feel sad. All these years later, so much further down the road to freedom, I find myself overwhelmed by the sadness that Ill never be a father, Ill never hold a child that is of my own blood and bone and then I wonder if Id even want to. What if they were like me? Maybe its better to choose to love and be loved than to gamble on nature. Sometimes Im overwhelmed by the visceral pain of knowing Ill never make love the way I want to. The physical intimacy that you sacrifice in compartmentalizing your body for survival. Sometimes I wonder if Ive made the right choice. Was it worth it? Do I like who I am now? Have I given up truly knowing where I belong to roll the dice on being some kind of Frankenstein man? Am I even the man I want to be? Will I ever be? Can I be? Will my loved ones ever really see me as I see myself? Can they? Do I really need them to? In the middle of the night, when sleep evades me, these are the quiet whispers of fear that accompany me. They never fade. They never leave. But they bother me less and less. Ive been told Im brave. Im courageous. Im strong. The truth is that Im none of those things, at least not on purpose. Those are an after thought. An echo of the journey. Most of it is pain, sadness, loss, grief, anger, resentment, and fear. The difference is, I survived. Im working on thriving. I dont make apologies for my faith, my convictions, my opinions, my perspectives, my pain or my journey. Everyday, I thank God for my pain -- and my Peace. I made the decision to begin testosterone 1 year before I actually began. I gave myself 1 year to make peace with my body. Peace with my community. Peace with my past. I didnt want to run from anything, I wanted to move toward something new. On October 9th, 2013 I began that journey. Today, 1 year later, Im proud of who I am. I am still fearful at times, sometimes sad, but mostly Im learning to be at peace. The insights Ive gained through this journey are more than I can articulate but the greatest lesson Ive learned is how integral the suffering was to my journey. It sounds counter-intuitive but the pain was my greatest teacher. In a culture that is pain adverse, I wonder how well adapt to the growing demands of a global citizenship. Empathy, Compassion, Love, Service, and Humility are fortified in the crucible of pain. It is our teacher, as much as Joy. Freedom is the consequence of Authenticity. This is what trans bodies can teach us, the unbreakable quality of the human spirit in pursuit of authentic vitality. Maybe the greatest gift is that I know just how far Im willing to go to live Free.
Posted on: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 16:50:19 +0000
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