As many of you have noticed, I’ve all but stopped writing my
blog these days. I guess I really ought to get around to formally saying “I’m
done with it”, but it keeps calling me back from time to time. In some ways it’s
kind of cathartic I guess, and is something like a diary for me. Sometimes it makes
me feel better to write it, and sometimes it condenses and distills my feelings
and makes me feel worse. You just never know until you start writing. One thing
for certain though, I’ve always tried to be honest and up front here, so I’m
not gonna pull any punches with this one either.
Honestly, there are just so many ways that you can keep telling
essentially the same story:
I went to the airport.
I got on a plane.
I got off the plane and went to a hotel.
I may or may not have met someone along the way.
Something interesting or amusing may or may not have occurred
along the way.
It got to the point where I could pretty much create a
template and just fill it in with details:
“Today I went to “ <INSERT CITY HERE> “ where I met up
with “ <INSERT NAME HERE>
So yeah, I’ve kind of backed away from the blog and all of
the time and effort required to write them.
As seems to be the case for most of us, I play with
depression quite a bit. It’s an old and constant companion with a presence that
ebbs and flows but never quite goes away. These days I dwell quite a lot on my
wife of almost 33 years and what being married to me has done to her. I wasn’t
going to talk about this here, but its haunting me to obsession the last few
months. I’ve shared all of the happy and fun stories with you, perhaps encouraging
some to take the chance and step out into the world in the hope for, and in search
of, happiness or acceptance. The full truth though, is that I, and those around
me, have paid a price for who and what I am.
I’ve talked to a lot of women through the years and have
seen so many of their eyes light up with admiration when I tell them that I am
transgender.
“You are SO brave!” they tell me, eyes glittering with
sincerity, “And look at you – you’re beautiful!” Women find this brave, and admirable, and
perhaps inspiring. . . unless it’s their
husband that we are talking about. That brings it a bit closer to home. A bit more
real. A bit more significant. Now it’s no longer about someone being brave for having
the courage to be themselves, it’s about “Oh my God, what will my friends think
if they find out? What if the neighbors see my husband leaving in the morning?
What if my father finds out what my husband is? What about my church?!” It’s a whole different story when it’s your husband.
Often, it helps when you have others to talk to, to share
your worries with, and to help you carry the load, and so several times in the
last 30 years my wife has told friends of hers about me. All of them, every single one
of them, no longer talks to her. Oh, they will still say hello when she
crosses their path, but they no longer call her, or come over, or invite her
over. In many ways, I’ve taken what used to be a vibrant and outgoing young
lady and turned her into an isolated woman. Her best friends have all bailed on
her, and the knight in shining armor that all little girls dream of, and that she
had thought she had married, thinks he’s
the fricking princess. I feel guilty for what I’ve done to her. I feel over
whelming guilt. So the bright eyed little girl that I married is afraid to have
friends, afraid that her family will find out that she married a freak, and is
spending most of her days and nights alone while I’m on the road. To make
matters just that much worse, with all of my health and heart problems, we
haven’t been . . .well . . .you know . . . intimate . . . in years. So now I’ve
given her a lonely and passionless
life and marriage. Yay me. Way to go.
When I started having all of the heart problems, do you know what one of
my first thoughts was? It wasn’t “Oh gee, I hope I don’t die.” Nope, one of my
first thoughts was “Gee, maybe it’s not too late for my wife to meet someone
else and have a normal life if I die.”
So yeah, I guess I’m in a bit of a dark place right now.
Oh, this week I went to <DETROIT> and I met <ABSOLUTELY
NO ONE BECAUSE I CANT DEAL WITH THE ANXIETY RIGHT NOW>
Sigh . . .
