Patti's Online Diary (1999)

=============================================================================

January 26, 1999:   Another month gone by, and now we are into 1999!   Just amazing!   So many amazing things have happened this last year in the world at large.   Some things that relate to being a transsexual are an announcement by the Department of Justice that it will prosecute gender-based discrimination in the workplace.   This has far reaching implications for folks like me who must change genders but wish to retain their careers.

I have been reading an interesting book called, "Inner Joy."   It made some interesting points about anger in our lives.   I used to think love was good, anger was bad, and fear hurt - things like that.  Now I realize that anger is just another feeling (like love) that we must express somehow, but in a constructive way.   I also think that Love (the commitment to a lasting relationship) is really about making a commitment to a deep emotional connection - therefore it is necessary to get angry at each other from time to time, since we honestly feel anger when we are hurt, and sharing is a requirement of Love.   However, anger must be expressed constructively.   This has been a major problem in all my relationships up until now.   Now I know anger for what it is - in my childhood family I never learned this.   These kinds of insights seem to be coming more and more often since I have admitted to myself who and what I am.

=============================================================================

February 6:   Not a bad Saturday, I suppose.   It started with a barrage of emotions and crying - tests of my faith, connection to the Holy Spirit, all that stuff!   Why so much crying?   The past is gone.   My friend Kris tells me she cries quite a lot - she is an artist, ceramist, potter, and a first grade teacher.   She would know, I guess...   Well, I finally got out of the house and ran for an hour.   That helped quite a lot - I am in a much better place now.   Jewel (Spirit) is spinning in the CD, and I just finished a nice shower and rest with Gundi and Curls (my teddy's).   Now I will fix my motorcycle, go to work and visit some friends.   May the Mother/Father grant you a full day.

=============================================================================

February 7:   Still more crying and talking to the Holy Spirit - trying to get the message in what is wanted of me.   Still going to electrolysis (3 hours today).   Am baking a lemon pound cake, too.   :)

=============================================================================

March 14:   I guess it is getting difficult to keep this diary up :)    Anyway, I was doing a lot of thinking this morning.   My life does not seem to have any simple answer for the events of the past.   Why were Gail and I brought together?    Why was I given another chance at being a father, then blowing it - and even as much as I prayed!   Well, I suppose the paraplegic prays a lot too and never walks again...    I have an organic brain defect that makes me feel - crave - need to be - female though I was born with a male body.   I suppose I could survive the rest of my life as a male, but I would never be able to be myself in an intimate relationship.   Maybe I could get used to it, I don't know.   But why do it?   My ex will never talk to me again now, that relationship is over forever, and that was the only reason not to.

I was hurting a lot this morning - crying again.   Is there *some* way I can make Gail feel my love for her - my desire to have a good life together?   No, there isn't, it is her choice to end it, and I believe I do understand why, but that does not make any difference, I think.   I remember when I first started taking estrogen - the intense feelings of love I suddenly felt for her and the kids, who by then were well wishing me gone from their lives.   All the pain and hopelessness of our fighting over the years was swept away into a deep, heartfelt love for her and myself.   I knew in my heart that it could work.   Then I found it gone. :```(

Now it is over a year later and I still cry, and often double-over in pain when a memory of our family, such as a camping trip, comes to me unbidden; or a friend's remark reminds me of our love.   I am told that there will always be memories of the "good times."   My friends who understand these things tell me it will likely be more than a year more before the grieving is mostly finished.   I have been blessed in many ways: finding Alanon ACA, finally finding my spirituality, finding myself and new friends who do not exploit me, loosing old friends who never were really my friends at all, and deepening my relationship with others who really were my friends all along but I was never able to appreciate it.

I used to be angry with God - one of the things I really, really planned on doing was having a very emotional talk with God when I die and letting God know how I felt about the way the world was managed.   I don't plan on doing that now - I already know the answer:  Free Will.   This is absolutely the best possible world (Thank you Voltaire) that could possibly happen if you gave everyone in it free will.   My dad had the free will to be a gutter drunk alcoholic, my mom had the right to wait until she was 44 to have me, a particular man had the right to choose to drink on the day that he ran down a friend of mine who will now, as a result of that man's free will choice, spend the rest of his life in an electric wheelchair.   Mind you, that is extremely over simplified, but I think you get the idea.   There is no pre chosen course for us.   If we lead healthy lives, then we make the best choices we can, from minute to minute, and then accept and live with the consequences of those choices.   We also must live with the effects of choices made by people who are not so healthy and make much poorer choices, choices which also may affect us.   This is the nature and essence of human Free Will, and now I know it.   It is a great gift, and if used irresponsibly, can cause great pain; but when used responsibly can raise life to undreamedof levels.

Well, perhaps that is enough for now...   I have my Great gifts from my maker: my Love, my serenity, my pain and my healing.
May Higher Power/Spirit/Goddess/God bless you.

Patti

=============================================================================

April 10:   Well, I have spent the last few days crying my eyes out, since my divorce is becoming finalized.

I'd better let that thought go before I start crying here...

What does it feel like to be me, to be what I am?   The main thing I have noticed in all my past relationships is that my girlfriend or wife had friends, but I could never relate to their friends' boyfriends or husbands (or brothers).   I just did not feel like "one of them."   I tried hard, and at times I felt so uncomfortable that I became annoying just to cover up the fact that I didn't "fit in."   I never understood why.   My mom tried since I was little to encourage friendships between me and other males - even when I was a child she always was trying to get some adult male to "father" me since my dad was gone.  It never worked.    It was also very confusing because, at the same time, I got along well with most women - at least until they expected me to "be the/a man" - I am not sure how to say this, but I never knew how.   It didn't feel right; I didn't "feel that way" inside.    It didn't feel like "me."   It is not something you learn.   Science knows that now.   I did learn to fake it - to fix a car, do karate, to earn a living, haggle with insurance salesmen, and such.   But when it came time to have fun with other males as one of "the guys" - nothing came out of me - I couldn't be "one of them."   I felt uncomfortable and wrong somehow very, very deeply inside.   You can't pretend to be something you simply don't feel inside!   Can you imagine how that would feel?   Of course, I *could* relate to them well enough, but they were not comfortable with the things I would say.   I am warm.   I care about feelings.   What group of your average American males would want *that* attitude around, unless it was coming from a woman?   I never understood this - just went on for 40 years wishing I were not "weird" - "sick" - a "useless nothing"   Feeling unreal and dead inside.  Now I know why.   I am real, good, and myself inside, but the outside is wrong.   I am not attracted to men, other than the fact that now I can relate to them as myself for the first time in my nearly half-century of life.   30 + years as a secret Lesbian does not go away easily or quickly, and I am not sure I want it to.   My feelings for my ex were among the most real I have ever felt, though I know she is repulsed by me.   I do not wish to be anything other than myself, though I wish this terrible incongruity between my insides and my outside were over with so I could live my life.   I know it is not wise to long for the past, but I also wish I could have loved my family - but why?   They obviously do not have love, at least the kind I have for them, for me.   It feels a little like God "tricked me" - letting me get into a lasting relationship with a homophobic woman, then letting me find out about my Gender Dysphoria.   The ultimate poetic irony was that once I dealt with my GD - I realized the depth of my love for her.   ::sigh::  On the other hand, long term loves are breaking up all around us - nothing is for sure.   I need to forget her!

=============================================================================

April 27:   So now it is final, and I begin to pay off the debts it incurred.   I have a surgery date but it is over a year away.   That is OK.   I have begun working my 4th Alanon step - that takes us quite a bit of my time.   I believe healthy relationships can be found and I am grateful for the things my Higher Power is showing to me about myself, but it ain't always pretty!   I am still blessed by the internal conviction of my close relationship with the Holy Spirit - it is really cool - for me, anyway.   I have also discovered the power of a smile and of Love, but I am a total beginner at it, it feels like.

It is beach volleyball season again, and I am glad.   I have rediscovered rollerskating on the beach, too.   There is this one particular 10 mile route I like, with rocks at one end that I like to sit on and watch the marine life (seagulls, porpoises, and surfers).

The chain of thought in my life that has been building the last year or so (starting with Scott Peck's book, "The Road Less Traveled") has continued to build.   It fits with Alanon very well.   I recently read the following beautiful passage that describes the inner struggle I have experienced these last two years, "Today I will protect myself from negativity by filling my heart and mind with loving thoughts."   This is what I now strive to do every day.   I never apprehended this concept in the 40 years of life that went before...   it is difficult for me to understand why not, except that "Everything comes in it's own time."

=============================================================================

May 2:    I was roller-skating on the Strand this morning and saw a pod of dolphins fishing out beyond the Manhattan Beach Pier.   That makes three times in the last two months I have seen them :)   I am hoping to catch them jumping some time...   Of course, there are always the pelicans dive-bombing for fish, too.   Last night, bowling was totally fun and I met lots of really nice people.   The night before, the rap group I was in was good, too - we talked about the human inward journey of self understanding.   Really, that is all we have in this life.   Ourselves.   I think a lot of people don't know/see that, somehow.   I see a metaphor to this in the plotline of the movie, The Matrix - most of us are "asleep," in a way, to the reality(s) of our own existence - we behave as if life is just just chasing our 'happiness,' satisfaction, stimulation, excitement, a good 'buzz,' or our careers, toys, status, etc.

Which pill would YOU take?

Luv,
Patti

=============================================================================

June 5:    Geeze!   Here it is summer already.   It has been a while since I wrote, but I *had* to write today.   These last few weeks have been very interesting, but especially this weekend (so far).   I just got back from playing 2 hours of beach volleyball (for the first time this year) and my friends Jim and George were there, along with several new people who accepted me right away.   I had a very good time but got too tired.   I will probably be doing that regularly now.   It feels soooo good to have the camradere of them even if we do not spend other time together.

What has made this weekend so interesting is a result of the fact that I finally stopped taking my Prozac a few weeks ago.   I had accepted the fact that I might need an antidepressant for the rest of my life (if I had a brain chemistry imbalance), but for some reason it just seemed the right thing for me to do to stop taking it after a year or so...   I was taking it because my step-family rejected me, and I have stopped feeling suicidal and crying at work, so I tried tapering off the Prozac.   Even before I stopped taking it, I had been feeling a "little down" - not depressed, just heavy hearted at times - almost as if the Prozac had done all it could and now it was time for something else.   Things are/were still going very well, but my heart was complaining somehow.   So, I work my Recovery Program (ACA, Alanon, therapy) and carry on and stop the Prozac.   Then, last weekend my friend and his wife invited me to a music party - I took my guitar and wound up playing for several hours - for the first time in years.   My fingers were sore, but I felt great.   I have even started writing songs again.

With that background, here is the interesting part (to me).   I have been having dreams most nights, but last night I had worry dreams - the, "What if an earthquake destroyed my apartment while I sleep, and crushes me?" kind.   Some part of me deep inside replied, "Your attitude is your own responsibility."   It seemed to know that I was trying to make myself crazy and worried and fearful and unhappy.   Why do we do this to ourselves?   I don't know, but my Recovery Program tells me that we do.   Right there some deep part of me decided that I could affect my own mood enough to be happy (i.e., I don't need to rely on Prozac any more - it was done with me anyway).   This morning was wonderful.   I got out of bed, and just smiled and told myself I was OK.   I went to Farmer's Market and enjoyed my life and the beauty of other people.   Then I called and chatted with my girlfriends Layla and Andra, then I went to beach volleyball.   Now I will take a bath and work on my new motorscooter.   I am happy.   I am Loved.   People are real and life is a great gift of my Maker to me.

I have been missing my stepfamily, but I know what they would say -- that it is somehow in my own interest that it miss them, it is selfish of me and not for them.   Who needs that attitude, besides, the missing is definately not reciprocal.   In a year and a half they have ignored every letter and present I have sent them.   It feels good to know how and why I miss them, though: that I simply want to share this Joy that I have found.   But Joy can only shared when both sides want to share it, though.

Patti
=============================================================================

June 22:   How do you like that, writing in my online diary two times in one month!   I realized this morning that the reason I have been writing less and less often is that my transsexual issues are "going away" - which is to say that my life is coming into consonance: I am settling in to my new social identity.   That is good, but lacks the high drama that I used to feel (which is good).   At any rate, my only Rant right now is a hold-out who refuses to honor my new identity.   Are you ready for this?   It is noneother than our own State-sponsored-and-supported institute of Higher Learning (hah!), the California State University at Long Beach.   Supposedly "enlightened," they refuse to accept what the IRS, Social Security Administration, Department of Motor Vehicles, my Employer, and every other official agency accepts.   The results?   (1)  I am being denied acces to the University (which if I had more money to afford lawyers, could probably be subject of an anti-discrimination lawsuit), and (2) they refuse to reissue my master's degree in my legal name.  I was even a good student - I got three academic achievement awards and a scholorship when working on my Master's.   By the way, did you know they have a staff of lawyers, just like those big corporations that prey on people, ready to defend the whim of their outdated policies and judgements?

So much or enlightened administration.

Oh, and by the way, call your credit card companies and tell them that you want a 10% interest rate or you will cancel your card with them.  It worked for me!

Luv,
Patti