Emotional in Church

My daughter says I get emotional in church. And it is true. Like so much else in my life I have doubted myself, my beliefs and my faith. When I am in the sanctuary, I feel Poppa's presence. I feel his warm affections for me. How could I not be emotional, on the verge of tears, to know He Loves _me_? So many years I spent in shame for who I thought I was and the conviction that Poppa did not love me. But now I _Know_ He loves me! I know I am as He made me!  How can I not cry?

Looking through these eyes...

I catch myself, sometimes, thinking about how I see my world around me.  It occurs to me that I see a lot of my world the same as when I looked through these eyes and thought I was a man.  The feeling is that nothing has really changed in me.  At first that disappoints me.  I think that how can I be a woman, really?  I see things the same as before when I was a man.  And I do see things very much the same.  So what's different?  Where is the mismatch, the discontinuation?  The people who know me now cannot imagine me ever having been a man.  They experience me, my nature and spirit as a woman.  And I wonder, if I am a woman now and nothing has really changed in how I see, does that mean I was a woman before?  A woman trying to make life work living as a man? There is a great deal in my life that I have revisited and much of what I did makes more sense from a woman's point of view.  I just have a hard time accepting that I was a woman even then.  I wanted to be a girl, but I never thought of myself as a girl.  And maybe the wanting wasn't a needful thing, because I already was a girl.

Wanting to Belong

I wasn't able to articulate part of what was going through my heart last night, part of why not having measurable breasts punched one of my [many, many] buttons. And that was/is a need to feel a part of, a need to feel I belong, a need to feel relevant.

The place my mind/heart went last night was, "If I got augmentation, I could be a part of that conversation and not outside - looking in."  And I've considered augmentationa number of times and have never been able to come to a hard-and-fast thinking about it.  That in itself advocates against the surgery.  But last night, the desire to have breasts of a more appropriate size to my body, the desirability of breasts, period, was fed by that need to be a part of my family and thinking that having to wear forms all the time made me ...  like a second class, shirt-tail relative.

My family reading this, probably, had some degree of visceral reaction to that statement.  And they are right to.  I know in my head, when I sit down and think of it, that I am as loved by my family as I can be.  Sitting in my daughter's car going home last night I was clinging to that knowledge by my fingertips.  Knowing in my heart and mind how much Debra loves me was all that kept me from losing it last night.

I have always needed to be a part of, to belong to/in/with a group.  When I was young, my Dad's job would change locations often, every 6-18 months.  All the friends I had made got ripped out of my life like noxious weeds.  This made me, on the one hand, desperate to make new friends, and on the other, I held back giving my full self because when we would move, I would lose a piece of me.

But more than anything else, the result has been that I have never done "alone" well.

I have been left with a need to be "a part of" that is so strong it drives me to consider breast augmentation for that reason alone.  I have been considering of late that my desire for Gender Confirmation Surgery has an element of being "a part of"  and there is the the lie that I tell myself that without the breasts and without the vagina I am not a "real woman" like all of my friends and family.  The reality is that I am no less a woman, no less "me" with this boy's body than if I had been born with XX chromosomes.  But like most truths, that gets buried in all the noise.  And most of the noise I generate myself.

So I am left with this Marvel-Comic Monster of a need to be a part of the life around me when the thing I truly do need, require for survival, require to thrive, is to love me for me.  Intellectually, I recognize that I am someone really special, but I am an emo kind of girl, always have been.  And emotionally, it's hard to get to that same place that I know how special I am. And how much I love myself for who I am.

In the end, more than anyone else, more than anything else, I need to belong to me.

Loving Me

Debra was over tonight for dinner.  It makes me feel really good when I can cook for her.  It's been a long time since she has come to where I live to have an evening with me and she hasn't been here to my new place for an evening since the night I first moved in.  It is definitely a Mom thing when I can cook dinner for her in my own place.  I've missed it.

After dinner we talked a little and then went over to a friend's to visit.  Lisa had eye surgery earlier in the day and we went by to say hi and comfort her.There were a couple other people there keeping her company.  Debra and the others got to talking aobut getting properly fitted for bra's.  I kinda got lost in the conversation.  After a while we left.  In the car, I struggled with trying to not let my body define me, and wrestling with breasts that are too small to measure and whether augmentation would be appropriate.  I very nearly lost it.  I told Debra where I was and she said she wondered why I was so quiet during the conversation.  Augmentation isn't the answer, though I don't really have a reason to not get implants.  I was ... am... grappling with trying to find that whole person I want to be, trying to love me for who I am.  I am so much closer to that place than I have ever been, but ... but I am not there just yet.a  The answer isn't in other people or in things or changes to my body or to the way I live, but simply in loving me and it is so very hard.

A Life Now Rich

I was sitting at the dinner table with my Daughter. She had made a dinner of baked salmon and rice. She poured and served me a glass of white wine. As I looked at the wine, I realized that my life before was extremely narrow. I rarely enjoyed a nice meal and quiet conversation.  I never enjoyed a simple glass of wine. In the growing time I've gone through these last almost three years, I've taken road trips and camping trips by myself. Trips alone I had only taken once in all my life before. And these new solo trips were as a woman alone. I have gone on weekend trips with the Daughter-of-my-Heart and will go on trips with my precious "niece.". I have had get-togethers and dinners with my friends that never happened before!

I have come to love more. I love a young woman as my daughter. Another young woman has become my favorite niece, her mother has become the sister I never had.  And a big sister at that! I have many new sisters and friends that I love dearly.  Another young woman told me I could be her honorary mom.  I have family I have never known before!

What surprises me, befuddles me, confounds and confuses me, is how much and how fiercely I am loved!  Confused, confounded, and befuddled because I have never!... never!... felt worthy of anyone's affections let alone their love. And I hear from my dear ones over and over and over again, "It doesn't work that way." And I hear again and again and again, that I deserve this love, that I deserve really good things in my life. I have been told that I am loved fierce because I love fierce! 

I cannot measure the depth nor the breadth nor the height of the riches I have in my life now.  It feels like fine velvet, soft yet full, a texture that is rich. A texture that is Love. 

Ocean Shores Getaway

Earlier in the day, I was really unhappy and very shaken [not stirred!] by the way things started.  I thought I had everything ready to go and we popped on to I-90, headed over to I-5 South.  About Boeing Field, we realized I had forgotten all my meds and insulin.  We turned back.  There was just no going through the weekend without my insulin =(  I  found my meds, tossed them [literally] in the car and we were on our way!  A little south of Tacoma, we figured out that I left my purse, drivers license, and cards at home!  Let's see... the word "consternation" comes to mind but it is several magnitudes short of how I felt about leaving things behind like that.  We got off the freeway to turn around, not knowing the exit we took only went to one gate or another of Joint Base Lewis McChord (JBLM). And there were no places to turn around short of the gate!  The security there was not happy to see us.  All we wanted to do was turn around!  After a while they finally got that and figured the easiest thing was to let us turn around, so, again!, we're on our way home.  Debra made me stop before we got back on the freeway and tell her what we were going to do; she didn't want me to be more upset and scatter-brained about what the plan was.  Bless Her!  By myself I would have been just ... not a nice person to myself.  As it was I was less than ecstatic.  We decided it was late enough to go to dinner after we got back to get my purse and we decided to go to Jak's in Issaquah.  We got seated and made our order and I remembered to go back to the car to get my insulin,  Only... only I couldn't find it.  I was sure I'd put it in!  It had to be there but.. well, it had been a very confusing afternoon and maybe I just somehow forgot.  But with the confusion and the forgetting and the last 6 weeks of first a stroke and then a trip to the ER because I thought I was having a heart attack [turned out to be taking my meds on a stomach too full of alcohol] I was thinking long and hard about dementia and Alzheimer's.  Debra was upset, too.  She worries I don't take good care of myself [and she's right] and that something bad to fatal might happen.  I have always joked that if I get Alzheimer's no one would notice the difference.  Suddenly that doesn't seem so funny.  I am near tears and I am definitely not a nice person to myself.  I calm down and the evening is good.  We head back one more time to my apartment to see if I can find the insulin.  We eventually find it and it _was_ in the CuRVe, just somehow hidden under a seat.

We got back on the road again and cruise to Ocean Shores -- the traffic had all thinned out and the roads were clear. Debra puts on some music from her iPhone and she's playing with her new 'droid tablet.  After a bit she pulls up the fleece blanket and goes to sleep.  It's a Grace thing that Poppa lets me watch my baby sleep. 

I would never in a million years have thought being a Mom would seem so natural to me.  Debra is my Daughter in every way but blood. If there was a way to make that happen...  

I wake her by accident a couple times --I'm praying for her a little louder than I should and she woke up thinking I'd said something to her.  She goes back to sleep. After a bit I look over and the blanket has fallen off her shoulder.  I look back at the road, then back at her and I pull the blanket up and tuck her in a little better. And choke up a little. 

I missed the turn toward Ocean Shores in Hoquim that I knew I would miss because I missed it two years ago.  We pull into the Shiloh Inn in Ocean Shores about 11:30. It was a very long day, but we were there. 

We slept in some, or I slept in; I'm not sure Debra slept as late as she wanted. We had breakfast and walked out to the tourist shops and were tourists. We went into Sharkies and both of us picked out identical beach towels without knowing, hers in purple [of course!] and Mom's in teal.  We struggled to stay out of the fudge shop and thoroughly enjoyed the kite shop. My girl picked out a very cute fairy Princess kite. Mom kinda ran out of gas and we went back to the hotel to let her catch her breath so to speak. We had checked out another kite shop for me but after my, um, nap we went back to the first shop and I "compromised" on a kite that was teal and purple [there's a theme here]. We walked through the dunes to the beach and began flying our kites. Debra was so enjoying herself that the little girl in her was shining through!  Flying my kite, I felt like a young girl, too. We had a beautiful time.

Something Debra and I have done on another trip is to find a nice restaurant, get dressed up to the nines, and have an special evening out. Saturday night we went to the Collins Inn and Seaside Cottages.  It was more than I had ever expected!  Very nice, very high class, a man playing piano for the guests, and the chef preparing the food in a home style kitchen where the guests could watch. Debra ordered champagne and I decided to copy her. Seems like she's always having these great ideas that I follow up on. We ordered our dinners. Somehow, I missed that it was a full four-course dinner.  We made our order and they served a delicious dark bread.  I looked at my Daughter and asked if I could make a toast?  We raised our glasses and I toasted "To Us!"  Out came a very delicious salad with straberries and and a strawberry vinegarette, follwed by a bowl of excellent clam chowder!  Debra ordered a cheese-stuffed breast of chicken  and garlic mashed-potatoes and that came next.  I ordered a lobster tail that came with a couple of scallops encased in bacon and a medalion of some other seafood and a baked potato.  Both dishes came with asparagus really done well.  Debra saw someone doing something flambé across the room from us and wanted to see that for herself.  It was a Banana's dish.  We both ordered it.  It was wonderful to watch and it tasted ... mmmmm ... excelent!  

While we waited for our bill, I noticed a very wistful, almost sad expression on my Daughter's face.  Here we were in this beautiful, romantic setting and she was with her mom and not with her boyfriend.  She was missing him bad.  To be honest, I was a bit jealous, but I couldn't hold on to it very long.  She is young and in love for probably the first time in her life.  The old should move on and the new should take its rightful place.  It's something I struggle with a lot.  I have to let her go, let her grow up and have her new life.  I've lived most of mine and it's her turn now.  But it's hard.  I have more people, family, that I love now than before, so I canna say she is all I have.  But... I lived, I had some moments before I came out and met her... but my life since Poppa brought us together has been so much more full and so much more wonderful and so much more real!  She says it works both ways -- that she has received from me an equal measure...[choke]... I really don't know how that can be.

Sunday, we took our time getting up and getting out.  We had breakfast at the Hotel and then it was on the road again.  Traffic coming home was really good!  We pulled into my place around 2-2:30.  We loaded up her car with her stuff, hugged and I gave her a kiss-onna-cheek and she was gone.

I went over to Lisa's for Easter dinner -- a casual thng, just hanging out with good friends.  Johanna was there and I got a long hug.  I needed it.  I was going through Debra-withdrawals.  Emotionally, it seemed like I was a quart shy most of the evening.  Lisa and Johanna put on the latest Muppet movie and I finally got happy.  Who canna smile at a muppet movie!

Debra and I are planning another trip this summer.  She's wanted to go to Bend and tour the brewery where they brew Black Butte Porter, one of her [and mine since she introduced me to it] favorite beers.  It will be hot and definitely sunny and I expect it to be fun.  It is always fun for me when I'm with my Daughter, Debra.

Grace in My Life

As a Christian, I've been taught that Grace is "unmerited favor"; a gift I have done nothing to earn.  Poppa is very much in the Grace business.  Sometimes, I think I am His number one customer.

~~~

This is all my feelings, thoughts and conclusions about my life and spirituality.  I am not pushing this on anyone.  It is just me.

~~~

How He has Graced me throughout my life I could never begin to tell.  But how He has Graced me the last few years?  Oh, my!

My Second Daughter, Debra, says I cry a lot in church.  It is very true.  I have always Believed, always been a church-goer.  But for all those years, I never knew the joy that is talked about constantly.  For Fifty-plus years, I tried to hide my secret from my God who was not then my Poppa.  I knew He knew, but I still tried to hide.  And then came the day when I quit hiding, when I stood before my God in my spiritual and emotional nakedness and ... and ... and He Loved Me!  How could I not cry?!?!? To know that He knows everything about me, my deepest secrets, my greatest shames, and He still Loves Me!  It's a wonder I ever Stop crying!  This is His Grace.

In His Love, His Compassion and His Wisdom, he introduced me to a young woman gravely wounded by her parents.  I, without my children at the time [and still, but there is hope], was equally broken. And we became friends.  In time, I came to see her like a daughter.  And she began to call me Momma.  In time we grew to be truly Momma and Daughter in every way but blood.  We have been there for each other through the good times which have been multitude and very good, and the very few bad times.  Poppa made us a family.  This, too, is His Grace.

A year ago, I met another young woman, Annabelle, a transsexual woman, who was going to get her surgery.  I knew that I had some resources that she and her mother might make use of in the process and I freely offered it.  I came  to know her mother, Sandie, and became frriends.  I developed a very close connection to this young woman and discovered I do "Mom" really well  Annabelle didn't need a mom; Sandie loves her dearly and has supported her in everything she has done.  But her Mom lives in New England.  So our relationship has grown to be something like Mom and Daughter.  Then her Mom graced me no end.  She told me I could be her daughter's West Coast Surrogate Mom.  To be trusted with her flesh-and-blood Daughter is a Grace-thing so special!  [I don't cry just in church...]  Over the last year, Sandie and I have become Sisters-of-the-Heart.  So my family has grown with another Daughter and a Sister.  This is Poppa's Grace, again.

At a turning point in Debra's life, she met Johanna and they became BFF's.  I like Johanna and I really like her as Debra's friend, but the relationship between Johanna and myself has always been ... complicated.  I tend to throw my heart at people and Johanna rather resists that.  She and I process things different but we have one thing in common to the depths of our souls, our love for Debra.  By Poppa's Wisdom, or His Humor, We have come to love each other dearly.  A Grace-thing I will Never be able to stop thanking Poppa for!

I met Lisa through Johanna more than any other way.  A very vibrant, firecracker of a woman!  And incredibly intelligent and wise beyond her years.  We have become good friends, very good friends!  I have asked her to mentor me in a number of projects.  She has been there for me to cry on. She says my presence is calming and sometimes she needs a lot of that.  She helps me wth my cooking and I am very happy to be her Taxi.  She has stretched my mind with her addiction to Words for Friends [Do friends let friends play Words for Friends?].  And she is constantly knitting or spinning yarn!  She gives me a lot of balance. She is a dear, Dear Sister to me.  And a gift from Poppa I never would have imagined.

Poppa's Grace comes in unexpected circumstances.  When I had my stroke recently, it was a very precious gift to see my ex-Wife at the hospital concerned about me.  I don't see her much anymore and, frankly, I miss her. But it's time to move on with our lives.  But it was something that choked me up to see her there at the hospital for me.  My brother Tim and his family came and blessed me with their love.  and a huge surprise, huge gift was to see my brother Bill there for me!  My son, Jake, had called to see if he should come from Canada.  I miss him, laughing with himand talking with him so even though I was well enough that he didn't need to come down, it was a blessing that he Loved me still.  But as wonderful as all that was...  That my First Daughter, my Becca, my Pride and my Joy! came to see me!  We didn't get much chance to talk.  But she hugged me and Loved me for the first time since I came out!  We have much to Love our way through, but by Poppa's Grace there is hope!  And I had just about found my Hope jar empty.

I shake my head in my unbelief at how much Poppa has Graced me!  I cannot imagine being so very special and so very loved but so many people.  Debra would tell you that I deserve it!  Every bit!  But it's hard for me to embrace that.  Worthy or not, I can accept and thank Poppa for all His Love and all the Ways He has watched out for me.  It is so far from the relationship I had with Him before.  I hope I am able to be used by Him to give His Grace to others.