A Tangible Step...

The consultation with Dr. Meltzer went very, Very well.

Once I got there.

No one at the conference knew anything about any consultations that Dr. Meltzer might or might not be doing. This was actually a good thing for my nerves. I could get a little miffed at the snafu. Eventually, the Gender Odyssey people told me that Dr. Meltzer was doing consultations at his hotel. By the time I got to his hotel [a couple of blocks away so no big deal] my nerves were a little jangled again. I call and am told to come up to the floor and they'll call me when they're ready. So, I'm just about to settle in to this incredibly plush chair and continue reading my nook [A Game of Thrones] when a woman opens a door and calls my name.

I go in and there are two women working at lap tops at the desk and a third woman who gets up and greets me. Then I'm introduced to Dr. Meltzer. He is a very pleasant presence and I am put at ease right away. We sit down and tell him a bit about what I'm thinking and my concerns about my blood clots and my diabetes. I tell him that my PCP feels my diabetes will not be an issue when I get my A1c under 8 and that my clots aren't an issue either. He tells me under 8 is a good idea and that for patients with a history of clots he keeps them on a low dose of heparin for longer after the surgery. He hasn't had a patient with clots after surgery for years. He is very, very easy to talk to. His staff seemed extremely efficient. They had a package ready for me before I left and I will get an email package later in the week.

And it was over.

I was not nervous at all when I was talking to him. But going back down the elevator my feelings came back full force. Not from being anxious, but from relief and hope and joy and a positive expectation. Had I been at home instead of the lobby of a posh hotel, I would have come unglued and sobbed my heart out. Sometimes I am as surprised as I can be to find I have been keeping feelings under lock-and-key, hidden away from even myself. Before the consultation, I would have told you that GCS was something I wanted but I would have said from a logical point-of-view that I can live without it, just fine! And I would have believed my own words. After today, I know how much I want this. I know how much I need to be right in my body. I need the confirmation of this surgery. There is still a strong yearning? an ache? in my breast from the consultation and the hope I now have.

Yesterday's Pride Dance

Yesterday was really fun! I went to a workshop "How to Look and Feel Sexy." I came away from that with a lot more confidence and put it to work almost immediately. I picked up a friend of me in Lynnwood and we drove to Bellingham for the 4Women Women's Pride dance, [B'ham has their Pride Parade today] I had decided earlier in the day that I was going to dress up and do my hair and makeup for the dance. Because of the time constraints, I got ready for the dance before the workshop. At the workshop I received really good feedback about my style and how I carried myself, including several comments from the other women there about how they wished they could move as well as I did in the high heels I was wearing [3.5-4"]. That felt really good!

From there I picked up my friend, Sam and we had a really good conversation while going up to Bellingham.

We walked into the room and I really felt good and confident. It has been a long time since I felt that positive going to the dance. I got on the dance floor by myself and just started to flow with the music. There was one other woman on the floor and she looked at me with this expression, "Hot Damn! Work it, woman!" expression and I danced over to her and we finished out the number together. I felt so confident, so positive! during other dances I would glance over to the crowd sitting off the dance floor and see these big smiles from people I didn't know watching me. And they weren't laughing-at-me smiles but I could feel their approval and happiness? for me.

The whole night went like that! I had a really good time! There isn't going to be jeans-tennies-and-T for for this Femme at the dances any more!

Half a bottle of Port

I should not finish off half a bottle of tawny port by myself ...
I do not drink often
I don't make good decisions when I drink
but I do love my port

but being tipsy or more
tonight
is not a good thing

it has made the hunger
for touch
and the ache in my arms
and my breasts

to become a need,
to become the aching, starving cry

for someone

to hold me
to cradle me in their arms
to rock me

to make the hunger
to make the hunger go away

this is not about a lover
this is not about a partner
it is not about sex or making love

it is about
being touched
it is about
connecting

To be who I truly am ...

My favorite quote is from e. e. cummins, "It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are."

For a very long time I knew that who the world saw when they looked at my life was not who I truly was in my heart. And when I heard the e. e. cummins quote I was ashamed. Ashamed because I knew I didn't have the courage to be who I really am. But I clung to the quote and it has been in my .sig files for 15+ years.

Today ... today, some would say I've "turn(ed) out to be who I really am." But I have not finished my journey. Everyday is a struggle to be who I really am. Everyday I fight the desire, the siren call, the need to be who others want me to be. There is safety there. I don't have to be brave anymore. I don't have to stand in the fire. Yes, it calls to me!

But I cannot go back! "Back" was an unreality. And "Normal" is something that I can never reclaim without going into hiding. Where do I hide from my self? It is a lie that the pain I feel now will be gone. The specific pains? maybe, but there will be pain and hurt still and the shame that I turned my back on who I really am.

It catches me funny sometimes when I think about it, but I am -PROUD- of who I am!

A Hard Day

It was not a very good day.



Some relationship issues and then I had to withdraw the last of the IRA I've been living on and sell off the stock I had hoped to pay for my surgery with. Coming home from that, I contacted a friend who has been following my application for work. He said they'd hired everyone already and my application didn't get a look. Had a very long sad cry about that. I guess I didn't know just how much getting a job there had come t mean to me. Almost three years without work just because I told my supervisor I am a transsexual. They fired me for something else, of course, but it was because I came out.



I am hurting really bad. So many losses the last couple years! I didn't feel like it was an emotionally safe thing for me to do to go out tonight. So I stayed home and watched Harry Potter.

In Harm's Way

Today and this weekend is an anxious time for me.

I am going camping near Rainier with a Car Camping meetup group. For the first time. I am not out to them. And after the rejection of Wednesday, I am very hesitant to put my bruised heart on the line again. I have had three meltdowns this morning. Why do I have to put my heart on the line? Why can't this be easier? I deserve better than this treatment! Why can't people just let me be me?

ALL! All I EVER! wanted to be was the "Girl Next Door."

I like the nickname SweetShannon because of the alliteration. But mostly it is who I want to be. I want to be a sweet and gentle woman, perhaps a lady, that everyone is comfortable with and, hopefully, somewhat attached to.

And again, I am putting my heart on the line and I am scared. I don't do rejection well. And I do not want to go there or hide safely in my shell. But I cannot live without putting my heart in harm's way. And I pray Poppa is with me and keeps my heart safe if not unbruised.

I Just Want To Be Me!

It has been a disappointing and painful afternoon for me. I am .. was .. a member of a meetup group that was about dealing with empty nest syndrome. After I came out, separated and divorced, I have only my adopted daughter for family. It is a bittersweet thing to see her growing up and into her life. I am proud of her. So I sought out this group for support. I was not out to them. At least, not that I knew of.

At last weeks walk and talk, one of the women commented on my children that don't talk to me, "The children that you bore!?!?!" I responded, "uh, my flesh and blood." But I was immediately uneasy. Carrying and bearing a child is [or should be] a privilege and an honor to my way of thinking and I had not earned that honor. I haven't born any children. It seemed wrong to me to let her think so.

We came to a place where we could stop for a moment and I asked everyone to let me get something said. I came out to them. It seemed really good and ok the rest of the day. I got some good questions about my life and my process. I answered them as straightforward as I could. Everything seemed OK.

Today I got an email from one of the organizers asking me to not come back. I was making people upset. And she had already removed me from the group. It hurt .. hurts like when you've been dumped for no good reason just as you were beginning to like the guy. Hurts a lot.

I know, in my head, that it isn't really about me. For all their money and education, they don't know much of anything and even less, how to ask real questions about life.

Where I am really struggling is in my Pollyanna world I want to go where I want to go and be able to be me. If no one knows my history, fine. If someone asks about my history, I'll let them know. But if I am going to get rejection? do I out myself first and change all assumptions about me? or do I go stealth and take the chance after I fall in love with the people, the event, the whatever, I would get rejected like some poor relation discovered with a bad birth defect?

I just want to be me! I've paid a price to be who I want to be in this society. I paid my taxes, I voted, I raised my kids to be people who take care of their own responsibilities, I served my country in the armed services. I deserve better than this!