I am such a living oxymoron.
I am a girl inside but not on the outside. Heck, I'm not even sure I'm really a girl, maybe a girl wannabe. Being TG but not TS might sound like an oxymoron to some here, but it's probably true in my case. I'm reminded of The Man Without a Country. I'm a person without a gender, since I find myself firmly rooted in between.
I have always been great with mechanical things, engines to transmissions to electrical and commercial refrigeration. When I did refrigeration as a trade I couldn't stand the dirt and longed to turn my computer hobby into a profession. After 20+ years in the computer/programming/database world I long for the simpler, honest work of fixing things you can actually see.
My hobbies have always confused me. As a kid I would weave with beads, even though boys can't wear beads. I would tool leather but had to give away everything I made because I hated wearing belts and certainly couldn't carry a purse or wear a choker. I invested countless hours mastering hand-tinting photographs, knowing full well it was a dying art. I taught myself to knit at age eight, "helping" my mom to make slippers for Christmas presents. I made more of them than she did but they were always presented as if from her. From age twelve, I've relaxed by making tatted doilies, which I also learned from a how-to book. No one even knows what tatting is these days, they think it's crochet. Nowadays I design and stitch out machine embroidery and make quilted things. The thing is though, that having worked maintenance for a restaurant chain for several years, and later at a hospital, when my wife and I need a gadget to help with our quilting hobby, I whip one out, crafted from wood in no time at all. I find woodworking and quilting to be almost the same discipline, the differences only in the medium used. I'm confused by all this because I get uncertain treatment from places I buy supplies like material and yarn, yet I keep going back. And I'm confused why I keep making stuff I can't keep or use myself.
I have the heart of a musician but not the talent. Heck, I'm not even that good a technician. And my tastes are mostly jazz, and seem to be stuck somewhere in the past. I can't pin down where but probably prior to 1960. Most of what I listen to was recorded before I was born. What does that tell someone?
I have the heart of a writer but not the talent. And I definitely don't have the technical expertise to be one. The problem is, the passion to try to write burns, but my muse takes year-long vacations. When she finally returns I find myself unable to convey what my heart feels.
It's always this way. I am cursed with the ability to recognize art in many forms, but not to duplicate it in any.
I posted another story today. It's not quite what I wanted for it to be, but I'm afraid if I do another thing to it I'll destroy it completely. And so it goes. If anyone does take the time to read it (I do have one fan, which amazes me), please write me and tell me what you think. Please be honest but gentle, as writing does take a lot from me, and I'm in a bit of a fragile state at the moment.
Thanks to all here for letting me be a part of this wonderful community. And especially to Erin and her cadre of dedicated administrators. Happy Birthday, BigCloset!
Hugs to all,
Carla Ann
Comments
Ya know
That actually sounds perfectly normal to me.
An Explorer?
In the very long story "The Tuck Saga", bye Ellen Hayes, he main person, very uncertain about his situation, once was called "an explorer" and got very puzzled. The other person described it as ".. a person that is testing his own feelings and trying to come to a final descision about which way to go with his future life. Maybe that could be a "lable" taht could suite you.
Due to too litle knowledge about transsexualism I thought that I would be the "eternal crossdresser" , but when I got more knowledge I could see my future more clear. What was missing in my knowledge was that not all transsexual persons "have" to have a homosexual background. When that spot of lack of knowledge was cleared I could go ahead and do what I did six years ago.
Good luck in your future, whichever road you chose to travel
Ginnie
GinnieG
Being Normal
After reading this, I must state that you're most likely more normal than most. You had the courage to try various things, w/o a Gender bias. "Boys who knit -- no way."
In my life (I've seen the moon landing), males were discouraged from trying crochetting, knitting, and even light housekeeping. And, I think this should have been a part of their growing up. It is a path untaken. Be happy in who you are, don't play the "what might have been" game -- just keep on being yourself!
Annie in PA
Annie in PA
There's certainly nothing wrong with the way you feel.
There's certainly nothing wrong with the way you feel. Perhaps you see more clearly than most people in the world.
You said:
"I'm a person without a gender, since I find myself firmly rooted in between."
Gender isn't binary. The belief by most people in the world that it is...
Well, that's the root of a lot of pain and tribulation.
Gender is a continuum, and your place on that continuum can change with time. Just try to find the place that makes you comfortable for now.
I like to think of the song "Simple Gifts":
'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.
Keep turning, you'll come down where you ought to be. It will be the place that's right for you.
Kris
Reality is a nice concept - but it doesn't hold up to close examination.
Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
- Jane Wagner
I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
- Umberto Eco
Kris
{I leave a trail of Kudos as I browse the site. Be careful where you step!}
We seem so much alike!
From my earliest days, I always wanted to be a woman. Like many of the rest of you, it was in my prayers every night to wake as a female. The only catch was that I have never been attracted to males.
I have always been the cook of whatever family group I have been part of. I would love to be allowed to just be a housewife. At times when I've been without a live-in partner, some of my happiest days were spent in a dress and heels cooking some exotic dish, just for the fun of it. Some of the earliest pictures of me, beyond babyhood, were of me in my grandmother's kitchen, up to my elbows in the dough for Ukrainian Easter Bread. It's only in recent years, after much anguish and therapy that I have learned to also appreciate the company of males and learned to embrace the male part of myself.
I too am mechanically inclined, earning my living as a radio and recording engineer. Men, almost totally, in radio engineering are the ultimate fixit guys. Electrical, HVAC, plumbing and of course electronics are all involved on a daily basis. I'm good with my hands, but unfortunately not in the ways that needlework requires, and yes I know and appreciate what tatting is.
My female side loves the feel of a silk dress and the click of my heels on the floor. The male side could care less what he wears , at least partially because of the choices available. Liz loves to cook and make a comfortable home for her spouse. Bob enjoys racing sports cars and even watching football games. I could go on endlessly about my contradictions, but the lesson that I finally learned is to appreciate the dichotomy of my soul.
We all have that split, even if it doesn't manifest itself in transgender behavior. Thinking that the grass is always greener on the other side of the employment fence is a universal of the human condition. You're refrigeration/computer split is by no means unusual. You're not a person without a country, but rather a person with two of them. Enjoy them both!
BTW, I have the same problem that you do with music and literature. So I became a recording engineer to at least assist musicians in disseminating their music. It has had the added bonus of getting to work with musicians, a decidedly mixed blessing. I've yet to gather up the courage to try to publish anything that I have been able to write, and so have settled for being an educated reader. It's frustrating to have so many ideas and characters in my head, without being able to get then down on paper, or electrons, in a comprehensible manner.
So this is one person's take on how to live a balanced life rather than berating him/herself for she/he is not. I'd like to think that you might be able to take a little comfort or inspiration from it. Just remember that you are not alone! There are people that care and understand your confusion.
Love be with you.
Liz
No Surprise
No surprise that I can second much of what you have written. I long ago came to terms with my gender mixed interests and have decided that what I want to do with my life is what I want to do with my life, not what someone else wants to do with my life. As I approach my 60th birthday I find a great deal of grace in not giving a hoot what society or any other organized group thinks of how I live my life.
Be yourself - it can be a very interesting and enlightening experience!
Dear Carla Ann,
You sound fine, normal is just a statistical term. I don't think a persyn can be an oxymoron. What? You are like Army Intelligence? Actual, 3D people have depth and are complex.
I really like the comment by Kris.rev2.2.; both the gender continuum and the simplicity hymn.
Hugs and Bright Blessings,
Renee
Ready for work, 1992.
Hugs and Bright Blessings,
Renee
Thank you all so much
I didn't mean to convey that I am confused about who I am. I came to terms with that about twenty years ago. Finding things confusing in your life and being confused by them are not the same thing, although the distinction is sometimes minimal. I shouldn't have said I was a person without a gender because I truly have one shoe in one and one pump in the other. And I am most comfortable like that.
Thank you all for commenting and encouraging me.
There seems to be a whole cadre of us who delight in hobbies or disciplines that require extreme detail. From the early 1970's I became interested in digital electronics, and computers. My first computer was a Heathkit H8 (1976) and after that countless homemade wirewrap projects using variations of the same chipset. I never thought much about it until after a friend asked me to apply for an electronics journeyman position at the local powerplant. I told him I had no formal training in electronics and he encouraged me to apply anyway. I beat both EE's that applied on the digital electronics test. It's just as well my blood pressure was too high to pass the physical, I've done far more interesting things since than adjust emissions sensors, the primary task of the guy in that position.
I guess that's why I like tatting over crochet. It's difficult and far more detailed. I'm rambling now.
Thanks again sisters and brothers for the enouragement. I guess I was just feeling needy this morning.
Hugs
Carla Ann
Sounds Familiar
If you check my blog, I recently wrote a piece which explains how I came to be, and parts of my story sound remarkably similar to yours.
My differences are: I have been writing since I was 14 and I can't knit to save a kitten but am by far the best seamstress in my family. I have been cooking since age 11, which is when my mother had to go out to work. Tatting? I know what it is, but only because I own The Ashley Book of Knots and used to be most proficient in the tying of the contents.
I wonder, hearing other responses to your tale, whether in fact we have a case to be designated as "Third Gender", partaking of some of the attributes of both male and female. I used, like most people, to think of gender as being a "swingometer" type attribute with full-on male at one end, female at the other end, and me somewhere in the middle. I'm beginning to think that this is too simple an analogy.
Perhaps I just need another coffee.
Penny
Oxy what???
ALISON
Don't belittle yourself,dear one.Your story today shows
what depth and intelligence you have.It doesn't matter what we are in this life,it is WHO we are that counts---who we are as a person no matter what!You have shown through your story,The
Phone Call,that you have feeling and compassion and empathy.
You are a special person if you can write like that,so lift your
head up and be proud of yourself,not for what you are but who you are!!!Much love ,Alison
ALISON