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I have not blogged in a while. My life has been complicated and I have been giving it a chance to settle down.
This is my last month with my current roommate. She has been a wonderful friend, but the factors in our lives have made it impossible for us to stay together and me to remain sane. I feel I have let her down in some ways. That if I had been a better friend, then maybe I could have helped her through the the tough situations that drove us apart. I think the most difficult thing I have had to face in general is to allow situations to end when it is time. First with my life being male, then my wife, and now my roommate.
Good news, My youngest turned 18 on Good Friday. We laughed that it was a good Friday to have a birthday since it was also a school holiday. So now I am officially free of the burden of having to work with his mother on visitation and other custody issues. That is such a big relief.
Oddly enough, since I began transitioning, I have gotten along much better with his mother. My being a trans-woman has explained a lot of things to her and finally allowed us to begin healing. She use to tell me I was never man-enough for her, and now we both giggle about that. Yes, it hurt back then, but often time gives me a better perspective. This weekend, we had a long talk after dinner with my son, and ended up clearing the air of issues over the last 20 years. That was also another burden lifted from my heart.
The trip trip to see my son, was also a re-union with my Uncles and Grandmother. It was the first time my two eldest uncles have seen me since I came out. They are having a little trouble dealing with it, but overall, accept and love me for who I am. I was told by one of them that I was not to be allowed to visit their family get-together because my cousins did not approve of me being with their children. Only three out of four of my cousins called and were happy to talk with me, so I suspect that it may be other things involved.
I also had a wonderful conversation with my aunt about why I am transitioning. It raised many questions that I had not considered before. For me, I have always seen the answer in the path. I know I am transitioning because this is where my path led me. But short of the narrative, I could not explain it adequately.
My aunt also challenged me on why I believed my transition did not violate me being Christian. I realized that I do not exactly know where I stand on Christianity anymore. I know for a long time I had turned away from the Church because it had rejected me --- and not for trans reasons. But, this journey of transition is a very spiritual one for me. So I feel that God has led me on this journey, and thus I have never questioned how it fits in with the bible.
I have started trying to write my response to her questions. It will take me a while to do, but once I get it into a reasonable form, then I will post it here as well.
Overall the trip this past weekend was very healing and affirming. I have made major progress in patching up things with my ex and I have began connecting to my family who I had ran away from when I was in my 20's. I feel very blessed by it all.
Monday night, I went to a new meetup group whose focus is "Becoming a Living Goddess: Sacred Femininity and Sexuality". Oh my, but it was such a wonderful experience. Not only was I accepted, the other women were excited about me being brave enough to follow my heart and to share it with them.
In all, I truly believe that when you open yourself up to the positive in the Universe, that it will respond likewise.
Bright Blessings!
Cassie Ellen
Comments
Good for You...
I'm glad things are going well for you as you "start over". Thanks for sharing with us.
Hugs,
Mark <3
Amazing stuff Cassie
It sounds like you're gaining some traction in your life. I know from personal experience how frustrating it is to spin your wheels. it's great that you are doing better with your family, close and extended.
Big Hugs, Sister of my Heart,
Diana
What has it got to do
with religion? Surely if you're happier and life is beginning to make sense, why have people always got to bring church, bible or god into the equation? Is it only to justify their own transphobia? If there is a god, and the evidence to support the theory is only lacking by 100%, then surely he made you as you are - perhaps as a test for their love and your courage. Either way, they failed because they're unable to see through their prejudices.
Angharad
Religion is not spirituality
and I have to keep reminding myself of that. What I figured out today while in therapy was that I wanted her approval and it had to be based upon a religious argument. Once I had it framed properly, I do not find the religious reasoning to be as important. What I do know is that this journey has also been a spiritual one for me and I was offended for anyone to suggest that the God I believe has helped me along this path would also reject me.
And yes, in the end, what really matters is that I am happy and fulfilled.
Still, I find that Christian Doctrine is important to me and I will continue to try and understand it. ~warm, thoughtful smile~ but it will have to be on my terms. My God has faith in me to get it right.
Bright Blessings,
Cassie Ellen
Merry Meet, Sister
I see so many parallels in our journeys. I too have become close friends with my son's mother and with one of my other wives as well. It seems that my style of courtship is devastatingly attractive to strong women, but the fact of the matter is that few cis straight women have any clue about how to deal with having a wife.(Sex/gender roles are strongly conditioned)
There was little of the feminine in my presentation pre-transition but a certain sensitivity and capacity for intimacy seems attractive to cis women and I actually am a very nurturent soul and a wonderful cook and homemaker. Only my last wife was aware of who I truly was inside and though I never said a word about it and despite my full grizzly gray beard , was introducing me to her friends by one month into dating, as her wife to be. We had 12 good years together but as I began to transition she became afraid of all of the bigotry in her son-in-law's family and we had to split. That nearly killed me; my heart actually broke.
My son's Mother, whom I love as a sister once said (post transition), I don't understand it, Joani, but I've been observing you closely for this whole week and nothing has changed. You think as you always have, sound the same, move the same and even all of your little gestures are the same. But you look so totally different and it all just fits so much better."
I too have embraced the Sacred Feminine and that has brought me into a place of deep peace.
I tend when asked how I see my gender identity to tell folk,"I am a western femme. I can ride, shoot, drive anything with wheels and weild a chainsaw as well as any man, Without chipping my nail polish or breaking a heel on my Manolo's" ;-)
An it harms none, do as you will.
Merry meet, merry part and merry meet again,
Joani
Merry Meet!
I found paganism/Wicca in my search for spiritual truths. I see that the Rede guides me in a way I can live by, whereas the Golden Rule did not encourage empathy and understanding.
My first marriage was one of confused gender roles. We were drawn to each other because of how we completed what the other had and needed. Only we were too young to get past our gender expectations to allow it to work. Both me and my ex have lamented over if only we knew then what we know now. Still, she was always more of a provider, and I was always more of a nurturer. It was just who we were.
I was not interested in cross dressing directly, however, when I was younger, but I did tend toward the feminine. My ex really tried to chastised it out of me. And me, trying to fit in, took it as valid suggestions. Neither of us imagined that the discordance it caused would eventually drive us apart, and end up with me into losing myself and eventually my sanity for a while.
But now that I am truly embracing who I am, my relationship with my first wife is flourishing again. She says I have returned to the person that she fell in love with. That is so affirming.
My second wife sounds like your last. She was supporting my transition until I started presenting as female. Part of that was a hormone problem. My beard which I needed to look male started going away in patches. When I lost about half of it, mostly centered on the right side of my face, I had to shave it off. So as soon as I was able to admit I was female, people immediately started seeing me that way. That was long before I started HRT. She tried for as long as she could, but after the second month of HRT when the real feminization began, she asked me to leave. She loved that I was becoming stronger and sane again, but she could not handle the stigma of being in a lesbian relationship. I can't blame her. She did not sign up for that.
Yet even that loss was also a blessing. Since leaving, I have been able to fully embrace the feminine within me without any of the guilt I had when I was living with her. So it was just the next step of my journey of discovery and becoming.
I go back and forth between the idea of becoming and realizing. I am realizing who I always and becoming who I always could be.
~grin~ enough rambling for now.
Blessed Be!
Cassie Ellen
some good news here
I'm proud of you for taking these steps, and wish you success in the rest of the journey
Great news...
...I'm rejoicing with you!
Love, Andrea Lena
Thank you
Mark, Diana, Dorothy, and Andrea. I am so happy to have a family here. Y'all are the ones that bring peace and meaning to my life.
Love & Light,
Cassie Ellen