Well, I'm up early today. I've been thinking about life because somehow, someway, I have today completed 47 orbits about Sol while a passenger on planet Dirt, err ... Earth. As I get ready to start my 48th, I do wonder about it all. It's no wonder that from the very beginning I have always been the outsider looking in. With the deluxe basket of unwanted gifts including learning disabilities as well as some favor of TG, I am also blessed. I am and have been more or less healthy. Unlike, some of the other girls here, I have never been physically abused. However, I do have memories of those really unpleasant years in school. Mostly they were good times, but when they were bad ...! Like others I too got caught in the wrong clothes, but my ultra-conservative parents simply took it stride. I was never punished, but I did get that stern talking to explaining that these are boy clothes and those are girl's ect... Like I said lucky!

Growing in the deep south in the 70's, I was mostly stuck trying to work all this out on my own. In my mid-teens, I even came out to my parents, but they assured me it was just a phase I was going though. I would grow out of it. I'm still wondering just when that's going to happen! :)

Not having a clue of what to do next, I tried to put that "girl" aside and joined the Army after high school. Rather fortunate for me the 80's were more or less peaceful years, so I have no real problems from that time of trying to be a man. I have had my incidents, because I guess I've never been that good at this "Man" thing to start with. However again most folks leave me be since I fight like a girl. Ie, I don't give warnings, I don't bow up, or bluster, I simply take the heaviest thing to hand and start swinging. Ok, I'll admit to being a little pyscho! I got left alone, and that was more of that good/bad thing if you know what I mean.

For years I found myself staring into the Void. Early on I decided that suicide just wasn't an option, but looking back on it, I'm not sure the isolation I surrounded myself with was that much better. I know I don't have to explain about the old, I can't go forward, but there was no way back either deal.

Blessed again, I found love when I least expected it, but even that turned out somewhat bitter sweet. Given a choice, I would never do anything to cause distress or harm to the one I love, but I was so messed up I couldn't admit to myself what was going on inside my head. It was only after we got married, that it all came to a boil and we had to try and work it out. For that matter, we are still working at it.

So here I am now. Five-thirty in the morning, writing down my thoughts. Never really thought I would get this far and honestly didn't want to. Never had very much to look forward to. The last several years has been different. Getting married did change my point of view about a lot of things. Maybe that was why I was finally able to try and come to grips with who I really am.

Because I have always lived inside my head, it was the stories I told myself that kept me at least partially sane. I think if I had ever managed to write them all down, they would rival the Library of Congress in size. But atlas, it has only been more or less recently that I've been able to put any on paper. The first I managed to finish is posted here and I got a lot of feedback about how good it was for a first story. (except for the odd school assignment) Maybe it was because I never dared to before. I will say that the friends I have made here and the acceptance I've found has made a difference in my life.

I think now I'll stop my ramble and get along with that next ride around that bright star.

Hugs!

grover