You Are My Sunshine
by Julie D Cole
A single Chapter Story

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True Events and True experiences and Feelings of My Life to try to put all things into perspective and let the sunshine of my life come out.
~o~O~o~

Well that was a crap year and things aren’t getting any better. It seems like things are going from bad to worse. I don’t know how much more of this I can take. It’s like I did something wrong and the punishment will continue until I buckle and finally give in. We’ve had hurricanes, floods, major power disruptions, flu epidemics and now heavy snow storms paralysing the city again and then taking out the power again. People trapped and my family out of contact for 48 hours with me worried sick hearing about people trapped out in their cars and some not surviving.

Is there no end to these occurrences or do I just give in? As each one affects my life my guilt feelings increase and as if living with myself isn’t bad enough.

I never did anything wrong to anybody in all my life and tried to conform but I couldn’t. Something inside me, or someone, has been trying to get out and I’ve lived with this as long as I can remember. Some days the feelings are stronger than others.

I try to be positive and even though I lost my job with no more benefits and no health insurance to cover my family I battle on and do what I can to face each difficulty. At least I’m not alone at home and I can earn cash and my wife has taken on a few part time jobs. In this mad world that seems to have got out of hand because of the global economic crisis are these the hardships we are going to have to live with like our parents had to deal with recession that brought countries to their knees and resulted in several wars that then took away loved ones who never came home.

As I reflect on the hurt I’ve faced and the bullying at school and my guilt feelings the only saving grace is that I feel that if I’d been born today or even ten years ago I’d have had access to information now available to let me see how many others there are like me and that I can let the other side of me come out to play or enjoy life from time to time. Maybe she would have been a successful financial investment advisor instead of the desk bound slave that I became because of my lack of ambition. Maybe she would have been accepted better with a masculine side then I was because of my feminine side. All my life I’ve struggled to be the man that my father wanted me to be but at least I married and we had two great children. ‘She’ probably would never have enjoyed that experience. But ‘she’ won’t go away.

Life was different when I was a young guy. There was nothing ever made public and nobody ever knew about people like me. In those days the television news was tightly controlled and even the press were respectful of people’s privacy and things were hidden I suppose. We closed our front doors at night and what happened when it was closed stayed behind it. So what’s wrong with us? Why don’t we live and let live? I guess that in another 10 years what is frowned upon now will be normal and everybody will be a mix of the sexes and free to do and dress as they please. Maybe it’s the way things are heading if we can all survive these disasters and figure out a way to get people back to work despite the effects of modern technology and low cost imports. So am I 10 years ahead of my time and just unlucky to have these guilt feelings and will the stigma disappear? Youngsters today can be a lot more open than in my day. God I’m sounding old. Should I let ‘her’ out more? Is it safer now or not? Oh not yet I fear. Family and friends don’t seem ready yet.

So I’ve done the best I could I suppose and here I am. I won’t buckle and as each problem comes I’m going to face them square on. I’ve done OK by trying to conform and I guess I’ve nothing to complain about.

I keep hearing that the average family consists of a married couple and 1.4 children. As I said we got 2 so I guess we are lucky. What if it was none? They turned out well and both are in work so we must have done something right along the way I guess. They are independent and a great mix of both of us. It’s wonderful to see the humour and wit carried through from grandparents to parents to children and hopefully to grandchildren. I smile sometimes at my daughter and think she might have got some of her feminine traits from me rather than my wife. She fusses a lot and is always late and she constantly tidies things away just like me. If only we could be girls together sometimes.

My son on the other hand shows no interest in the things I like and shares interest of my wife. He is well read and loves music but doesn’t share my interests in sports or cars.

I guess that’s the upside of life in that we leave something behind us when we move on to wherever it is we are heading and no doubt we all meet again. I am smiling because I can hear an old Vera Lynn song my father used to sing ‘we’ll meet again don’t know where don’t know when but I know we’ll meet again some sunny day.’

Yes ‘We’ll meet again’ could have made a grand story title for this entry that I thought I might publish to the site so others don’t feel alone or different. I suppose I could have written a completely different tale and written some of the stories I heard from my parents and grandparents who survived their own hardships arising out of two wars in Europe or told the story of a dear friend and her family who survived the severe struggles and hardships in the reformation of China under Chairman Mao with father sent out to the fields having had all his hard earned wealth taken away and her mother having to work long hours as a school teacher whilst she lived in the kitchen of her house with her grandparents. Her sister having been smuggled away to live with her aunt. Imagine sleeping on the floor and not daring to look a soldier in the eyes for fear of showing resistance and being shot.

Imagine life for my father as a young guy in his prime forced to enlist and spending 7 of his best years and the awful experience of driving a peashooter tank in the North African desert against enemy missiles seeing friends killed because they were unable to escape from burning wrecks. I suppose he had the right to be angry and feel he was dealt a bad hand. So what have I to complain about?

Anyway that’s the doom and gloom out of the way. Here I am living as I’ve never lived before and feeling very lucky not to have been born 10 or 20 years earlier than I was or on a floor or in a small bed in China in the middle of nowhere. I guess I am lucky after all and that I can count my blessings. It’s no real hardship if I have to share my body with ‘her’ and as I get older I’m happy that she comes out more and more. Why not since problems shared are problems halved I guess. ‘She’ deals better with crap than I do.

Anyway the point of this dribble I’m writing is to say that I was convinced at one time that I’d had a raw deal and that I’d been dealt a bad hand. No Ace or King just a Queen and no trump cards. Life seemed to be tough and my time that I was taking out to spend as Julie seemed a waste and put me at risk of everything I was trying to work for. It was making me feel so bad that I felt like giving in. Sometimes ‘she’ took over and a few hours each day in walking in ‘her’ shoes took away all my troubles. ‘She’ must be a smart cookie.

The trouble I’ve found is that in recent times I’ve come to lean on ‘her’ a lot and this side of me feels more and more natural as if she had waited long enough and now I should step aside since it was ‘her’ turn to live a little since ‘she’ felt that I’d not really done that great a job in the man role that I’d been cast. A bit of ‘get out of my way I can do better than that.’

So I have been stepping aside a lot more as opportunities has presented themselves and I feel much better and I feel fitter and young again. Julie has just taken advantage of the situation such that my wardrobe is being compressed and hers has expanded so it is almost the same size. I worry a little though because ‘she’ is a much stronger person than I am and quite fearless. She doesn’t seem to worry where she goes or who sees her and each time I look at her she becomes softer and more feminine.

Now I can see my mother and my sister as I look in the mirror at her brushing her hair and putting on her make up. Even in the morning when she’s let me come back I can see her, make-up or no make-up. There is a real change taking place. She is very careful about ‘her’ diet which I have to follow and her figure looks pretty good nowadays. Pent up emotions can come out of our body when ‘she’ is around and ‘she’ is not embarrassed to shed tears watching ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ or the countless other DVD’s ‘she’ influenced me to buy and all of them are nice stories with wonderful endings. Even the sporting stories like Moneyball, Blind Side. Invictus and The Wonderful Game. When I watch them I have to hold back the tears whereas when she plays them the tears flow and it’s like a huge safety valve has lifted and all the built up pressures have gone.

I think ‘her’ favourite film is ‘As Good as it Gets’ because she wants to look like Helen Hunt although ‘she’ has been a big fan ‘Beaches’ and films like Notting Hill and Love Actually and countless other soft stories like this. Maybe that’s why ‘she’ started to write because ‘she’ is much more of a romantic than me.

Unfortunately Julie does like to be alone watching films and ‘she’ says it’s because her mascara runs and ‘she’ can’t solve the problem and it was my fault because I won’t ask for assistance at the cosmetic counter. It’s true since these places scare the life out of me.

Still as I said each day gets better because the more I look in the mirror these days the more times I can see Julie looking back. No wonder ‘she’ wants to step out and no doubt ’she’ will make me take more of a back seat if I’m not careful.

So what a sad world we live in when I’ve always been made to feel so guilty to let Julie come out to play. ‘She’ would have done a great job around the home and at work if only ‘she’ could have been accepted. ‘She’ so wanted to hug our children to her chest and to take charge in the office rather than rely on idiots to make decisions that I knew would never work.

So Julie now is my sunshine, my only sunshine; she makes me happy when clouds are grey. You’ll never know dear how much I love you, so please keep helping me to blow those dark clouds away.’

Last night as she packed her things away she left me a message as I took over. ‘You see we can have sunshine and Vera Lynn was right. ‘There will be blue skies over the White cliffs of Dover and we will all meet again some sunny day.’ I do want to meet Julie every day because the sunshine’s when ‘she’ is around and ‘she’ brings the blue skies.

So that’s all folks for now. I just love my life now and I’m so happy ‘he’ stepped aside for me. I just needed to think of the darker days that others experienced to realise these are wonderful days and since I took over a lot of ‘his’ responsibilities we are doing so much better sharing this body. We should all have days like we have and chance to breathe. I hope that in 10 years’ time I can look back and know I was right and when I want ‘him’ to come out he will be accepted.

I hope we all can learn to play the cards that were dealt and that the Queen is the Queen of trumps that takes the King of Hearts. Most people will never have the opportunity to see and visited places that have sent a shiver of joy down my spine. Even ‘he’ shed a tear sometimes. I do like the feeling I get when my family don’t realise they were being spoiled by me not ‘him’ and that they are missing out not knowing me properly.

Sorry if it was a bit of a strange posting but some things just needed to be said and after all I am ‘his’ sunshine ‘his’ only sunshine and so I can twist ‘him’ around my little finger.

Well anyone want to dance with me now I’m out here? I like to dance in the old fashioned way.