Clutter, The Devil is in the Details.

I turned Cheer Bear to face me. The three inch tall, while sitting, pink Care Bear faces me to cheer me on, to shoot rainbows into my day and make me a brighter person. She sits below my monitor beside my computer on the hand-me down bookshelf that has past from one sibling to another. It’s been redesigned recently to give me a typing shelf just below where the monitor and computer sit. I try to keep it clean but I’ve been doing my nails while watching Hulu. So there is acrylic powder, primer and white OPI nail lacquer and top coat sitting amongst the tapered Acrylic brush, a small hand full of cotton balls and four nail files covered by the ruler I picked up off the floor to measure Cheer Bear. 

The vacuum I traded my dead grandfathers 1911 limited edition .22 for is in the corner behind my makeshift desk. It is beside a my computer speakers a small pile of cables and a tube of glow sticks I’ve had for over a year. a cloth box with the rest of my nail care stuff sits on top of the vacuum. Boy I feel like I should clean instead of write but I won’t sit back down. 

To the right of my desk is my laser printer, buried by a pile of bras, which doubles as the a book-end. A few copies of Elle magazine, one of Cosmo another of Instyle droop  between it and the wall. I got three pairs of knee high boots with in an arms reach. I used to say that I was messy my bed room is always messy but I cleaned it the other day and now I’ve come to realize it’s just a little cluttered yeah that is a good word to describe my space, cluttered. Cheer bear is rubbing off.

Gun control (daily post Headline)

I just finished an episode of The Colbert Report. There was a lot of discussion on gun control. There has been, since December. Why? There were two mass shootings and the James Holmes’s trial began (suspect from the movie theater shooting). Colbert’s interview was with Piers Morgan who is a CNN news for getting rid of all the guns in the US. During the interview he said that there were less than 35 gun deaths in England every year and 13,000 in the US. The united states has 6 times the population which means that if the percentage of gun deaths were the same there would be either 1,500 in England or if we had the same percentage in the US as England has there would be 210 in the US. Those are big differences. Decreased from 13,000 to 210 gun deaths in the US every year that is less than 2.5 percent of what we have today. Initially the number might go up, and it will take time, say 15 years before the number bottoms out but even if it takes 20 years and there are still 1,000 every year even being someone who used to hunt and still owns four guns come take’m. Please, just give me a few dollars for them when I turn them in.

 

Working too much!

Well about a year ago I took a job caring for people with disabilities. It was fun it paid well and I’m sure it was the best job I’ve ever had. But a few months ago chasing the dollar I took a second job work in a nursing home. Due to the extra hours I was let go at the first employer. A few weeks later I choose to leave the second because it was not a place I would work for the long term and was the cause of being fired at the other place. I feel bad now because I have no income but I’ve been working really hard on my business The Puppy Fort working so much led to me not writing for months, I wanted to the entire time but my bed being right behind me when I’m on the computer makes it easy for me to crawl in when I’m tired, when working 70 hours a week I’m always tired. so I was lucky if I got through a half-hour of my favorite show. Let alone typing for an hour everyday. Well I think I’m back for good, hopefully at least for a few months. But cross your fingers for me getting a earning a job, that will leave me time to work on my other endeavours. 

Tonight while feeling a little vulnerable yet still motivated I Googled how to be more present in your own life. One of the results was a list and description of ten things that will help a person to achieve it. Below I have quoted the first step, and it is accepting thy self.

“Your self-acceptance score sets your “personal allowance” for how much happiness, success and love is possible and how much is “too good to be true.” Your allowance determines how much good fortune you can identify with before you start telling yourself “good things like this don’t happen to people like me.” As your self-acceptance score increases, the more good fortune you will allow yourself to notice, accept and enjoy.

When your self-acceptance score is low, you tend to forget that abundance is natural, and you start to believe that good fortune has to be deserved, earned and paid for. When good things happen to you, you feel guilty, anxious and afraid, because deep down you believe something deeply illegal or blasphemous has happened. You quickly set about “paying the bill” by making sacrifices, working harder, apologizing everywhere, pushing away love, rejecting the joy and sabotaging the success. Thus, for as long as you do not accept yourself, you will always want more than you let yourself have.” (Read more: http://www.oprah.com/spirit/10-Ways-to-Be-More-Abundant-in-Life/1#ixzz1mo5K0D6j)

About half way through it I broke down into tears. After my tears were about done I asked why is it the idea of self-acceptance is so upsetting for me. I know most of the answer to that. I hate my self, I hate where I am in my transition. I hate where I am in my life. I have a goal for the future that will take me well beyond transition, well beyond surgery but it is only one and due to family’s comments I question it.  this questioning is a wholenother problem but I think it stems from the same. My lack of self-acceptance.

The hatred I feel for myself is a lot of my non acceptance, but it is not all. I feel like the only way I will ever be able to move on in my life is to have surgery. I know, only because I’ve heard it so many times that surgery is not the end all.  It is only a small part  of who I am, my life does not begin after surgery, nor do the problems of today go away. But that is what brings me to tears. That is what makes me ask why do I need it.

I don’t know. I mean, I hate my penis. I blame it for most of my problems. I frequently think about preforming the surgery myself in my kitchen but what is it that makes it feel so necessary, the first thing that comes to mind is the need, to experience what it is like to not have a penis, to pee hands free and imagining what it is like for a man to enter me there, warms my lower abdomen every time. Though I have had sex I don’t desire it as I currently am.

 

But what is it. Is it just a want. Can I live fifty or even ten years without it.

My identity

Afew weeks ago I posted a responce to The Daily Post about my identity. I outlined a few things that help to define who I am or who I want to be. I posted it quickly because a rule I’ve been using for blogging is once I start I must finish it and either post it or delete it.
That post has bothered me because there are aspects of I don’t like. Yes I don’t really identify as trans but that is who I am and I am proud that I have been able to stand up and say it outloud. But how do I indetify is an almost impossible question to answer. I am constantly changing who I am. A few things that are concrete would be:
I am a US Marine, and a vet of the Iraq war.
I am a woman.
I am stylish.
A caring person who likes to help others.
I a writer and some day plan to publish a book about my enlistment.
I a traveler and will see every country in Europe, and will spend several monthes on each coninent, except maybe antartica.
There are as I stated in the other post more things than I can list. And most are really hard to put into words. But one of the things I’m most proud of was one my sisters boy-friend defined for me: I am a real person and I work hard to show people that, I don’t hold much back. He also told me that is why many people are afraid of me. They are so wrapped up in lieing to themselves that when they witness someone who doesn’t hold back they just can’t handle it.

Sorry for the spelling mobil wordress has no spell check and I need to post it now.

Daily post (how do I define my identity)

An identity is the image we hold of ourselves. A person always has multiple and many of them are also in flux. They are sometimes not recognizable by others  and a challenge in life is getting others to see them. The ones not seen right away are are some of the more important ones. When somebody sees it when somebody acknowledges it, we get warm and fuzzy feelings. Some of the identities that make up who I am are:

1. A woman who likes to have beautiful nails  -I don’t do this one very well.
2. A woman who rides a lot of bicycle
3. A woman into endurance sports
4. A stylish and perhaps even elegant woman
5. Someone who is open minded and understanding
6. An artist, I aspire to be a writer
7. Too many to list

I feel obligated to say that being transsexual is a part of my identity but I have never felt like one, I’ve always seen myself as just a woman. This is somewhat trouble some for me because 1. I don’t want to go back into the closet (going stealth) 2. I feel just as proud when somebody recognizes me as queer as when somebody addresses with female pronouns 3. It is who I am and I don’t know how to draw this distinction without Jeopardizing some of the list above.

Weekly Photo Challenge: My Christmas portrait

Holiday Sadness. Experiencing loneliness sitting by my tree.

Weekly Photo Challenge (Waiting for Transition in my Closet)

My Closet is Blurry

This weeks challenge is a picture that demonstrates waiting. I choose a blurry picture of my closet. That picture embodies waiting for me because in many ways I waited way too long for transition, I knew I was going to before I enlisted but I choose to wait because I was not yet ready to accept who I was, like wise when I left the service I was not ready. Unfortunately it took my fathers death for me to realize there is no such thing as being ready for transition, or let me rephrase that, the only correct time is right now. I feared my family would abandon. I feared my community would make me an outcast. I was wrong. I don’t know your situation, but I believe that every situation can be changed, if it really is your community move. If it is your wife or your family and they love you they will stand by you, though testing that may be hard. My dad and all his siblings died before the age of sixty. I was approaching my later twenties and realized I had already lived half of my families life expectancy. I could not wait any longer.

Another reason I choose the blurry picture of my closet was that I wish while I was waiting I had discovered what made a good wardrobe and had invested in that instead of most of the stuff that I had bought. You might say but.. but I don’t know what size I am, or what size I will be when I begin transition. I now say neither of those matter. First either order off the internet or drive to a town a few hours away. If you end up with something in the wrong size  most places will take it back, if they don’t that is okay too, it sucks you spent the money but save it. When you do start transition and it is a good quality piece of clothing, consignment shops will buy it for you sometimes they will only give you store credit but hey then you get to do more shopping. I’d love to go more into what makes a good wardrobe but, I am still discovering that. just Google around a little and you’ll find more information that I could possible give you. Maybe pick up a magazine in Wal-Mart next time its for your girlfriend, or sister.

Weekly Photo Challenge: My Family is like a herd of Elephants!

Family  is the weekly photo challenge. A few weeks ago I watched a nature documentary, one of the scenes in the movie is of a herd of elephants that are dying of thirst. Among them are calves having a hard time keeping up. Despite the danger the mothers slow down risking getting lost and their own lives to ensure the safety of their young.

Image provided by: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net link to site on bottom of page.

This idea of family is very personal because a little over a year ago one of my sisters moved across the country. She spent a year living here. It was one of the more amazing things people have done for me. She and her boyfriend move from northern California to Minnesota. This was not something I asked for and when it happened I did not appreciate it. No matter how cliché it is to say it was not until they were packing to leave that I began to understand.

The last few years have been kind of hard for me. After my father’s death the pain of living as somebody I didn’t identify with became too difficult but I hated myself so much I believed my family would not accept me as a woman. I moved to a place I would not see any family or friends that might ask about family. This was hard because before we would talk multiple times per week. Considering how we separated when growing up (foster homes) we had good relationships something we worked hard to maintain. Since I have slowly drifted. I love them but have begun to find it difficult to re-implement them into my life. I was so ready for them to abandon me when they didn’t I automatically did it to them.

My sister quit a job she loved packed up her boyfriend, who still needed to finish grad school and moved across the country for me. Why? I still ask myself this question. But the answer is: To help me to catch up. To give me a chance. To show me how much my family cares about me. This is the first time I’ve acknowledged it outside my head.  Thank you.

Image: africa / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Just a little note

I’m in the process of some major reconstruction because I’m expanding to two more Blogs.