No Gasp

One of the best things about sharing with grown up trannies is that they know when to gasp.

“Gasp! He really said you were in drag?”

“Gasp! You really haven’t shaved in a month?”

“Gasp!  He bought you a drink?”

My secret need is for other people to know what is a big deal to me, even if lots of people wouldn’t find it a big deal.  Doesn’t matter if it’s big good or big bad, just that it is something remarkable in my tranny life.

I live in a world where few people understand the challenges of a transwoman life enough to know when to gasp, when to offer empathy and understanding for what they know to be a bump.

I do work hard to affirm the blessings of others and to be there when they have bumps, but to gasp at my bumps you have to believe that they are important and challenging, not just something that was nothing in the first place.

But I say things and I get no gasp. Just a “So?” or maybe not even that.

And it makes me feel even more alone.

Another Chance To Be Normal

Got my first speeding ticket ever today.  48 in a 30 mph zone.  Going to my sisters to drop off size 20 shoes for her clown boyfriend.  (No, literally, he is a clown.  A balloon clown.)

I’m upset, but what I realize is that it is one more chance to be normal.  Not to be freaked out, but to handle it like a normal person, taking the hit and moving on.

That’s not easy for me with my deep and abiding fear of authority.  The only way I can do it is to come from power and not sickness.  Yet, I know people will see me as failed, not just as another blip in a life.

I was in invisible mode, so no issues there.  (It was on the same road as the accident in 99)

But I still need to take power, and not the power of invisibility, with this new chance to be normal.

Hard.

Pushing, Pushing

My parents — well, especially my mother — are concerned about my financial future.

I get that.  I get their concern.  It’s good and sweet and appropriate.

The problem is when they try to posit solutions.  Their solutions have no relationship to the real challenges, me swallowing my own power, but rather are based in me being sick in some way.

“Being sick of sickness is not sick,” as Ms. Rachelle so often tells me.  I got to affirm TBB yesterday morning.  The new documentary featuring her comes out June 21, and they are flying her to LA for the premiere. She has seen the film, and sees why people saw her as the tranny in Trinidad who was comfortable in her own skin.

I really think her long term success is based around her being TBB in the world, with that positive energy which can brighten a room and touch hearts.  And I suspect that my long term success is based around being Callan in the world, who can enlighten a room and touch hearts.

My father “knows it is hard,” for me to do what he considers the right and simple thing, but, of course, that is because he sees me as a failure, because he has no idea where I shine or excel.

You cannot erase darkness in the world.  You just can’t.  The best you can do is bring in some light that opens up a bit of darkness for a while.  That’s why trying to help erase sickness will never work; you end up pouring energy down the well of sickness.  You can only foster healing, take the places of strength, goodness & power and make them a little stronger, a little more robust & enduring, a little more present until they create your own light.

My father says that my sister has tried to help me.  Well, that’s true, but the record of her help has never been about engaging the emotional blocks I have constructed to stay small and weak.  Rather, her help has been pushing, pushing the sickness out.  After all, the emotional blocks she has constructed are still the foundation of how she survives in a harsh, commercial world.

In my father’s eyes, though, it’s my fault that I haven’t engaged the “help” my sister has offered.  It doesn’t matter how much she has shown herself to be unsafe with me because she doesn’t need her buttons pushed, doesn’t want to get between me and my parents, how much her need to protect her own sanity and functioning denies her the option to engage me in a positive and empowering way.  I may need to crank up the volume, but she needs to stay stable, and that creates a bit of an impasse.

My fault, though.  It’s unreasonable to expect people to engage, understand and affirm my power, at least in my fathers’ eyes.  I just have to toughen up and get it done.  The notion that my toughness just tightens and cripples me?  How can someone denying his own feelings, his own pain, waddling with a shot hip, ever get that?

I get their concern and love.  I also get their denial and rejection.

And somehow, those are canceling forces.