When I was a child I remember my father explaining to me that men were not suppose to cry or show their emotions and always were to keep their feelings pretty much to themselves. Of course, since I was raised as a male due to my genetic defects, this seemed contrary to my way of thinking. I always was a sensitive child but as I got in college and my early years in my career, I was a tightly wound individual and deeply repressive of my true self and I learned to not show much emotion beyond anger. This really was a not a really good one to display. However, there were times that, despite my best efforts, I felt my true emotions of who I really was and my feelings and the warmth that they brought shined through the ugly shell. I would have to look away so others could not see I was crying or feeling emotional so I could keep up the “rough exterior façade”. Sometimes I might read a story or see a movie or show on TV which was emotional powerful and I would find tears streaming down my face. Since that did not fit my “image” I was desperately trying to portray I always hoped these episodes occurred when no one was around to see them.
The words spoken to me by the indoctrination of my father always rung out in my head….. “Men don’t show their emotions and they don’t cry”. Even my father lost sight of his own directives at the end of his life as he displayed many more emotions. I still remember shortly before his death in the nursing home we held each other and told each other how much we loved each other. Tears streamed own our faces as we did. Just prior to that I had to tell him my brother and his son had been killed in an accident and we cried for hours together and the night mom died shortly before that, I saw a man in a wheelchair broken down with tears streaming down his tired face. I buried each of them and wrote their eulogies in succession. I cried as I delivered each one. However, I also decided that feeling emotions and displaying them freely should not have to wait until deathbeds and funerals!
My decision to stop lying to myself and everyone else and to live life as Melissa- my true essence of being and to rid myself of the ugly shell and façade was made not only made so I could stop living a lie and find peace as a woman trapped in a male shell, but also with the understanding that I would be able to feel and express emotions as woman. Emotions and feelings can be a scary item but only if you try to hide them or fight them or repress them instead of embracing them! Even before I began living fulltime as Melissa this began to occur as I let my true self be seen and feel. The ingestion of estrogen into my body during my transition has only heightened the feelings that were already there but repressed from years of living in a shell and pretending and living by my father’s directives. I love the emotions and I love feeling alive. I cry at almost anything (it could be a poem, an article about a child dying of cancer, a TV show, a commercial or even a hymn I hear in church on Sunday) and I simply don’t care who sees me express the emotions anymore. I look at pictures of my children on my desk of my office and I simply break down and cry. When I think of how much I love and care for Paula and how much she loves me I cannot hold back the tears of joy of finding a soul mate in life as Melissa. The tears flow like a river but the river leads to my soul and they cleanse my heart.
I feel so deeply and passionately and the emotions roll over me like a wave does for one who stands in the ocean. Each successive wave brings more feeling and warmth and depth of emotion I always knew was there. I can feel again completely and I express my emotions like any other woman does with both tears of joy as well as sadness! I love to cry and I do my fair share of it for sure! The feelings take root inside of me and seem to connect pathways that were always there but forgotten. I love the feelings …I love the passion…I love the emotion and depth of feeling…let the tears flow freely whenever and wherever they may need to flow. No longer does my father’s adage apply as if it ever really did anyway. Maybe it is suppose to applicable to men today although I really think most men could use more good cries and many more feelings and emotions than they normally display. However, as Melissa- my true essence, it has no meaning at all. Let the waves of emotions and feelings swarm over my body and soul and renew me as a woman. God does it ever feel so good!
The words spoken to me by the indoctrination of my father always rung out in my head….. “Men don’t show their emotions and they don’t cry”. Even my father lost sight of his own directives at the end of his life as he displayed many more emotions. I still remember shortly before his death in the nursing home we held each other and told each other how much we loved each other. Tears streamed own our faces as we did. Just prior to that I had to tell him my brother and his son had been killed in an accident and we cried for hours together and the night mom died shortly before that, I saw a man in a wheelchair broken down with tears streaming down his tired face. I buried each of them and wrote their eulogies in succession. I cried as I delivered each one. However, I also decided that feeling emotions and displaying them freely should not have to wait until deathbeds and funerals!
My decision to stop lying to myself and everyone else and to live life as Melissa- my true essence of being and to rid myself of the ugly shell and façade was made not only made so I could stop living a lie and find peace as a woman trapped in a male shell, but also with the understanding that I would be able to feel and express emotions as woman. Emotions and feelings can be a scary item but only if you try to hide them or fight them or repress them instead of embracing them! Even before I began living fulltime as Melissa this began to occur as I let my true self be seen and feel. The ingestion of estrogen into my body during my transition has only heightened the feelings that were already there but repressed from years of living in a shell and pretending and living by my father’s directives. I love the emotions and I love feeling alive. I cry at almost anything (it could be a poem, an article about a child dying of cancer, a TV show, a commercial or even a hymn I hear in church on Sunday) and I simply don’t care who sees me express the emotions anymore. I look at pictures of my children on my desk of my office and I simply break down and cry. When I think of how much I love and care for Paula and how much she loves me I cannot hold back the tears of joy of finding a soul mate in life as Melissa. The tears flow like a river but the river leads to my soul and they cleanse my heart.
I feel so deeply and passionately and the emotions roll over me like a wave does for one who stands in the ocean. Each successive wave brings more feeling and warmth and depth of emotion I always knew was there. I can feel again completely and I express my emotions like any other woman does with both tears of joy as well as sadness! I love to cry and I do my fair share of it for sure! The feelings take root inside of me and seem to connect pathways that were always there but forgotten. I love the feelings …I love the passion…I love the emotion and depth of feeling…let the tears flow freely whenever and wherever they may need to flow. No longer does my father’s adage apply as if it ever really did anyway. Maybe it is suppose to applicable to men today although I really think most men could use more good cries and many more feelings and emotions than they normally display. However, as Melissa- my true essence, it has no meaning at all. Let the waves of emotions and feelings swarm over my body and soul and renew me as a woman. God does it ever feel so good!
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