New Hope and New Birth

My ole my……………… a whole lot has occurred in the past couple weeks since I last wrote just before my departure for my long- desired surgeries which took place in Pennsylvania. Not long after I last wrote and posted my closing thoughts and thanks to many who affected my journey to this point Paula and I loaded up my CRV and headed off for New Hope Pa. I truly love the name New Hope for the promise it offers and upon arriving there Friday evening we strolled the streets of one of the state’s most eclectic LGBT friendly cities where we found neat little shops, bistros, galleries and clubs nestled in a scenic community along the river. The rainbow flags flew everywhere for every little nook and cranny of this exceptionally friendly city. We also discovered something else upon our arrival – we had arrived during New Hope’s pride week celebration. We dined on the patio of a restaurant after site seeing a bit and purchasing some sundries. The weather was awesome and it would be my last real meal and night of fun for awhile so after our exceptionally delicious meal we strolled the streets looking for ice cream and then took in the sounds of a local all female band at local brew pub. We returned on Saturday for the Pride Parade and did some more shopping for clothes and Paula found the Holy Grail of clothes at a shop along the way and I did a little damage there myself. The parade was great fun and we ate out for lunch and dinner but by that time my diet was limited to “liquid diet” so all I could have is soups. The people of this community are fun loving and diverse and we took quite a liking to this community. It is defiantly a place to celebrate and enjoy life and frames the new beginning that I was about to undertake.
Sunday the diet got worse. It started with a breakfast of vegetable broth and a lunch of chicken broth followed by the administration of a disgusting substance known as Magnesium Citrate which was designed to clean my bowels out with repeated trips to the toilet and the early morning hours of Monday were topped off with the last purge induced by an enema. I knew these were sacrifices that would have to be made to get where I wanted to be in my journey. On the early dawn hours of Monday morning we left the hotel and traveled the three miles to the site of Lower Bucks Hospital where my surgeon Dr. Christine McGinn awaited my arrival, I checked in fairly easy and after undergoing some blood work it was off to a place they called “Short Surgery”. This area is not named for the length of the surgery or anything else but the area where preparation and meetings with doctors would take place and was only steps from final preparation. DR. McGinn marked my body with outlines of where she wanted the breasts to lie after surgery and the incisions to be made. The surgery would be about 5-6 hours since I was doing both the GCS as well as the breast augmentation. I met with the nurse and lab tech and more blood was drawn and finally the meetings with the physicians including the house physician as well as Dr. McGinn and her assistant.
Paula got to stay with me here but soon we had to separate and we departed with our usual embrace and kiss and message of love and support and I was laying on a bed in final preparation. I did the opportunity at this point to take one last glance on the defective parts that had defined me for so many years and caused me so many problems over the years and which were the source of my conflict and struggle. Most of them would survive but in the reformed way – the way they should have been from the start to avoid all these problems. The ones that have caused me the most problems would however be gone and marked for destruction in and incineration in a medical waste bag! Good riddance! I was still conscious as the aestheticians asked me final questions and my IV was started and final arrangements made for surgical procedures to be performed. I remember being wheeled to the OR where they started strapping me down to the table all spread apart and I looked at the clock and saw it was about a few minutes after 8 AM. It would be the last thing I remember. Lights out ….time warp……..and what seemed like a few minutes later but was actually 6-7 hours later I again her nurses call my name from above me …”Melissa” …..I am groggy and sluggish but I am awake and saw the staff and nurses and my doctor. I immediately felt deep severe pain all over my body with some pockets of numbness. Dr. McGinn had gone down the hall earlier after the surgery to inform my loving partner Paula that I was fine and that it had gone well. Soon I would be moved to 4E on the building to begin my life of living in Room 469 for the week.
Paula came in minutes after I got there and she had bought me a little gift…...it was a cute, little cabbage patch doll that said “It’s a girl” on it and I held the adorable little doll and thanked Paula for the doll. In my mind I remembered my father denying me a request for a GI Joe Doll when I was a child on the grounds that “ boys don’t play with dolls”…….I liked my doll and named her Marie after my middle name and she stayed with me all week in my bed. Morphine is a great thing when it arrives self-dispensed and I was in great excessive pain – maybe the worst pain I had ever felt and that night the upper body bothered me far worse than below the belt as they say. I could not even move my arms. I calculated that the morphine came out ( it made a beep when it did ) every six minutes so I watched the clock…and squeezed it at 6:00 PM then 6:06 ….then 6:12, 6:18 and so on. Due to the severity of the pain the nurse called my doctor and I was administered supplemental morphine on the hour…MORE PLEASE…..I simply could not get enough….No food was allowed but I could have fluids so I drank water and fruit juice and Paula fed me ice chips and put balm on my parched lips caused by all the anesthesia. She also slept the night in my room on the chair and held my hand some throughout the night that is when it was not squeezing the morphine dispenser. I thought to myself …do I feel any different? Well I felt a sense of peace over what had transpired on the day of my rebirth but the full effects of the same would be forthcoming in the days ahead!
I remember also I was allowed a sleeping pill which I ingested and drifted in and out of consciousness throughout the night. Morning came and I was allowed juice and cream of wheat and I pumped in more morphine. By noon that day they finally pulled the drip and IV and I began a regime of Vycadon ingestion every four hours. By the time Christine came in that afternoon, I could barely keep my head up from all the drugs….I was floating so high it felt better than anything I had ever done in college. I barely recall eating my first decent meal in four days on Tuesday evening and sleep was so disrupted I woke up at 3AM and remained awake until the nurse came in at around 6 AM. I decided on Wednesday morning that I needed to stop hitting the drugs so hard and begin weaning myself off the pain meds. I reached that goal in days when I took my last pain pill on Friday night before going to bed. Other girls who had surgery that week were still pumping the pain pills well until the next week. The drugs were disrupting my sleep and I needed to get back to some sense of regular pattern again and get all this stuff out of my system. Beginning Wednesday and even over the objections of the nurses I began slowing down on the pain pills .Wednesday also meant removal of the tape and temporary sutures designed for two days which prevented me from moving my legs since I came out of surgery Monday. Unfortunately the heat and moisture caused by laying on one’s touché caused my skin to tear off when the tape was removed leaving bed sores which began bleeding even though the weekend. Unbelievably some people in the world out there actually think we “choose” to be transgendered. After all we go through emotionally and physically to correct the birth defects that plagued us all our lives I now must say these people are clearly incapable of intelligent thoughts in my opinion. Yes I did just call you a moron if you even believe this in the slightest.
Wednesday morning I actually put in my contacts laying face up and did my makeup by a small mirror held lovingly by Paula. I was a bit more awake and ate better and even got to stand up for the first time which took every ounce of strength and energy just to get on my feet and stay there for a minute of two with assistance before I collapsed back into my bed exhausted. That afternoon I was visited by my dear friend Alice who just four weeks earlier had been undergoing her rebirth at the same hospital. She brought a friend with her named Jackie and we chatted for hours. Paula had been angel to me all week and in every way possible. She also took it upon herself to visit the other girls that week as Dr. McGinn had one new arrival to our wing each day through Thursday. I was so proud of her and her heart is so big and so full of love. On Thursday I took my first steps in the morning and again a longer run in the evening actually visiting each of the other girls I shared my rebirth week with and chatted briefly. Friday I grew stronger and walked twice more again visiting with the others and hugging them and walking without assistance and making laps around the halls as the nurses encouraged me on.
The nurses at Lower Bucks Hospital were incredible and I received some of the best care I had ever received anywhere anytime by these beautiful angels. Each one before they left their last shift before I was to be discharged came in and took my hand and said they wished me well. It touched me deeply that these people actually cared more for me than my own family members who had tossed me away into nonexistence. I intend to write a letter to the facility telling that what a great job their nurses did during my stay and how caring these ladies were in their work and attention to the level of care! Friday night meant I was cleared by my physician to be released. I remember Paula helping me dress and get makeup on and I popped up and walked behind the wheelchair with a nurse by my side as I proudly existed the building and Paula had the car waiting there all cooled down and helped me get in the vehicle. We were driving about ten miles away to a town called Bensalem where we stay another week in a hotel only a few minutes from Dr. McGinn’s office. My follow up care and exams would take place there. Living for a week there reminded me of the base camp Paula and I established following my facial surgery in January. A whole new set of challenges, awakenings, experiences and friendships awaited me upon our transfer………………………………….

Hope, Thanks and Final Thoughts

Wow…is it really going to happen? This is the question I have asked myself a few times this week as I tick off the hours till my scheduled gender confirmation surgery next Monday. I keep thinking they might call and cancel it or something strange will happen – not that I want anything to happen or for them to call it off but sometimes it all just seems so surreal. It sort of dawned on me that this would be the last blog written by me as a pre-op TS woman but I will have much more to say on the “other side” as they say. The day of a transgendered person’s GCS is a very special day in the life of a transgendered person…the day of new birth…the day I am born again- this time with the right body parts. It is the physical completion of my transition to live life in my true gender as a woman.
After Monday, no longer will my physical gender be in conflict with my inner gender, my soul and essence as a woman. Does it scare me? Not really ……I have confidence in both my decision to undergo the surgeries because I am and always have been -a woman. I have undergone complex surgery before with the facial surgery a few months ago (to which I owe much thanks and appreciation to Dr. Jeffrey Spiegel in Boston MA for his care and exceptional work and vision) and finally I have all the faith in the world in the skills, hands, talent, caring passion and dedication of my surgeon- Dr. Christine McGinn. I feel I will be pretty calm and comfortable as I lie on the gurney as they wheel me to the OR to begin the work of creating what should have always been there on my body as a woman.
The surgery will not make me woman….I already am one and have been all my life- but my life was screwed up because I was indoctrinated as a male due to my physical characteristics when I was born and not the characteristics of the woman I was spiritually on the inside. I have been working to undo much of the “bad “training and learn the things I should have known all my life but was not told. It’s like I have to join the female gender parade after it has already marched twenty blocks and I am suppose to know what was in those twenty blocks and what was seen and learned in those twenty blocks will be needed to march the next twenty. I know I have much to learn still about living life as woman and my journey will continue long after the surgeries in a few days. Heck I have to learn a few physical things too. To be quite honest…..my anatomy will be vastly different come next Monday and I will have to take the time to learn about it! In all honesty it’s something I should have learned when I went through puberty but for the incorrect physical parts. I am excited and I am very much at peace with what is to come- just as I have been in living my life as my true essence and gender since last summer. Although I have much to learn about the new anatomy as well as the intellectual aspects of living life as Melissa, I fully embrace the journey and the growth as a person and a woman.
Well before the actual surgery takes place Monday I will have an “interesting weekend” in preparation for the procedures. I know those who have already gone through the process or read about it can skip this part but for those of you not familiar with what happens ……here it is. First of all this week I had to buy all my supplies I will need for the process and many of them make sense. I need new vitamins to deal with my new anatomy including calcium because apparently I will now have the same risk of developing osteoporosis as any other woman. I will also admit that first time in my life I had to visit and purchase from the feminine protection aisle. Genetic woman have visited this aisle so many times since their youth they would be rich if they got a dollar every time they had to do so. I would have gladly done this even with all the discomfort or PMS it brings because I would have loved to have been able to carry a tiny life inside my body and bring that little child into the world. It is a part of femininity I will never get to experience. I also had to purchase supplies needed for the regimen of dilation that I will be under for most of the next six months following the surgery.
Two days prior to the surgery I will commence a “liquid” diet. Sounds like a delicious menu of protein shakes and soups and drinks which by the way cannot contain alcohol. On Sunday it gets even better as I switch over to a “clear liquid” diet which means for two meals I can have water, clear broths, certain juices and clear sodas and popsicles. Whoa…Nelly! This sounds so incredibly delicious I am surprised this diet has not hit the markets! Then we have the crème de crème of the day at 4:00 PM with the administration of the ever popular “Magnesium Citrate Bowel Prep” (yummy), followed by another delicious dose of the stuff at 8:00 PM and oh about 6- 7 hours of making increasingly hurried trips to the bathroom. I still remember the scene in Donna Rose’s book “Wrapped in Blue” where she is reminiscing about her life as she crawls back from the bathroom from the repeated visits to the bathroom during this process and crawls into a ball on the bed from the cramps. Assuming I can somehow fall asleep after this delightful process I will have to be up and at it early on Monday with the administration of a delightful early morning enema- an awesome way to start a day if I must say! After I clean up and get dressed it’s off to the hospital for check in which means sitting in a giant room of people as I am in absolute starvation and filling out paperwork. When the bureaucracy has decided it has enough paperwork completed I will get to go up to the preparation room. There, of course, you get to strip and get into those delightfully stylish hospital gowns. I am so surprised New York and Co hasn’t created a line of clothes based on these gowns for sure. It will, I guess, give me one final glance at the soon to be departed, expanded or reconfigured parts…… Soon thereafter the nurses will start my final preparation and the attachment of my IV which will serve as my food and pain killer for the next few days. But with that comes the best treat of all …..the administration of anesthesia which will soon have me out cold to the world. This is the cool part -as it is truly like a time warp. One minute you are looking at the clock and its 7:30 AM and the next minute- which literally seems no more than one minute of complete darkness and you are awake and the clock says 2:00 PM. I know Paula will be pacing the floors and worrying and some of you may even ponder during that time period and it will seem like hours for Paula and others-but for me- it will seem like only a few minutes have lapsed.
Suddenly, I will awake from the procedures with my vagina and enhanced breasts. I am sure I will be sore and it will take much healing and recovery will be slow and cautious. However, I will probably ask the stupid question almost everyone who does the process asks … “Did it really happen?” When they confirm its successful completion I know I will be smiling and soon I will be feeling the warm and tender touch of Paula’s hand on my hand. Finally, I will no longer have a body that does not fit my soul and spirit and I will know that my rebirth has begun and I will be at peace! I must use that peace and rebirth as a means to live even a better life even more filled with love and understanding. Jenny Boylan who wrote the book “She’s Not There” also subtitled this book “A life in Two Genders”. I know that I will be one of the few that people that will have such opportunity….first to live life as the person I was defined as by my anatomy at birth and then to live life as the person I always was on the inside emotionally and spiritually but with the corrected anatomy to go with it. I have stated many times that I know not why I am transgendered and while I would not wish this on my worst enemy, I have embraced it as a gift I received. God did not make a mistake….God made me transgendered and knew I would find my path in my journey and use this gift as a means to increase understanding, compassion and dignity among people.
While my journey, as I mentioned, will continue long after the procedure is finished and I have been released to return home, I have many people I need to thank for helping me reach this point- whether some knew it or not. And so- here are my thoughts and thanks to many who have so profoundly helped me along in my journey I have written about in the past few weeks
To my Parents ……..Mom and Dad I miss you both dearly and wish you could have met the real me before you both died and seen how my life turned out but maybe you saw through my shell all along. Your guidance and love helped me find my path in life and you sacrificed so much to give me a better life. Mom you always wanted a girl and I guess you really did get one but never knew it because she was hidden in the shell. I hope you like your daughter Melissa. Dad, I know you might have been embarrassed by all this at first but you taught me important values about community and helping others and I think you would have proud of Melissa in time as I have carried forward this thinking.
To My Brother Richard……Your life was cut short and just at a time when we were beginning to reconnect after years of distance caused by our vast age differences and the dealings with our parents’ demise before our eyes. Unfortunately you died only days before I was tell you on your visit in for the holidays about my life as a transgendered person and about Melissa. I knew you would have accepted me and loved me as your sister.
To Karen….my former wife of twenty-four years. I owe you the biggest apology of all for hurting you in all this and causing you so much pain. I hope someday you can find it in your heart to forgive me for all the pain I caused you. I am truly sorry and wish it could have happened differently. I admire your passions for life and the gift you have with children and for the love and support you provided me and your patience with me. With each other we created two beautiful children as well! Thank you also for confronting me when you did and for reminding of all that I needed to work on to be a better person. I hope someday you find peace and happiness and hope someday you can call me Melissa.
To my children ……..I miss you both so much I cry nearly every day thinking of you. I am very proud of all you have accomplished and I know you have so much to offer this world and hope someday you will let me back into your lives again to see and share with you your love, your passion, your successes and the fulfillment of your dreams. I know that you both have been hurt by all this and I also hope you someday can forgive and that we can be part of each other’s lives again. I have much more love to offer you! Thank you for all the beautiful memories you gave me. I will always cherish them even if we have no others together. I love you both so much!
To my old friends including those you no longer speak to me or who have tossed me out of your life. I miss our friendship but I guess it was not as strong as I thought it was. I will always remember the good times we shared. To the couple of friends who have hung on through this thanks for staying with me and remaining my friend as I know it has been difficult on you to try and understand and to accept when others failed to do so.
To my niece and nephew and sister-in-law who have been kind to me and supported me during this process all I can say is thank you so much and thanks for opening the door for hospitality over the holidays last fall. It warmed my heart. I wish you much happiness in your lives.
To my new friends such as Lana, Shane, Karen, Richelle, Alice Laura, Cindy, Diane, Marilyn, Laura, Cheryl, Carol, Skylar and Angie and so many others who have enriched my life including many who never have known me but as Melissa……. thanks for accepting me and being my friend. I love you all dearly for your kindness and warmth you have extended to me! I have met so many in our community and the LGBT community at large who I have shared so much with including our stories, advice and guidance and all of this helped me so much in my journey and helped me grow. I have learned something from almost everyone I have ever met in my journey. I hope I have enriched the understanding of those outside the transgendered community as I have freely answered all the questions you have asked about my life and journey with the hope that it will help you grow and understand more.
To the loving and accepting people of North Church such as Jo Ann, Di, Pam, Eric, David and Becky, Maree and Anne, David and Roy, Linda , Ellen, Louise, Lisa and Laurie, Deb, Ken, Catherine and so many countless others…………….. all I can say is this …...I wish the world operated like North Church. I have never seen such a loving, warm and accepting place anywhere. The hugs and greetings each week have touched me deeply and the opening of your doors to our community warmly has brought such joy to my heart! I am glad to have a place to call my home and my extended family! Your prayers and support for me in my journey have strengthened me so deeply.
To my dear friend and sister Joann Carter……..we have spent so much time together over the years and like you said one time last fall on our cruise we pretty much have shared everything through our thoughts and lives throughout our wonderful friendship. I know your soul girl and I hope someday you can also find that courage to break through your shell. Your thoughts and prayers for me have always warmed and touched my heart my dear friend.
To my good friends and sisters Chloe and Debbie……. I have know you both for quite a while but that trip we spent together in Virginia was a significant part of my journey to complete my unraveling. The long talks by the fireplace over glasses of wine and while we drove around sightseeing in which I learned so much from and about you both as you were approaching what I am about to do next week was a turning point in my journey as Melissa. Thank you both for your kindness and friendship and all the wonderful times we have had over the years!
To my therapist and friend Meral Crane……..I found you when I was lost in the depths of depression over the deaths of my loved ones and trying to sort out all the issues of my gender and you responded with much understanding and compassion. I have enjoyed the group meetings you have lead as well and they brought me in contact with so many others like me and I have grown as a result of your work and my interaction with my sisters and brothers and you have helped bring me to this point in my journey for my surgery.
To my surgeon Dr. Christine McGinn ……..I chose you after months and months of research and investigation to find the physician I would be comfortable having performing the surgeries of my GCS and BA. It came down to a choice of two surgeons among the twelve or so I started with initially on my list. In the end, I chose you for your skills, your passion and your understanding which comes from the fact you have been down this path yourself and know what I seek. I enjoyed our discussions and feel comfortable with you to perform the challenging work on one of the biggest days in my life! Your follow up care is unmatched and I promise I will listen to you and all your instructions afterward.
To my love, my best friend, my partner and my soul mate Paula…………I don’t know where I would ever be without you coming into my life when you did. It was fate we met that night and destiny that we became best friends and then soul mates and life partners. I am so happy to live each day with you and your warmth and passion and love for me and your acceptance of me for who I am and have always been brought me to this point of my journey. You steady me when I falter. You comfort me when I am sad. Waking up each day with you by my side is so wonderful. I will grow old with you girl and I will soon help guide you through your surgery and recovery in only weeks as you will be helping me through mine next week. Together we will accomplish much in our lives that we failed on in our former lives and together we shall face the challenges that await us in our journey. I love you girl and I know with you at my side next week I will be alright.
Well I probably missed someone here but it definitely was not intention by any means. It is time for my closing thoughts. I know there are many outside my community who do not understand all there is about being transgendered and transitioning one’s life to live in the correct gender but that is OK. Heck- I don’t always understand all of it myself. I know this is my journey and after next week my body will reflect my soul and essence of who I always have been – even when I lived trapped in a tightly wound shell. My day of rebirth is almost here and I go peacefully and calmly and with the knowledge that this is part of my journey in life. As I have said repeatedly it will not make me a woman –that I always have been- but denied and hid for far too long. Now it is time for me to get ready to undertake the next step in my journey that will continue for me I believe until I am laid to rest someday…..it is nearing time for me to close my eyes and drift off into a deep sleep and awake knowing that this time the doctors will look down upon me and say “it’s a girl”.
One of my favorite if not my absolute favorite movies of all time is Shawshank Redemption”. I own the film and have seen it at least twenty times. It is a story of an innocent person trapped and confined in a place he did not belong and who ultimately finds redemption on the other side and is cleansed in a river of rain. I have always associated with this character and the redemption he finds on the other side of his walls. In it there are several classic lines but one of them is a saying “ get busy living or get busy dying” It is time for me to get busy living again but this time in the right gender- being who I truly am and finding my redemption. The main character has many faults but one of them is not the crimes he is charged with doing and I too have many faults but I am not guilty of anything in this matter other than being who I truly am as a human being- Melissa. Just before the main character escapes he tells his friend… “Hope is a good thing”. Hope is a good thing indeed! I hoped someday I could find my redemption and my cleansing, and for me – what will happen next week will be a start on that process. I never gave up hope although a few years ago I did not think this would be even possible. Thanks to all those you hold me in their prayers and thoughts as I go through these procedures and during my recovery- for I love you all!….I will see you all on the “other side” ………Hugs, Melissa
I hope you enjoy the slideshow of my journey and my friends and family who led me to the path of my hope and redemption……..

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Breaking Through the Shell

After a brief but very important interruption last week to discuss the important aspects of the Hate Crimes Bill and ENDA and our trip to DC to lobby for changes and dignity at the federal level I resume my story of my life and journey as I sail closer and closer to my date of my gender conformation surgery in about eleven days. In this week’s blog I now get to discuss a more palatable time period in my life than my early years of discovery, guilt and isolation and my middle years of denial and repression and the encasement of my true self in a shell of my own creation and design. When I left off I made references to the rising forces that would collide and bring me to the point of my journey today. These forces were powerful and they pushed me along in my journey sometimes with great force and calling. These forces included my continued partial living of life as Melissa, the abrupt end to my career with the law firm, the death of several family members and my contact with several important friends in our community.
As this decade progressed I spent more and more time away from the house and on the road which gave me more and more opportunities to live life and experience the world as Melissa- my true essence. Each time I pushed it further and further. Dinners become lunches, afternoons were spent at museums and site seeing and shopping and I also began to present myself as my true essence for longer and longer periods of time. In 2005 I decided I wanted to go to a weeklong conference for transgendered people where I can live as Melissa for a whole week and meet more people like me. Spending a week as Melissa seemed like a dream I never wanted to end! I spent every day and night as Melissa and met so many wonderful people. The day I was to return home I dropped into a deep sadness and depression that seemed to tear me apart……I knew I was miserable going back to my world of lies and deceptions. It got so bad I stopped my car a few blocks from my house and buried my head into my heads and sobbed miserably. For that point on this routine became very common. Each time I spent time as my true self and met others like me and interacted with the world as Melissa I felt so high and so happy and each time I went home and pretended I was someone I was not, I got depressed and racked with sadness. It was truly a miserable cycle that I felt was tearing me up.
In the middle of this decade I also made another dramatic life choice. After twenty years of practicing law defending corporate America in a prestigious law firm and selling my soul to the devil to live this life I walked away from it all. I was burnout and barely could look at myself in the mirror in the morning and I drug myself into to work but looked for excuses to get away from it whenever I could. I had a particularly difficult client who yelled and screamed about everything on a daily basis and he took years off my life with his stress. He chewed up lawyers like they going out of style and had gone through about five lawyers in a span of two years. No lawyer had lasted longer than about two to three years as his client. I lasted over ten! By the time I was spend my week as my true self I had experienced enough and was suffering from severe burnout that resulted in my leaving the firm and starting business as a meeting planner. I had done this work on the side for almost ten years. I was good at it and I enjoyed it immensely. With some additional training in the field I embarked upon this new career. The work involved far more travel than I had done but that only served as more opportunities to get out and enjoy life as Melissa! I attended more conferences and I began planning events and conferences for people like me and soon was spending ten to twelve days living and even some work projects and errands as Melissa. Each period of time brought me into contact with so many more people in the transgendered community. Each experience in doing so brought about deeper depression upon my return but it also opened me up more to the possibility that I could someday live fulltime in as my true self. However, family crises developed around this same too which left me in some of my darkest periods of my life and deeply soul searching.
I was born late in my parent’s life as my mother had been told that a miscarriage she had experienced years before I was born had left her unable to have any more children so I guess birth control became a bit relaxed my parents household. Unfortunately my older brother was 14 years older than me and was pretty much out of my life by the time I had figured out I was different inside. My parents, by virtue of their age when I was born had grown old and they began to experience severe health problems. My mother’s was the worst and maybe one of the most dreaded disease in society…one that eroded her dignity, fractured her mind and left her in a dire situation….Alzheimer’s Disease! She had been “covered for” by my father who health was deteriorating physically but he protected her nevertheless. She was so paralyzed by the disease that she would sometimes forget to help my father get to bed or make him food as he slowly lost the ability to walk stand or care for himself at the same time. They fought bitterly any attempt by me or my brother who was significantly further away to move into a nursing home and the situation deteriorated rapidly. Finally late in the fall of 2005, my parents were forced to move into a nursing home – a move my mother was resentful of me for making happen.
New situations do not bode well for Alzheimer’s patients. In February of 2006, my passed away one night in her sleep – something I had heard her silently pray for over the last several years. It would be the first of three funerals and three eulogies written by me in a span of fifteen short months. In December of 2006, my brother Richard was killed in a freak accident. What followed was one of my most sickening moments in my long tormented life ……I had to visit my father in his wheel chair at the nursing home, months after he had lost his wife of sixty plus years and tell him face to painful face that his son had been killed. I felt like I had reached into this tired old man’s heart and ripped out pieces from it and we cried in each other’s arms. The physical demise of my father from disease and torment and pain as well as his advanced age led to his own demise in May of 2007. I hugged him for the last time only hours before he died and told him I loved him dearly. I wrote his eulogy but was so emotionally drained I could not read it and it was read by his minister. My father was in the military and as such he was entitled to 21 gun salute and a burial flag at his gravesite. Each blast resounded in my ear and when it was over, the flag, which have gone to his wife or his oldest son except for the fact they were already gone from this earth was gently folded and handed to me as the only survivor. I fell down to ground and sobbed uncontrollably. Three I had loved and who were my family were all gone and none of them ever knew me for who I truly was – only who I pretended to be. I said to myself that life is too short and I cannot go on living this ugly lie any longer and letting people think ZI was someone I was not. When I die, I asked myself how I wanted to be remembered and memorialized ….…as someone I was not but pretended to be or someone who I truly was as a person and one I was happy living as in this life. The answer was clear…….the charade had to end. I go not go on living in the shell any more.
The very week of my father’s death was another significant event in my life and journey. It was the night I met my now partner and soul mate Paula. Several support and social groups during the middle of this decade began hosting GNO events for people to gather and socialize. One of these events took place the day after I planned my father’s funeral and wrote his eulogy and I needed to be with friends who understood who I was as well as my pain so I decided to go to the event in early May of 2007. On that very night Paula introduced herself to me over a cocktail and we sat and talked at table for about an hour and talked about everything from family and work to our lives as transgendered people. Later that night we both went out on the deck of the club and talked again for another hour or so and I found talking with her to be so easy and delightful. We had much in common and I liked her a lot and was hoping we could become friends. Paula will tell you she fell in love with me that night but she never let on to me about that fact for nearly a year. We talked a lot on the phone as well as online during that year and as those of you know from my previous blogs last year at some point last spring I fell in love with her and we consummated our relationship on a date on the last weekend in March of 2008. What had started as a wonderful friendship blossomed into a beautiful one filled with love and I found a soul mate. Paula’s love for me and our deep friendship helped me so much in my transition and in bringing me to where I am in my life. Her heart is filled with passion and love which she shares for people as well as me. I do not know where my life would be now if I had not met her that night!
Three other people had significant impact on my journey as my close friends including Joann, Chloe and Debbie. Their friendship and their sharing of feelings and thoughts as well as support helped me evolve from my shell and emerge fully as Melissa and they provided so much support and guidance for me as I transitioned to live my life as my true self. I roomed with Joann at so many of the conferences and events we attended and we spent many hours talking about our lives. The week I spent with Chloe and Debbie as they were weeks and months from the surgeries was so insightful to me. My interaction with many new friends and others like me over the years, all aided in the emergence of my true essence. I learned so much from interacting and talking with others. I would not be here today if not for the time I spent with others like me and supporters of our community. Shortly after these events I attended the Be-all Conference in Chicago where I had the opportunities to attend workshops on some things I would need in order to fulfill my gravesite revelation such as counseling, electrolysis and laser as well as hormones. One day during the event I was having lunch with several other transwomen, most of whom were already post op or at least fulltime. I asked them when you know it is time to come out and live fulltime as your true self and one of the girls chimed in saying … “Melissa you will know it is your time to do when you can answer this question……………..Are you willing to risk it all to live your life as Melissa – risk your friends?, your family?, your career?” I knew I would have to find the courage to do this and that the causalities of such action may be many or all of those things!
I did not know where to find a counselor I could work with you supported and understood transgendered people, however Paula again helped with this by talking with her therapist and finding some recommendations for me. The closest one to me was Meral Crane in Columbus, a three hour commute from Huntington, WV I enjoyed working with Meral and she has helped me tremendously over the last couple years. My work with her led to going to the support group meetings where I met so many sisters and brothers in my community who have become my friends. By the early fall of 2007, I was ready to come out and go fulltime as my true self -but for one more and final time I placed my family ahead of my needs. My son was in his senior year of high school and my daughter was in her senior year of college and all this would wrap up by late spring so I decided to begin transition under the cloak of stealth all while working with my therapist while they finished up school. Being in West Virginia I also did not want all of this to backlash on my son in his senior year of high school and baseball. The problem was I had grown apart from my wife as more and more Melissa evolved and all the time I spent away from her with friends, therapists, work and conferences. I found out after the separation that she had felt the same way and was holding on until the kids got through their final year. We were adrift and really just going through the motions the last year of our marriage of twenty- four years. She knew some things about Melissa and she discovered more and pretended not to notice the changes- continuing her don’t ask don’t tell policy we had begun so long ago. Sometimes saying nothing is the easy way out.
By the end of 2006, I had already removed all my body hair from my body and began working on taking better care of my skin. In January of 2008, I began a lengthy process of electrolysis. There is nothing like lying still for three hours at a time while someone pokes hot needles into your face to destroy hair cells in your face and neck. The work over the lip area would make water boarding torture feel like child’s play! Also during this time I began the administration of hormones which meant I had to come out to my PCP so she could take care of this for me. I did not expect much to happen for some time and I thought I was safe for a while. I was very wrong. By March I had begun the development of breasts I had always wanted and my skin grew remarkably softer. These changes would have to be hidden for a bit more time so baggy clothes came more standard wear for me to conceal the changes. I also had begun growing out my nails which invoked several comments by my children. My wife pretended like she did not notice them or my painted toe nails as well- but she did.
When all the family stuff wrapped up in early June of 2008, my wife and I reached our conclusion of the so called game we were playing and just about the time I had completed writing her a detailed letter and ready to present it to her with a copy of “True Selves” and discuss all this with her she confronted me and we talked one afternoon for three hours while the kids were out of the house. I remember the weekend well for it was the one in which my friend Barbara committed suicide from the guilt her wife inflicted upon her for being transgendered and losing her children she loved so dearly for transitioning through impending divorce. (Barbara’s wife had convinced the court that it would be dangerous for their kids to see or visit with Barbara without supervision.) I spilled out everything and we actually talked longer that day than we had done in years but the marriage was over and we had known that for quite some time. Shortly thereafter and after one more good discussion we separated our ways, divorced and I moved to Circleville Ohio to begin living fulltime and continue my transition. Circleville would be an intermediate stop for me and I appreciate Jenny for opening her house to me as I gathered my pieces. Paula joined me later that fall and we have been together ever since. The divorce was somewhat “more difficult” than it needed to be but her main issues had more to do with me living life as Melissa and changing my name which occurred in September of 2008 than it did with anything else. I was so happy that day finally having government entities recognizing my true identity and the new driver’s license- which for the first time in my life reflected who I was and always had been in life- Melissa was so incredibly wonderful! Even today my ex –wife will not address me by real and legal name of Melissa – my true self and I was given a choice of either being addressed with no name at all or the one that was given to me at birth which never fit who I truly was in life. Obviously I chose having no name in our infrequent communications. The loss of my marriage had been pretty much a given as I knew my wife was not a lesbian and too much distance had grown between us as I emerged from the long confining shell. She is a beautiful and talented woman with a passion for working with little children and I truly hope she finds peace and joy in her life.
While the loss of marriage was expected -my emergence was beginning and the causalities of such unraveling would grow as well. I found out what the message delivered to me in Chicago the year before by another sister really involved in the process of coming out to all The next people after my wife to be told were my now adult children. My son took it the hardest. He would not even come out of his room for ten days and to date he speaks to no one about his father even his mother. I have not spoken with him by form of communication humanly possible since last summer. In fact, the day he left for college was one of the saddest days of my life because I watched out the window as he got in his car I had bought him only months before and drove away without ever saying a word to me- not even goodbye -despite the pleading of his sister and mother to do so. As he drove away from my life that day I dropped to the floor and cried for hours…… My daughter found out about Melissa apparently years before I told her and despite her open-mindedness and diversity and personal beliefs, as well as the fact she majored in psychology and took gender psychology in college, she was upset I had not come clean years ago. Great I thought I was protecting them and all I was doing was making her madder because she felt I should have come clean earlier. I simply could not win. She does not speak with me either. Gifts and cards for their birthdays and holidays go unacknowledged and despite my letters to my children and the fact I miss them so much and so dearly, I remain separated from them in all ways. My heart has pieces missing from it that can only be filled by their return to my life and I sometimes wonder if the holes will ever be filled. However, I love them dearly and I remain hopeful I may someday hold them in my arms and hug them again.
The more people I came out to, the more people I lost. Friends and many others in my family disappeared and drifted away, old colleagues and coworkers made jokes and disparaging remarks about me and companies I did work for in my new business discriminated against me because I had transitioned and was now living my life as my true self. The Truth may set you free but it does one hell of a number on the relationships that had been built for sure. Only a handful of relatives and a couple old friends still communicate with me. Even my professional organization has treated me differently because of my transition and have forced me off the Board of Directors I feel because e of their uncomfortable with me. I now knew what it meant to risk losing it all to be free to live as who you are as a human being. The pain and sadness and disappointment over all these losses are indescribable. I have somehow found the courage and strength to pull myself through all of this and my life with Paula is wonderful. She is a beautiful loving woman of her own strength and courage and in her I have found a soul mate and partner for life.
I have moved on from Circleville to Columbus and I have made many new wonderful friends here since I began living fulltime including many people outside our community. I have found a loving accepting church filled with caring and loving people and this has brought me great joy and many new friends. These people are incredible and I wish the world could operate like North Church does that is for sure!!! I feel so loved there and the hugs I receive each week warm my heart dearly .I have continued my physical transition with more electrolysis and laser and extensive and painful facial surgery this past January. Each step along the way has brought my body more in line with my true self and being. This will only continue as now head into the final stages of my physical transition with my GCS and breast augmentation shortly.
I am free to live life as my true self Melissa and I have grown more and more at peace with myself as I have continued my journey. Even after my impending surgeries this month I still have much way to go in my journey as a woman but somehow I will find my way and enjoy my life and my friends being who I am and have always have been in life. The shell has been destroyed and lies as rubble at my feet. Weight has been lifted from my shoulders and through all this process and despite the physical and emotional traumas I have experienced and loss of finances from surgeries and my transition, I am no longer living a lie and no longer hiding my true self in some shell. More importantly, I stopped lying to myself and pretending. I have emerged a better person and one I am now happy to let the world see and know- Melissa Marie Alexander. And so …..the journey of my life as Melissa continues as it should be …….Next week I will take a look at some of my final thoughts as I head into the weekend before my surgery and thank some people for their impact on my life, transition and journey……

There comes a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom...Anais Nin

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