Name Limbo, Family Distance, Purple Cows and Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate Chip Cookies, purple cows, the absence of family contact and being in name limbo occupy my time this week as I continue to move forward in my life living it fulltime as Melissa. I received my first and only e-mail from my wife since our separation and all without a call or e-mail from either of my children. I have not spoken to my son in six weeks and I will tell you ladies- that hurts very deeply. I love my children but I know I must give them some space and time and hope that someday they will want to speak to me, see me and even spend some time with me as their parent who loves them so very much! The letter from the wife was most interesting in that it was mostly filled with poignant barbs and facts about the expenses and car titles and lawyers and absolutely nothing about how she is coping, what our children are doing in their life. There were also some interesting points about this e-mail.

First it was sent to my business e-mil account and not my personal e-mail account. Want to know why? Because my personal e-mail account has the name Melissa in it and my business one does not. Why is this important to my wife? Because she cannot say the word “Melissa” despite the fact it is my name. The e-mail was not addressed to anyone – no name whatsoever. Secondly, my wife forwarded some mail to me this week as well. When I got the envelope it had no first name on it…..just blank space and then my last name. For God sake- how hard is it to call me by name- Melissa? I realized I have a long way to go to even reach the goals of at least being cordial friends with my soon to be ex-wife but the loving mother of our beautiful children. However, if my wife cannot even say my name or write it in letter or e-mail, then how are my children ever to learn of me and share any of our lives together? It is also very difficult operating without any bank accounts or any credit cards that match your identity you are presenting but I hope this will come to an end with my impending legal name change. I cannot move forward in my life without it for sure. Sometimes I feel like I am in “name limbo” all while undergoing the distancing of myself from my core family. The bridge I must walk on this journey is a long one!

Paula has been coming down to visit for three day weekends and move some of things to our new home in Ohio. We have been out exploring some of the community in which we reside. The people have been very friendly and I have enjoyed interacting with some of the people at the post office, Wal-Mart and Kroger’s Infact, I experienced my first male flirtation the other day in the meat department of the store while shopping as this scrappy, young rugged looking man wanted to discuss the thickness of bacon for some extended period of time. I almost laughed out loud. I think the best approach to people is to be friendly and smile and wish them a wonderful day. It always seems to help if they make me as TG or think I am GG. Paula brought down some old dressers which we worked on restoring them for use.

During the move in of some of her outfits Paula started commenting on her dresses including one she stated made her look like a cow. Since it was a purple dress I began teasing her on the “purple cow”. I am sure she is exaggerating on its effects but we did spend some time discussing “purple cows” and laughing. Paula has been experiencing my culinary skills as well and she claims she will gain fifty pounds when she moves here full time in late October or November. I will too if I don’t find a way to get some exercise like I use to when I lived in WV. I enjoy cooking and baking and have made some wonderful meals for myself or Paula if she is here although Jenny has been in NM for a couple weeks and has missed out on the delectable delights. I also found Paula’s great weakness in bake goods. I made some chocolate chip cookies- from scratch of course as any good chef should do so. Paula is certified devoted “chocolate chip cookie junkie”. She ate three within one minute of me putting them on cooling rack. She continued eating them all afternoon and then ate more for dessert. If I had not hid most of them she would have ate them all. I think Paula would sell her soul to the devil or her body to the streets for a batch of chocolate chip cookies. However it was nice to see her enjoy my culinary skills! I guess if she keeps eating those cookies she may turn into that dreaded purple cow!

The week ahead will be some new ground for me as I take on my first Board meeting and professional event as Melissa and this will be a great triumph for me but I will be nervous I am sure. I am going to rely on my strategy of smiling and greeting people and wishing them a great day! Maybe I should bake them some chocolate chip cookies too!

The Windy City

The windy city with my girl Paula amongst a sea of my sisters – that is the setting which awaits me starting this week as hundreds of transgendered people invade Chicago for the 26th annual Be-all Conference. I am anxious to get there of course but there are many reasons as to why this is so. First of all, Chicago is very cool city with much to see and do and being a girl who is active and out extensively, I do not sit in the hotel when I go on these trips but I always immerse myself in the city, site seeing, museums, shopping, dining, clubbing, and any other thing I can find which interests me! Are the Cubs in town?

Secondly, I feel at home among the plethora of sisters which come to this event and others I have attended. For some of these girls, events like the Be-all, Erie Gala or even SCC provides them with their only opportunity to get out as themselves, for others they provide them with opportunities to get out a bit further and do things as themselves besides running to alternative clubs under the cloak of darkness. Paula and I are of course well past all that but these events do always make me feel I have found home sort of like Rudolph did on the Island of Misfit Toys. While I have been out all over this country and done much as I am express Melissa including work, site seeing, shopping, traveling, theatre and movies and all sorts of things, and I am quite comfortable in the public, no matter how much the public may accept me or tolerate me or even embrace me, they do not understand me like my sisters do. If 500 people come to the Be-all, then I know when I walk in the hotel at least 450 people there understand me and who we are because they are like me. They are my sisters and we have a common bond that most others in society cannot understand. I embrace that bond and I feel the welcome, warmth and understanding that stems from our sisters in the Tg community and I extend that warmth myself. I am part of that circle and I always will be even if I fully immerse myself into fulltime public living as Melissa. A sister will always get a hug from me and, as I said, I like to walk into a place where I know most of the people are like me and understand me although we are all unique people from all walks of life and on various points of the transgender spectrum.

The third reason I like going to the events like the Be-all is I get to see many girlfriends who I only get to see in person once or twice a year because they are from other parts of our vast and diverse country. It is always good to see these people, hug them and catch up on what’s going on in their lives and update them on what is going on in mine and we can all share a few laughs, a cool and tasty beverage and have some fun together. What could be better I ask you? The Be-all also gives me the opportunity to attend a few specifically targeted workshops or seminars I am interested in including one I truly love on creative writing where I have the opportunity to share my thoughts and writings with my sisters. Last year, I also attended sessions on hormones and electrolysis – both of which I am involved with since the New Year began. I plan to attend this year some personal growth sessions as well as a preliminary look at the surgeries that may be involved in my transition in the future. Growth comes from listening and sharing with others.

The fourth reason I like events like the Be-all, SCC and the Erie Gala is that I always meet new sisters and get to know them and chat and exchange thoughts and ideas together. I like meeting new people and getting acquainted with them and I so enjoy meeting new sisters. I met so many new sisters last year at these events and many I have grown close to and shared much with over the past year and I am thankful I had the opportunity to do so. I look forward to meeting many more next week and hopefully making some new friends as well. Let’s face it; can we ever really have enough friends?

The final reason I am looking forward to this year’s Be-all is my love Paula is coming to the event with me this year and we plan to meet and share a ride part of the way into Chicago. It will be the longest period of time her and I have spent together since we commenced our relationship. I have so enjoyed the times we have spent together but they have only been a day here or there or at most a weekend or two but a full week together will be a good barometer for us in our relationship and may give us a bit of the taste of what it would be like if we lived together someday. Hopefully she won’t get sick and tired of me but knowing her, I seriously doubt it. I expect we will both enjoy the experience and have so much fun sharing and meeting others and doing things together in the windy city! Like I said at the start, the windy city with a mass of my sisters in one gathering and making new friends and enjoying time together with Paula all make me feel very good about the week to come. Deep dish Chicago style pizza and chop houses here we come and lets hope the wind is not too strong as we wheel around the city as it can do a lot to mess up a girl’s hair you know ………….

****Addendum: Since I wrote this draft of the blog my love Paula got some news which affected her ability to come to this event. She said she would not go back to work the week of Be-all except for only her old company and they called her back on Friday to start the Tuesday after the holiday weekend so her plans to come and be with me and all are sisters ended. I am disappointed but also am sad because she will miss out on these wonderful things and I know she was looking so forward to coming but work and finances still are important in our society and the reality is many of our plans are disrupted from time to time. We must deal with them and go on. It is just a fact of life which with the death of one of community members recently -Mishy only proves my point that life is not always fair but it is always way too short!

Mirrors, ARF and the death of an Icon

The death of an icon can sometime be sad but the demise of ARF is something I have sought for a long time and it cannot come soon enough. Who or what is ARF? Well, that my friends takes a little bit of background except for a small handful of people who know me now. Additionally, only one member of our community has ever met this character and despite the fact she did, she continued to be friends with the person who portrayed this persona although sometimes I never knew why she ever did. You see folks, ARF is me- although not really me and I feel I may be confusing some at this point so I will start at the beginning…….

As many of you that have read my blogs over the years know I lived most of my life with Melissa stuck inside a shell that has held in and concealed my true essence from the world around me but my emergence over the recent years has eroded that once solid shell to a thin layer of shreds which does not hide who I am as much anymore. Several years ago, I changed careers which helped me not only save my soul but also helped my true essence emerge from the captivity of the shell. However, my current work in the hospitality industry is not how my career life began oh so many years ago. When I was in high school, I always thought about going in the hospitality field but I sensed pressure from others around me that this career would not be sufficient for the dreams of others and I eventually abandoned my pursuit of cooking and the hotel and hospitality industry opportunities and pursued a career which would be more “fitting” the ideas of others- but clearly was not one I was cut out for myself.

After college, I attended and successfully completed law school and was admitted to the bar. I joined a corporate law firm after law school and launched a very successful practice of destroying myself and others while practicing law and reaping the benefits of power, prestige and money that the field enjoys. It was not an easy thing to do and eventually I hit a wall and crashed and I began to realize I could not even get up in the morning and look myself in the mirror any more. Eventually, with some new training and experiences, I changed careers and began working in the hospitality field where I also wanted to be so long ago before I veered into the path of being a blood sucking parasite with a briefcase. (Some of you who have had the opportunity to watch Seinfeld’s the “Bee Movie” will remember the scene at end of movie with the Chris Rock mosquito character)

The was one major problem with me ever attempting to practice law for a corporate law firm is that for one to do so successfully, one must be tough, nasty and a hard as nails SOB- even if one is a woman. To be quite honest, I was never such a person and Melissa could not do this job for sure. Deep down I cared way to much about other people and I loved to create and not destroy but I could not do that and be successful as a lawyer in the dog eat dog, cut throat world of corporate law representing companies through the destruction of the workers of the companies I represented. In fact, I could not show weakness, kindness, tenderness, or emotions such as tears. I instead had to be cold and detached and a heartless bastard and work diligently to aggressively represent my corporate clients in their exploitation of the workers they employed as the company’s labor and employment counsel. This was very difficult to do if I was going to be truly honest as to who I was so my ARF persona was created and he thrived directing my lifeless shell for so many years. ARF stands for Anal Retentive Fuck and that my friends was who I played for the many years as I sold my soul to the devil to be successful at what I did by stealing from “widows and orphans” as the old joke goes.

The ARF was nasty and heartless. My friend Stephanie who was the first transgendered person to reach out to me in the 1990’s said I never smiled and had the look of someone who would not give one damn about doing what was necessary to win a case and I was so uptight it was not even funny. Bus drivers in this town used to try to run me over while I was on the streets and steel workers wanted to run a hot metal beam up my rectum because their companies were some of my clients and I had worked so successfully well to screw them all over while I paraded around as ARF in my grey three piece suits, black wing tip shoes and white button down collared shirts.

People at the firm made jokes about me as I operated as ARF as a cold heartless bastard who would take money from his mother if it meant winning a case for my corporate clients. Now the true caring person who was the real me- Melissa could not live up to being this asshole all the time and there would be times I did many good natured things such as helping the staff frequently and giving them bonuses at the holidays when the firm cut back on them- but I dared not tell anyone there I did those things because then I would show weakness that would be attacked by members of my law firm to carve me up! So the ARF persona continued and continued –day after day! After so long, I could not even look myself in the mirror anymore and I dreaded going to work. Melissa was not like this and I needed to stop pretending to be someone I was not and be who I was both as a person as well as being my true gender. ARF was destroying me and keeping Melissa so tightly wound inside I felt I was sometimes going to explode. I had a choice to make and I made it and I changed careers to doing something I love! While I make a whole lot less money, I am much happier in my work. To be honest, I should have gone this route to start but it is not time for any regrets.

Since the time I switched careers, my friend Stephanie has noticed so much change in me. Melissa, my true self began to emerge and grow, the shell began unraveling and I became calmer, happier, less stressed and more creative. ARF was dying and to be quite honest I think it is safe to say the old icon ARF is dead and no more! I feel, I care, I cry, I love and I embrace. I have my friends to thank as well for helping me emerge as Melissa and to be the caring, tender and loving and creative person I always have been but who was buried in the shell and wrapped in a persona know affectionately now by some as ARF. I kid about this character icon now and then although Stephanie has witnessed its disappearance and has remained my friend through it all …maybe she saw the real me all along ……Paula does not like me to talk about this ugly persona any more than I like for her to discuss her being an “old bitch” as she calls herself. She made an offer to me and the deal was simple …..she won’t bring up OB and I don’t mention ARF…..since neither really apply- I think it’s a good deal and I fully accept …..ARF is dead and I will shed no tears over the death of that icon …long live Melissa! May I shine as her and reflect the glow and warmth of the many true and wonderful friends and sisters I have in our community. It’s good to look in the mirror again!