One More Time...........with feeling!

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!

Growth

There are clearly many forms of growth in one’s life and in the journey of a transgendered person such as myself and I had some time this week to reflect on the different patterns of growth that has occurred in my life and in my journey. The first type of growth to be measured is physical growth. Now normally when we think of physical growth, we are talking about the changes that occur to teenagers such as hair, height, weight, and the other nuances of growth and change that is expected for such a time period in one’s life at that age. As we grow older, those changes are measured by hair loss, sagging breasts, wrinkles and weight gain over the years. However, for a transgendered person such as me, growth in the physical sense is measured by how much your body is growing or developing to more readily represent the true essence of who you are as a person. In my case, the erosion of the physical shell and the reshaping of my body to more readily reflect the presentation of Melissa. In that regard, I am experiencing much growth as my breasts are beginning to take form and shape even on my early stages of hormones. My skin is growing smoother and the hair less prevalent. My face is clearly showing its reshaping brought on by my extensive electrolysis over the last few months which has removed the shadow and made my face smoother and softer and more feminine. Additionally, the hormones have leveled me out more on an emotional level as they were designed to do.

The second type of growth one can experience is spiritual growth. This can be growth in one’s spirituality as well as one’s inner spirit. In my assessment these can overlap. I have always sought a greater understanding of God, our existence and the flow of inner and outer peace. I have tried a couple organized religions but in recent years I sought one that would be accepting of the LGBT communities as I believe one properly should but I yet to find that group yet. The one I currently belong to but now rarely attend pretends to be but in reality is a close minded as the Bible thumpers they try to distinguish themselves from in their arrangement. I think I was closer to figuring out God and the universe when I was in college and researched and wrote and extensive paper on the subject for an upper level philosophy class than I am today and I blame the organized religions for that occurrence. The other type of spiritual growth occurs from finding one’s own inner spirit and I think I am doing a much better job in experiencing that growth. Melissa has been so long repressed in that shell which has hid her from much of the world but in recent years that has substantially changed and so has my inner spirit soared as I face experiences as Melissa while emerges from the tired old shell. The freeing of my soul has made me exceedingly happy and joyful. How can this not be good? It is growth at its finest and sweetest for sure.

Growth can also occur emotionally and as I mentioned I have been aided by the fact the hormones have leveled me off more emotionally as I drive down the testosterone and increase the influx of estrogen into my body. It effects far more than the body. You began to feel more emotionally and it alters your thinking process to what seems to me to be a more feminine perspective. Men and women are wired differently and transgendered people are wired even differently. We have some emotions more commonly associated with both men and women but the hormones changes that again and we begin to think more as a woman than a man although there are no absolutes in this process. I have read several books now from transgendered people as well as having talked to many of my friends and everyone agrees that there is less anger and frustration, a calmer thinking and the deeper feelings of emotions which envelopes us as we journey along and experience HRT. I have always been one to cry but it seems I am touched even more deeply sometimes. I use to be filled with much more anger. I blame this on my heritage of a deadly combination of Scotch and German combined with the frustration of having my true essence crammed deep in a shell. As the shell erodes and the testosterone production is curtailed I am calmer and more at peace and much less likely to rise to anger. This calming effect makes it possible for more growth emotionally and spiritually and that again is a very wonderful thing.

I truly believe we must continually grow as human beings, and in my case as a transgendered woman, or we will die. Our bodies, our minds, our souls seek growth and while this true for all human beings it is exceedingly true for transgendered people whether one is on HRT or not. I know I have a great deal more growth to go and some of it will be quite painful physically but mostly emotionally. Sometime we fear emotional pain and I am know exception to this principle but it is necessary to grow and growth is what it is all about and growth is to be embraced and nurtured. I have much to go on my journey and much growth to experience but I will face it joyfully…… ….…the alternative to me is not even remotely acceptable!

“It takes great courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.” (Anonymous) (Quoted from Donna Rose’s book “Wrapped in Blue”