The Sorority

I finally have the chance to sit down and relax a bit and write my blog this week which is a bit delayed because I have spent the last eight days traveling and helping my partner Paula with her Gender Confirmation Surgery in New Hope Pa which also included a trachea shave. I spent five long days at the hospital (Lower Bucks Hospital) with her attempting to be the wonderful caregiver she was for me a couple months ago that is for sure. Care giving is a special talent and I am not as good with it as Paula is but I worked very hard at being the best I could be. Paula did not come through her procedures as well as I did due to some abdominal and dietary issues and more pain and a bit less strength on her part. However, as I write this blog she appears to be on the slow road to recovery and return to strength and in time a full healing from the dramatic undertaking she has undergone in her efforts to conform her body to her soul and essence!

Just like the week I spent at Lower Bucks Hospital Paula was accompanied by three other girls undergoing the process along with her under the skillful eye and hands of Dr. Christine McGinn. This week, in addition to Paula, was Dana a delightful lady from Maryland who works for Chase Bank, a young and pretty lawyer from the heart of the Bible belt in Keri from Raleigh- Durham NC and finally Renee, a company manager from Connecticut who was the same age as Paula. Dana was supported all week by her mother and sister who are very supportive of her and travelled from Florida to be with her and help her through this delightful but challenging endeavor! Renee had some girlfriends with her on the day of her surgery and she will have others throughout her week of recovery at the hotel. Paula of course has me and some local friends have stopped by too. Kari had her brother for 24 hours to get to the hotel from the hospital but no one for the week of her surgery and no one the week after her surgery. Her family has some issues with what she has done but she comes from a strict religious background and conservative Republican family so it is to be expected. I spent some time talking with each of them through the week and helping them where I could. Kari was alone so I tried to check on her often as was Renee after her surgery day. I got to find out about how their surgeries went and their lives and families as well as their life and journeys as transgendered individuals.

The stories we shared we not uncommon although we all have our own journey in this struggle to find peace as being who we are even if our anatomies needed adjustments to reflect that essence. Many common threads mixed in with a smattering of differences here and there and the range of ages. We all exchanged e-mails and phone numbers and I checked in with each of them each day while attending to Paula’s primary care. Dana had her mother and sister with her who have done quite well in adjusting to having another daughter and new sister. They were quite pleasant people to meet and my primary discussions were with Dana on what was to come in her progress and recovery having been down this road only a few short months ago. I also discussed this with Kari and Renee as well as they were curious as to what was to come and how I progressed after mine. Renee and I had a great discussion on how transgendered people are viewed by Native Americans since she is part Native American. We are revered in their culture and become the elders and respective spiritual leaders in the tribes. Wow- what a radical concept being viewed as something above a third class citizen! Kari and I had an interesting political discussion in as much as she is pretty conservative Republican like any good Baptist from the south and I am of course a liberal. I respected her opinions and defended mine as well as it should be but there was no animosity whatsoever. Kari has no one to get her food, supplies or take her to the doctor’s office for follow up examinations and consults. So I assumed those duties happily. She is my sister and I care about her and all of us in this community.

One of the nurses on the floor, and by the way they were all the same delightful people I had during my stay on the wing affectionately known as the “tranny wing”, asked me one day as I was coming out of Kari’s room after she looked up on her computer something for Dana as I was shuttling it between the two of them “how do you know these other girls? She knew I was there with Paula but did not know what my connection was to Kari, Renee and Dana. My connection to these girls as well as the sisters who visited Paula after supporting me during my process (Terry and Alice) and Kate and Lindsey who came over to visit with Paula is that they are my sisters! Sometimes those that are outside our community do not understand why we connect like we do even though we have no relationship to the other girl. We are connected by a common thread and bond that flows between all of us. We face many of the same challenges and rejections that flow our way from society, work and families as former identified (by outsiders) as “male” due to the wrong parts who transition to live as the women who we are – a concept that still completely blows the average male’s mind! We see another sister who is going through the same emotions, struggles, therapies, surgeries and such as part of our transitional process. Put six or seven of us together in one place and we will generally interact with the others for support and understanding and confirmation of who we are as people. We share our experiences and triumphs and tragedies and we grow from each other as people. Essentially we are one big sorority of sisters who are bound together by the dark and troubled secrets that kept our true selves wrapped tightly in a shell that never fit who we were as people. We are a sorority of support and understanding and love which helps each of us grow and each week or month I meet another girl on her journey and we connect as sisters held together by this bond. It is good to be part of this sorority and we are members of it for life.

Thanks to all our friends and our sisters who have supported Paula in her journey and in your prayers and thoughts and show of love as that is what helped her heal so much in her recovery! Hugs!

The Caregiver

This week the roles get reversed and it is time for Paula Katherine Prichard to shine! For much of this year my partner and soul mate Paula has adopted a secondary role as a caretaker of yours truly as I underwent facial reconstruction through FFS in January in Boston and breast augmentation and gender confirmation surgery in May in New Hope Pa with Dr. McGinn. Each time she helped me through some very difficult struggles and way too much time in hospitals and hotel beds in recovery. In Boston, I faced the longest night of my life as I lay in that hospital bed wrapped up so tight around my head I thought I was going to mummified all while unable to see and looking like a freight train had run through my upper body. Paula stayed the night in the room and held my hand, rubbed my feet and talked with me trying to keep me distracted from the pain and darkness. She fed me ice chips- one at a time under my tongue as my only source of fluid or food. Paula drove me back to the hotel and attended to me for a week in the hotel, helping me bathe, applying medicines to my wounds and bruises and getting supplies and food when necessary. It all made my recovery so much less difficult. She also provided for me through her unique way she has in lifting my spirits so much. Paula is a wonderful caregiver!
This past May, I laid in a hospital for five days and nights and there was Paula again providing me with great comfort and tenderness, getting me drinks, helping me eat food for the first few days when I could not move my arms or raise my head. On the day I first stood up and my legs shook and wobbled as I rested on the walker and wanting so badly to just fall back into the bed, she again helped me focus on her and ignore all the light headiness and weakness in my lower extremities. For the next two days she helped me walk as I maneuvered around the hall with a walker visiting my sisters who followed me in surgery making sure I did not fall and helping back into my bed. She helped me freshen up each day and held a mirror before me so I could put in my contacts and do my makeup in my prone position. When we got to the hotel Paula helped me walk the halls, sit down and even get on the toilet and cleaned up some messes which resulted from some early issues with the same as well as some bleeding. Again, she also bought the supplies and went after the food and assisted me in so many ways even if it was just a phone call from my hospital room to her when I could not sleep from the drugs.
Paula even helped out some of the other girls who had surgeries that very week when she discovered they were alone. She did not need to do this but her heart led her to do so and the other girls appreciated her kindness and warmth. All of this up-close exposure to us girls struggling through the process even made her question her own strengths to do this great challenge. However, she found the resolve to do and focused on her goals. In order to do her surgery, Paula had to lose forty pounds and she did so in a manner so focused and all while building her strength and endurance through exercise to help her get through it and recover easier. She did so all while being my caregiver through these past months.
Now it is her time to undergo her lifelong dream of having her body finally matching her soul and essence of who she is with her gender conformation surgery and trachea shave at the skilled hands of Dr. Christine McGinn. And now after all this care and comfort she has provided me over the last six months, it is now my turn to be the caretaker for her. I get to be the chauffer and runner for food and supplies. I get to help her stand up and take her first steps after surgery. The night after her surgery I will be the one feeding her ice chips and cool drinks and holding her hands and rubbing her feet. It is my turn to help her dine during her hospital stay and assist her in freshening up and doing her makeup from the prone position. I get to be the one walking with her as she struggles to walk simple hallways for days and help her get to the bathroom and clean up the messes. I look forward to helping her through all this and letting her moment of rebirth shine. I will be the one calling the friends and letting them know all is well with her.
For the next weeks Paula is the girl of the hour and I am the caregiver. I hope I do this role well but I have had a good deal of experience watching and learning from her as she took so very good care of me!. Paula’s heart is so big and she cares so much about people and our love for each other has grown increasingly from day to day and all through our struggles and the emotions and challenges they bring in this process. I have grown as a person through my interaction with her in our relationship and learned more about love and letting my heart show as I evolved from the years of living in the confinement of the shell that seemed to cut off so much feeling.
Next Monday I will be one pacing the floors waiting on word from her surgeon that all has gone well and that she is recovering. I will spread the good news of her rebirth and the beginning of her healing process. I will walk into her patient room that will look all so familiar to me and hold her hand and smile down at her as she did me on the day of my physical rebirth. When this occurs my responsibilities of her caregiver commence in earnest. I look forward to paying back some of all the depth of kindness and care she provided me these past months as we also still dealt with the emotional losses and devastation of our transitions in the past years as well. I will lower my hand to reach hers and hold it so gently to let her know I am here for her and ready to attend to her needs as her caregiver.
I made a slide show as a tribute to her life, our times together and her work as my caregiver and emotional support and friendships she built over the years. It’s your turn to shine now girl and fulfill all that you dreamed of and never thought even possible a few years ago- with me by your side and in your heart as your best friend, your partner in life, your love and for the next few weeks….your caregiver!
Hugs to all our friends who helped so much in our journeys and being a a wonderful part of our lives

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

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………………………………….

Chiseling Stone(head)

Have you ever watched an artist take a block of stone and with chisels and hammers he or she is able to carve out a life–like face such as a bust of some President or other famous person? Out of this piece of this stone, the talented artist is able to create something of significance and grace to be viewed by the public. As I sit here in Boston and a couple days away from the FFS procedure that will radically alter my look and make my hard stone-like face into something that is a bit more presentable of a person who now lives their life happily as a woman, I am drawn to think of this analogy. The image of the stone is most appropriate for this lady for many reasons.

When I was back in my college days, which were probably my greatest period of repression of my inner essence and soul in my entire lifetime, I joined a fraternity like many young college males of that period. Fraternities were in a great revival period then following the release of “Animal House” that summer and one nearly got sick of the constant call for Toga parties. Let’s face it, all one needed was plenty of beer and alcohol (bring on the “Purple Jesus”-as the name implies the theory was that if you drank enough of it you would see Jesus) and some bed sheets and plenty of eight tracks (yes I know I am dating myself there) and you had a ready made party! The tradition in the fraternity was that many times you ended up with a nickname just as many of the characters in the movie did like Otter or Pluto. I was one of those fortunate souls who ended up with up one and I did not realize then it would be most appropriate today on the eve of my facial reconstruction. My fraternity nickname was “Stonehead”.

The name fit for many reasons. First, I was bit on the ‘stubborn side” as they say due to my family heritage. (Let’s face it- the Scotch and Germans are not known for their flexibility and a combination of both was indeed a fiery mixture for this young “lad”). Secondly, I was also know for my certain partaking of a substance that resembles oregano and came in baggies and was rolled or stuffed into a pipe. I think you get the drift here. I truly believe that my excessive drinking and partaking of substances during these years was the result of me drowning out the deep dark secret inside of me but that is another story. Finally, the name was also found appropriate one Sunday afternoon during our college fraternity’s intramural football game against our rival. I played middle linebacker on the team and my friend who had been given the name Bonehead played defensive tackle. Again, the rough and tough tumble of the game and the beer drinking that followed it for four years did wonders for covering up my deep dark secret that I hid from the world. On one play, Bonehead and I decided we were going to stick it to the runner from the rival team and we converged on him with full force and vigor. However, he eluded us at the last moment and instead Bonehead and I collided into each other head on and we knocked each other out cold on the field, Hence, the nickname was born in my Freshman year……Stonehead.

Well Stonehead is about to get chiseled by an artist of great skill and stature. Dr. Spiegel is one of the very few in this hemisphere who has perfected an FFS technique that gives femininity to a face especially in the area of contouring of the forehead and brow and my ugly mug is one that cries out for it for sure. I am sure much time will be spent on this area of Stonehead’s reconstruction trying to establish a feminine flow to area that now more closely resembles the young linebacker than the middle aged lady for sure. He plans to bring out my eyes which are one of the few nice features on my face. The extensive work on the brow and forehead also necessitates the reworking of my nose to fit my new brow and forehead. The work on the lower part of the face is not quite as extensive although the lipo on the neck and the mandible jaw contouring are some of the more difficult and painful procedures in this process. The final work will be augmenting and lifting my lips to give them a more feminine look.

All of this extensive work will be done while I am under anesthesia for the first time in my life. I was told I will drift off into sleep and it will seem like that I barely remember closing my eyes and drifting into lala land when I will find myself awaking in the recovery room looking more closely like Frankenstein’s monster than Melissa. For days I will drift in and out of sleep and crying out in a weak pathetic voice that my “nurse maid” Paula either get me more drugs or shoot me- based primarily I guess on whether the gun or the painkillers are closer for her! I will be bruised, swollen, battered, discolored, patched with stitches, wrapped and bound and withering in pain. I know I will test my love’s patience and let’s hope she forgets to pack any gun! Hopefully, some days later, things will calm down some and I will not look quite as bad and more like someone recovering from an attack with a Louisville Slugger than monster. In time, the stitches will be removed and through applications of creams and jells and much ice, I will be able to walk around in public and not scare people. Maybe a few weeks more and with some makeup I will take the form of average middle aged lady instead of Stonehead!

About the time I really getting it to look half way presentable it will be time to start preparing for another trip to another artist surgeon to reconstruct the other end of my body to conform with my inner soul and true essence as a female. Just as I get handle on this process and recovery it will be time for the finishing touch in augmenting my breasts to fit my body and the process completed physically. The spirit and the body will be one-but my journey will just begin again! I knew that the first six to seven months of the year would be a great physical challenge to me and I have been preparing my body for the same. The second half of the year and life beyond as Melissa will be as equaling challenging for me-but from a mental standpoint. I sometimes wonder and I think I am convinced that this test will be even more difficult than the physical changes to occur in the months ahead. I have some time to contemplate such in these recoveries and that is for sure. Get the chisels ready doctor ……….…Stonehead is about to arrive on your operating table and you have your work cut out for sure on this project! I will most definitely test your artistic abilities!!!

Resolve This!

Normally I would have posted this one last week but was so moved by the impact and significance of MILK and activism in our transgendered community, I delayed this one a week to post my thoughts and feelings on the film MILK. However, the turning of the New Year brings me to a point where I should evaluate my life and make some adjustments for the upcoming year. So here it goes …….my New Year’s resolutions for 2009 and they are not in any particular order but more just as they come to my mind.

1. I resolve to be more active in my community and supporting the movement of greater rights and dignity for those in the LGBT communities. I have been involved in the past but not to the extent I could be by any stretch. I want to be more supportive of the NCTE who works so diligently to promote the rights of transgendered community. I want to get involved with Trans Ohio beyond attending some events and writing an article or two. I would like to help in planning of the Trans Ohio Symposium this August, assist in lobbying legislators in Ohio to change the archaic laws regarding changing the birth certificates and gender marker on them even though I thankfully escaped this mess by being born one mile below the Ohio Rover in Kentucky. I also plan to attend with Paula in April the Transgendered Right Lobby Day sponsored by NCTE in Washington where I will work to lobby US Congressman and Senators to support the Hate Crimes bill, ENDA and other legislation to benefit the LGBT community. I am already in progress of setting up a meeting with my US Congressman (a conservative Republican from rural central Ohio) to try and sell him on this legislation I am sure his narrow mind and religious right wing upbringing will lead him to oppose with vigor. That shall not deter me one bit! I also plan to attend rallies where I can and stand with my sisters and brothers in the struggle for rights and dignity of the LGBT community.

2. I resolve to find a career that I love and that makes me want to spring out of bed each day and head off to work and one that provides some benefits and is more full time than I can do now in my piece meal contract work. I know the next six months will be a time of strive and trials for me as I push through two major operations that will radically alter my body to finally conform to my inner soul as a woman. The surgeries and recoveries will put a test on me as well helping Paula get through hers, but when all is done, I will no longer be trying to find work while needing all this time off for surgeries and recoveries. I can emerge as a stronger woman now focused on finding the position that brings joy as well as challenges for me and a steadier stream of income for sure. I have some talents and education as well as passion and with it will be a renewed vigor for new challenges in a career. Hopefully this year will see a recovery from some of the economic mess the current government regime has led our country into these past eight years. The man will go down as one of the worst Presidents to ever hold the office for sure.

3. I resolve to try to repair my relationships with my family who has tossed me into the wind for sure. Often those of us in the transgendered community are made to feel that we “abandoned our families” when in fact it is them who abandoned us. I can understand some anger and confusion and some time to search things out but being ostracized by our families simply because we came out after years of conflict and raging internal battles and told them who we really are as people is not right at all. I use to some conversation with my ex-wife although it was mostly bitter tirades by her but since the day of our divorce my e-mails have gone without response. I have never been told my children’s e-mail addresses and my written cards and letters go to them without any response. Gifts I send are never acknowledged. I am sometimes at a loss over what to do. I feel as if pieces of my heart have been torn out ….in a span of few short years I lost my father, mother and brother to deaths and my children and ex-wife to being cast aside like the past never happened. I must find a way to let time heal some things but I must find a way to reconnect with them for sure. They will find a different person both physically as well as emotionally and spiritually when they do in Melissa. However, the pieces belong back in my heart without question and we belong in each other’s lives.

4. I resolve to continue my spiritual journey. I have struggled for some time on this issue and now that I am out as transgendered it has become even more complex. I am a very open minded liberal thinking humanist/ Christian blend that seeks a place where friendship and love abounds and no one preaches at you but only makes you think out spirituality and the concepts of the Creator and Creation. I seek a place where all are welcomed even those with grave doubts. I seek a church that actively, openly and lovingly welcomes those of us from the LGBT communities and accepts us for who we are as people without condemning us for being such. Paula and I have begun the search and we have found some success. We were particularly impressed by the those at North Congregational UCC in Columbus which opens its doors freely to us and even has a special large exhibit in their hallway to the transgendered community featuring local and national people in the community and a tribute to those who have been victims of death and violence. I was very touched by this indeed.

5. I resolve to strengthen my love and relationship with Paula. I love waking up to her each day and the time we share together. We support each other and accept each other openly. Sometime this year we plan to celebrate our love in a commitment ceremony we hope to share with our friends. By the middle of the year both of us will have some new body parts that will clearly impact our intimacy and will take great patience and love to explore. She is my life and my love and we grow closer together each day. However, I believe we can never stop growing in our relationship for it to continue and I resolve to become more open to exploring and new ideas and to continue to share our thoughts and feelings and we move forward in our lives together.
Well there it is ….a big chunk of resolutions if I must say but all good ones in my quest to live my life to the fullest and with dignity, love, passion and a commitment to my community I am very much a part of in this life. I hope each of you find some things to strive for in this year and beyond and I wish all the peace and happiness to each of you in 2009 and for the many years to come afterward!

The Wild Ride !

Wow……………2008 for me was like a roller coaster ride that never seemed to end and each and every turn and severe dip in the track this wild year was to be cherished but with much trepidation as well. I feel physically and emotionally drained and yet I also feel so alive and fresh and renewed and full of hope. Things are definitely different for me than a year ago. One year ago I was living in West Virginia with my wife and my daughter who was home for the holidays in her senior year of college and my son who was about to finish his senior year of high school and his senior season of a game he played so well for so long- baseball. One year ago I had not begun electrolysis or the administration of hormones although I had been working with a gender therapist since July of 2007. I was not living fulltime as a woman and only a handful of people outside the community even knew of Melissa. I had by the fall of 2007 decided I needed to transition to live my life in my true essence of who I was and always had been all my life but fought the emergence of at nearly every turn. It is the person I should have lived as all my life except for the fact I was born with the wrong damn body parts.

As I sit here today on the cusp of 2009, I am not only separated but now legally divorced from my wife of 24 plus years. While we cried a lot the day I fully came clean to her and she found my letter to her explaining who I was and what I needed to do. We have talked little since that week in which much was disclosed but since then our communication has been filled with angry e-mails from her and much miscommunication and lack of communication. On the day we finally worked out an agreement for our divorce, I thought she was more peaceful and resolute but since then, communication has been very limited albeit more than my children which have not spoken to me since July. I sent my children and my ex wife Christmas gifts and cards. I expected no gift in return. I hoped I might actually get a card in return from one of them or possibly phone call over the holidays or even an e-mail thanking me for the gifts. I guess even that was too much to ask for the person who helped raise them and took interest in their life and who wanted nothing but happiness for them. My family has wiped me out of existence. Maybe someday this may change but I expect not any time soon.

As the New Year is about to dawn I live in central Ohio where I live and work fulltime as Melissa and truly enjoy life and the peace it brings me doing so. I am so comfortable as Melissa I cannot even imagine life any other way! I have found my internal peace but still have much to go and learn in my transition. All I am doing now is changing my anatomy and appearance and such to reflect my true essence. I began the year legally known as R. Russell Alexander but since early this fall, my legal name now reflects my true inner soul and essence – Melissa Marie Alexander. Every soul in my old towns of the past and beyond knows about me now and I have lost many friends and most importantly much family since the year began for sure.

Early on in January of 2008 I began the ingestion of hormones that have brought me more hips and ass, soft beautiful breasts and smoother skin that truly feels so feminine. Countless hours of electrolysis has brought smoothness to my face that no longer has any semblance of shadow. I know now I should have been born and lived my life as a woman all these long years but I will not live in regret. I can make sure that the remainder of my life is lived as it was meant to be lived as a woman (albeit a transgendered one). As this year comes to a close I now live with my soul mate, lover and best friend in the world ……….Paula Katherine Prichard. I am a lesbian but that is who I am sexually. I also live with far fewer assets. I took a small smattering of furniture from the old homestead and my pension assets at the close of this year are worth a fraction today partly due to the economic crash of 2008 and partly because half of it now belongs to my ex-wife. It’s part of life and it’s time to move on.

In as much as 2008 was a year full of turns, next year plans to be even wilder and faster that the roller coaster ride of 2008! I will experience some very huge changes in my life physically and emotionally. In just a few short weeks I will travel to Boston to have my face torn apart and rebuilt to be more reflective of Melissa by an exceptionally skilled plastic surgeon. My facial work will enable me to function better as Melissa and give it the feminine appearance it needs to live life as a woman. However, this surgery scares the “heebeegeebees” out of me to be certain! I will emerge from this procedure looking like Frankenstein’s monster! I will be bruised and scarred and bandaged and looking like people took Louisville sluggers to my face and head. I will be in extensive pain and popping pain pills like they are candy. In time the swelling and pain will resolve and I hope it will reflect Melissa as I always have envisioned her and help me pass more in the world.

Just about the time I recover from this procedure it will be time to prepare to leave for Philadelphia to undergo more work on my body…this time the creation of the vagina that should have always been there by an equally talented surgeon. A few months after that a little work on expanding the breasts to make them fit my body with some outpatient breast augmentation. By the summer of 2009, my body should finally resemble my inner soul and essence. I will however continue to grow and learn more about being the woman I am and the new body and emotions I have received as I journey through life as a woman and a post-operative TS. It will definitely be another long, wild roller coaster ride for sure in 2009 but I have always loved riding roller coasters all my life and something tells me that I have much more track to cover in the years ahead as well!

I wish each and every one of you a very Happy and Wonderful New Year in 2009! I hope it is filled with peace and happiness! Hugs, Melissa