Summer Fun!

Good morning campers……………Rise and shine! It’s a beautiful summer day and summer activities abound. In addition to summer pastimes like sports I discussed last week there is much to do as the days are longer and the weather warm and hot and for us girls this is a great time of year because we get to wear shorts, bare legs and sandals or flip flops and casual tops and I particularly enjoy this comfortable attire a great deal. Even those of us with exceptionally fair skin can pull this off with the use of tanners, spray on tans and such. Just make sure you keep your body well moisturized and use sun block on your skin. Even at night casual tops go well with shorts, casual skirts and Capri pants. The warm summer evenings are perfect for strolls and walks in parks or to see a new summer release movie. Enjoy outdoor dinning and a stroll afterward with someone you care about and love.
Summertime is a great time to get outside and do all sorts of summer activities. Some girls like to camp although I have never been much for tent camping as its too primitive for this girl and way to many issues like bugs, lack of showers and other such ooogy things! I do enjoy a stay in a cabin as I did this past weekend with friends. This place is so remote and it takes what seems like forever to get to it off the main road in West Virginia I always kid people about the scary toothless fiddle players along the road playing that delightful dueling banjo tune from “Deliverance”. Despite the very remote location the cabins are not primitive at all and provide such luxuries as stove, microwave, shower, hot tubs and a dishwasher. However, they also provide beautiful peaceful scene of the mountains, a the sounds of a flowing mountain stream which provides a wondrous sound at night as you sleep with the windows open and feel the mountain breezes.
I love to hike and bike in the summer and the longer days permit us to do that in the weekday evenings even if you have to work during the day. Take plenty of water with you when you do. Picnics are exceedingly nice in the summer especially before the hot muggy days set in. This past weekend also the annual picnic for PE WV and we had a lovely turnout for an even lovelier day. Eighty degrees and sunshine and a slight breeze in a picnic pavilion by a lake now that is a beautiful place for a picnic with sisters and friends. Nothing beats the taste of a delicious hotdog, brat, or grilled hamburger with cheese hot off a grill and smothered with your fixins of choice. Delicious….. girls!!! They go particularly well with a cold beverage such as beer, chilled white wine, long island ice teas,lemonade, ice tea or a root beer! Other groups are having picnics this summer as well or you can gather a few friends and find a quaint picnic table in a park somewhere.
Other wonderful summer things include sightseeing outdoor sites, outdoor theater productions, especially those that let you picnic beforehand! Another fun activity of summer is going to pool parties and don’t worry about suit thing. Go in a one piece and be with friends especially ones who have pools. If you have a great body and if you do we all hate you (only teasing) wear your bikini. If you got it…flaunt it! Have a pool party at night on a warm evening and throw something on the grill and get the beverages flowing.
Summer also provides time to get to the beach for all you sun worshippers and beach lovers where you can swim, surf or in some places, snorkel or scuba. Not up for all that, plan an outing to an amusement park and ride the rides, especially screaming wooden rolling coasters that take your breath away (and hopefully not your hair for those who use wigs).
Get out there and enjoy summer my sisters and friends and let the world see you for who you are doing what you enjoy doing and having some fun. Life is too short and so is summer. Soon the days will grow short and fall breezes and cool evenings will fade away to cold grey dreary days of winter where you have so many layers on you melt inside and still freeze outside and your activities are limited- unless you like, of course, flying down hill of ice and packed snow on two pieces of fiberglass boards! Not my cup of tea as they say so I prefer late spring, summer and fall. Get out there girls and enjoy all the pleasures of summer and have some fun! See you at the next picnic, on the lake, at the cabin, by the pool or in the park! Ahhhhhhh…summer days and nights!

For the Love of the Game

For the love of the game! My dear wonderful Paula asked me to take a break from all my “grey cloud” writings and write on something light and positive for a change although I do not believe the writings over last few weeks were that downbeat but they did deal with the serious topics involving coming out to families and the pain it causes in everyone in doing so to find the peace our souls seek. However, because I like to keep things light sometimes and to honor the request of Paula, I decided to write about my favorite sports pastime. Although sports are not usually the topic of girls I really think that is very much a stereotype. I know many genetic girls who love sports- some feverously and passionately including NASCAR and hockey (that is about as redneck and macho as one can get). Furthermore, I am comfortable with my femininity to talk sports-especially about the game I use to love to play and now in my advanced years, I love to watch- baseball.
I enjoy watching other sports but there is something about baseball that is wondorous and brings symmetry to life. It is not as fast paced or thrills a minute game as some sports like basketball or football or hockey but it’s a game I appreciate for its nuances such as the lack of a time clock, the unique design of the field and the rules and intricate nature of the game. When played well it is a thing of beauty to watch and it has its moments of sheer joy and excitement as well. Some of these I have even had the pleasure to watch in person. My son played the game and he played it exceptionally well and with much poise and grace and goodwill. I loved watching him play and now that he has finished high school and hung up his cleats for good I will miss the games on the warm spring evenings and the joy he experienced playing the game he loved and played so well for so long! I will be honest, I shed a few tears the day he took his last at bat but he held his head high!
My passion for this game began in my days of growing up in Cincinnati and the joys of seeing teams play at old Crosley Field and later Riverfront Stadium which truly sucked as a ball park but was the home to the Big Red Machine that won effortlessly in the 1970’s with players such as Tony Perez, Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench and Pete Edward Rose! I got spoiled I will admit watching this team dominate baseball for so long. The Reds were again competitive in the mid to late eighties and early nineties, winning one World Series and several pennants. Then in the middle of the nineties, just after the long players’ strike, all of the sudden my team tanked. Since 1995 they have had only one winning season. Now I promised not to get too negative in blog this week but it is hard to not be negative when it comes to the Reds and their futility. Now I don’t expect my team to win every year by any stretch of the imagination but come on…..one and only one …...one stinking winning season in 13 years! The ownership is of course to blame for this mess and the frustration of Reds fans like me have experienced. First we had Marge “We’re a small market honey” Schott as our owner- a woman who would have traded her best player for fifth of vodka and two carton cartons of smokes! She was an owner who did not even know her players names, was a Nazi loving racist and demolished our farm system of young talent and let her dog crap all over the field. What a disaster that era was for Reds fans. It was followed by an ownership by committee which works about as a well as bullpen by committee and produced some more atrocious trades and some equally bad teams. Finally, we get the Castallini era. Three years ago he buys this team and vows to make them competitive. Three years later the team has still not a winning record, he refuses to understand the game begins on the elevated set of clay and dirt in the middle of the infield known as the mound and the team is in last place and under five hundred once again. If that is his definition of “competitive” I would hate for him to only want them to be an average ball team.
The long hot “dog” days of summer are here and the fields are full of kids playing ball and some cities even have professional baseball although I am not sure Cincinnati can say that with regard to the Reds…. but get out there and appreciate the beauty of this game when it is played well. And by the way, the game is exceptionally delightful to watch with a cold beer in one hand and warm hotdog in the other whether one is a girl or a boy or anything and everything in between!

Pictured above is me holding a penquin wearinga T-shirt that says Detroit Red Wings 2008 Stanley Cup Champions brought to me as a "gift" from my dear Paula. Although it pertains to another sport I enjoy watching in hockey, I am a Penquins fan and Paula is a Red Wings fan but I think she should be reported to the SPCA for inflicting cruelity on the cute, poor little formally attired bird.

DeJa Vu

If you could back in time and change the course and direction in your life would you do so knowing that it would dramatically alter your life form that point forward. That is a particularly intriguing and thought provoking question for those in the transgendered community that are transitioning so that our outer shell reflects our inner essence of who we are as people. The subject came up at one my recent transgender support group meetings and it invoked much discussion among us. The discussion raised issues such as whether we would retain all we have learned and discovered when we went back to that earlier point in time. I mean if we did not do so would not we simply follow the same path? The discussion also widely varied by age and the status of one’s family.

If one was single they were more likely to pursue this time travel assuming that retained all they know so they could take a different course and transition much earlier in their life like the three teenagers who are in my group. Instead of foolishly waiting for the lights to come on and realize you were born in the wrong physical shell until you were in your thirties, forties or fifties jump on in on the teenager transition express and skip all those periods of repression, denial, anguish and pain. Most of the time these teenagers have little to say in the meetings…..why should they while they are barely passed puberty and on the road to being who they truly are while they are young and free spirited. What are they going to discuss?...... ..how painful it was to miss two years of their life as a girl? Hell…at their age my concerns were driving, getting high, partying like a rock star and believing I would live forever. Don’t get me wrong……….. my transgendered nature was always there but at age 16-18 it was a small little pee in the back of my mind deeply imbedded inside me maybe to be occasionally displayed on a quiet evening in my house when the parents were away and then quickly re-shelved. So it makes sense if I was thirty or so and single to swing back to that period and get it right on my life journey.

What about those of us in the M to F alignment that are older and who, in more periods of denial and repression and the bizarre belief all of these feelings of femininity would simply evaporate into thin air if we got married, settled down and raised a family. Years later when this ill advised strategy erodes into dust, as we attempt to live life as we were meant to live it, we are left with the results of the theory of immersion into male life with a spouse we have spent an eternity with and children who now face losing their “father” as they see it and a nightmare of guilt, emotion and anguish. The question becomes would we pull that lever on the time machine and go back to a younger time in our life loaded with the knowledge these years of hard living and struggle have brought us? Take a different course- one that does not involve marriage or the production of children? If we did that the children we have brought into this world and tried to rise with a good heart and good values would not exist in this world. All of the joys as well as all the heartaches they have brought would be known to no one and their life here would have never taken place at all. Still want to pull that lever now?

The memories of the times you shared with them and watching them grow, taking their first steps, playing their first games, going on their first date, drinking your first beer or other adult beverages with them and watching them become people of character and hope would be gone. Go ahead and pull that lever now. Wipe it all out! Would it make it easier on yourself for transitioning …cut back on the guilt and pain and anguish? Yes it most definitely would and just think- beginning life as your true self at age 16. However, since you carry with you all the knowledge of the past life you would also carry with you the memories of loved ones who do not even exist and I cannot help but think it would cause so much anguish that one could not focus on their new life. If one goes back without the knowledge, who says they would take any different path and would just end up doing it all again leaving them in the same place they are now….with loved ones and the need to transition emerging in their life. DeJa Vu

Families,fish heads and the washing of hands

Families are wonderful things to have unless you are transgendered then they become the sword that carves you up and leaves you to die or face life living in the prison of the shell that covers the real you from the world. Now some transgendered people can live on the part time regimen and that’s fine and dandy if it fits you to do so. Some transgendered people have little family or little family left alive and that makes it pretty easy to live as they wish whether a part timer or someone who wants to pursue full time. The problem lies with those of us that built a life on the shell by marriage and children before we fully came to grips with who we really are as people. Oh my do the complications fly when caught in that dilemma. Most of the transgendered people face the washing of the hands routine performed by their families upon their disclosure that would have made Pontius Pilot jealous. I now face it squarely head on as I attempt to convey it to my immediate family and face the wrath it will bring.

Maybe I would look upon this task with less trepidation if the success stories were more prevalent than a spotting of the Loch Ness Monster! However, they are few and far between. I was chatting with my new friends Terri and Ashley, a wonderful couple I met a while back and spent time with in Chicago. Ashley just got out of the hospital after suffering an impeded kidney stone and infections. I called her to see how she was doing and we somehow got into discussion of families. Although the loss of her spouse after her decision to transition was expected and even appreciated she still grieves over the painful rejection of Ashley by her only daughter and the daughter’s absolute refusal to have any contact with her since then. Yes- while I wholly agree the decision to transition is a painful one for the family of a transgendered person, the refusal to even see or speak to the transgendered person is an unacceptable price to pay for being honest about who one truly is as a person. Terri’s wife has made her life miserable as well I guess primarily on the principle that amicable is a word which escapes her vocabulary. Another new girl here in West Virginia I have yet to meet told me her only teenage daughter will have nothing to do with her whatsoever and won’t even answer her letters and messages. My friend DeeDee struggles as her wife and daughter cast her aside and refuse to even talk with her or acknowledge her existence. Wow don’t we all feel warm and bubbly inside after hearing these decisions to cast off the transgendered person like smelly fish heads into a garbage disposal by people who, while you were living a lie, thought you were the greatest thing since sliced bread and who supposedly love you for all you have given them. Another sister of mine, although it was in the heat of an argument, actually had her wife utter the words “I wish you had cancer instead of being transgendered”. ....Cancer for crying out loud!!!

My dear sweet Paula called me the other day so sad about her situation. Paula is a good hearted sweet girl- full of so much love who raised two young adult children making great sacrifices in doing so. She came out fully to them a few months ago but since then they have recoiled some and the other day her oldest son hurt her deeply in “suggesting “ that she not come around as Paula- the person she really is. No contact with his wife, grandkids –zip nada. She felt very hurt and rightfully so as she struggled to move forward to transition full time as Paula- something she has put off way too long in her life. Her wife adds to the problem with dripping “words of kindness” such as I wish I could subject you to hypnosis so you would regress to being a ‘normal male” again. Feel the love! And just the other night she said that if Paula could undergo a surgery to remove all feminine traits and feelings from her (although the person that survived would not even be the same person she married) but that the procedure had only a 50 percent survival rate, she would still want Paula to undergo it figuring in her mind it was a “win- win situation” for her (the wife). The warmth overflows at that household for sure! Wishing someone to be dead instead of being transgendered.-wow! People…It is not the end of the world simply because one transitions one’s gender to reflect who they really are as a person.

I sense the same impending wrath as exemplified in the situations above, and throughout our community, in my household and I ponder the loss of my family. Transgendered people who are not fortunate enough to be single and childless are faced many times with a brutal choice of either saving their soul or saving their family. A real shitty choice for sure! The solution is love and understanding but those are qualities which seem to be lacking for the most part in today’s family for sure! I think I know why too…it is far easier to hate and reject than it ever is to love and embrace. Love and embracement requires one to open their heart and let someone in there and keep them there even if they bare their soul and tell you who they really are as a person.

Game Over!

I remember the old days of video games in their infancy when at the end of the game you played so well the machine would utter those famous words……. “Game over”. At that point, regardless of how well and long you played the game you had two choices….either put more quarters in and continue playing a new game of it or get up and move on with your everyday life. For some time now I have played the game of the coy cat and mouse as it involved my true persona and essence of who I am – Melissa with my family and friends and coworkers who mostly know me only as the male shell which covers and hides her from the world. My wife knows some about Melissa and way more than she wants to admit or know but continues to play the dangerous game of sticking her head in the sand and denying what is going on with her husband while we volley under the guise of “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy which inevitably never works because someone always asks and someone always tells. My daughter knows some about Melissa but fears much more is involved and she is right of course. The girl who is bright and open minded recently graduated college and will hopefully gain employment in the near future. She received her degree in psychology and last semester she took a course in gender psychology and studied works from gender authors including “She’s Not There”. She suspects a great deal about her father but for the most part remains silent. My son is about to receive his high school diploma and is about to move on to college. Male teenagers especially those that are athletes like he was don’t want to know anything about their father being feminine and being a woman. I tried to provide a stable “normal” house for them while they grew up in Appalachia and in this town and I did not want them to be burdened by this disclosure about me by their friends. Teenage years are hard enough as it is anyway. My few friends from the shell’s interaction do not know about me except one and of course my work colleagues have not a clue although they may fathom a suspicion or two.

This is all about to change and change soon. I have had enough of the damn game and it is time people who are suppose to love and support me and who consider me a good enough person to be their friend or business associate to know who I really and truly am and how proud I am to be transgendered as well as full disclosure of my intentions, struggles and the fear that has paralyzed me for so long to keep the secret from them. I was afraid they would all reject me and leave me alone and unloved in a world that calls for much love and warmth and interaction with others. I will admit I went to the Be-all Conference this past week and my interaction with my sisters in our community and the great courage that many shared and displayed and my involvement in workshops and discussions led me to great resolve and great strength that the time has come to stop playing the game and come clean with all who need to know and who should know about who I truly am and where I must go in my journey. It is time for me to “come out” as they say and stand proudly as a transgendered person although I know it was result in some rejection, fears, humiliation from others including some who are technically part of my extended family. I will remember the stories I heard from others and the presenters of workshops on the subject when I make these disclosures but most importantly I will stand proudly. I am who I am and I cannot be ashamed of whom I am as person merely because that involves being transgendered. I have been out all over the country and everywhere one could go as a person and many in the public have seen me for who I am at the places I have been- yet my so called “inner circle” either has no clue or operates on the array of suspicion and constantly side stepping routines. No more my friends! It is over …soon I will soar freely without the burden of this shell and let Melissa shine. I know that if all my family and friends end their relationship with me over this full disclose I will be very and deeply sad and hurt but I will get over it and in the end I have many wonderful and great friends in the transgendered community that have my back including my greatest and deepest friend and my love Paula. I will need them more than ever in the next few weeks as I begin this process of complete disclosure. I played the game very well for so many years and danced around questions and issues like skilled tap dancer but the game playing is over and it is time to let Melissa achieve the heights she can soar to obtain free of self imposed chains. The process will take several weeks and I know much pain is to be shed and tears will flow like a river unleashed in the spring runoff. I shall get through this and I will survive it. It will make me stronger …it will make me freer…..it will make me proud…but most importantly it will let me go forward in my journey and let me live the life I was meant to live …….as Melissa. Sometime ago another transgendered person told me that only when I was willing to risk it all could I ever get where I wanted and needed to be. That time has come my friends and over the next few weeks I ask that you keep me in your thoughts as this process begins in my life. Game over…………I have run out of quarters anyway and its time to move on with my life as it needs to be led.

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!