Natural Disaster

I'm having a deeply introspective day today, so be prepared.

Well, I started the year off with this blog as I hoped, but then mother nature decided differently. For those who don't know, we just had a storm and cold weather here that caused blackouts and a province wide loss of power for several days. So writing in this blog sorta had to wait, heh.

But speaking of which, mother nature is who most of this post is going to be about, what her little storm made me feel and what the bitch decided to do with me to begin with.

It was a somewhat serious situation. In this house in particular we spent a good few hours with no power. We were in no real danger or anything. We had food, water and heat mostly figured out, though the car and driveway were literally buried in snow, and half the door.

Anyway, I sorta enjoyed the "roughing it" that we were forced to do, it was a few days in when I went to shave that my mind started thinking. I need to stop my self from thinking like this, but I sorta can't help it. I couldn't help but realize how screwed I would be if things suddenly went to hell. Really it's an even more delicate balance then that, it wouldn't take an armageddon for my medication to suddenly not be available, there are plenty of ways.

What it got me feeling though is one of the feelings that are deeply emotionally, exclusively, trans related and they are part of the pain we carry around with us. I've touched on a few of them before, but I'll try and make a sort of list this time. I'm sure I'll forget some.

My body isn't my own. What occurred to me when shaving during snowpocalpyse was how much of "this" (I was looking in the mirror) is completely reliant on things that are not my "natural" me. How to explain this? I've tried to others before and have gotten the annoying "oh all women are... blah blah" crap.

I don't feel a kind of dirty that no shower will ever clean off because when my mascara runs out my eyelashes won't look beautiful. I feel that way because if I didn't have many of the things I have available now I would look like a man. My emotions and day to day life would change back just as obviously as my body, and coincide. There is possibly a time where many of those things become unnecessary, but a few of them will be around forever and it will take a lot of time, and a whole lot of money.

I'm not sure if that, or how I would, convey how emotionally deflating that feels. I have a few more things like this that are not trans related, well mostly my eyes I guess. It bothers me from time to time that I'm colorblind and I need glasses, but I'm not thinking of getting surgery for that, and really, who cares?

There's something about this gender expression though that if it's not happening the way I (we?) feel it should, man do I get upset. I can't imagine anything else making me feel like I'm not me like this does.

I have no womb. I have mentioned this before. I can't really speak to how a FtM feels about this, but for myself, and I have heard other MtF say the same, it's not just that I can't have kids anymore. That wouldn't have bothered me before my transition. The reason it didn't bother me then is probably the same reason it does now and it is because I don't have a womb. Not only can I not have kids, but I can't, and never could have them like a woman, and I WANT to , I always have. That is something I certainly can't express. Please, someone explain to me how to describe the desire to use a part of "your" body that you don't even have and the utter negation of ability and hope the moment reality creeps in.

I can't *be* a woman, let me explain that before someone jumps down my throat. Of course, I'm as womanly, as feminine as I decide to be, just like everyone else does and should have the right to do. I'm a woman, and deserve, no, demand to be treated as such.

However...

I can't have a child of my own, I can't give birth to one, I can't have sex and get pregnant, I can't be pregnant, I can never experience that, and again, I want to and always have.

Lost time. This one usually hits me hard when I let it hit me. It's one of the things I envy about the young trans people I have met. How I wish I could have experienced my younger life as a happier female rather then how I did. It's rare for someone to know they are trans before puberty from my understanding so I imagine even these younger people I've met also wish they could have experienced being little boys and girls the way they would have wanted.

What a waste my life feels like to me. I had such a good home, and many opportunities and good experiences... oh but to have spent them as a girl. I would have loved to have been asked to the prom rather then done the asking. I could have hung around with "the girls" more in school, spent time doing whatever it is high school girls did back then.

To have some young kid try to feel me up in the back of his dad's car...

So many experiences that many of us hold dear that I'll never have, the possibility is simply gone. The possibility was never there.

I've thought of a handful of other things, but they rest within these three things I've mentioned. I have had being transgender described to me as "nature's worse curse" and I'm pretty sure I've said that here before. Let me try to explain some though, and try not to be insensitive while I'm at it.

Honestly when I first heard that I immediately thought "well how about all those people born with autism, or without limbs, etc?" That's a pretty unfriendly "curse" to have. What made me understand this "worse curse" description a little better was the "curse" part of it because that's really such an accurate term.

The thing that makes this most difficult is the subtly of it. There was no doctor informing my parents they just had a transgender child. There was no psychologist working with me at a young age to determine if I'm transgender or going through a hard childhood phase. There is no help. In fact, there is nothing but hindrance. This curse starts off lightly but builds momentum as you get older while at the same time staying it's subtle, relentless self. Not only has it effected every portion of my life, but it has robbed me of a past I long to have and has made my future shaky at best. I had no idea all of this was going to happen to me until it happened, and when it happened I had no idea what it meant.

That's not a fair curse.

I must admit, I feel very pitiful when I think about this and let in all of the details that can only be conjured by the mind experiencing them. It all seems like such a fantasy story but it isn't. When I occasionally place "me" where I belong in history it feels like something I should have read in a book, until I remember it's not a book, it's me, Rebecca. These are the days (like I'm feeling today will be) that I feel inadequate. Inadequate to do what, exactly? Be human.

These are the days you see me, and I'd imagine other TG's, being very quiet. For me, it's giving my mind the space and time it needs to do it's constant war, keep going or give up. The happier days, even my angrier days are better then these. Those only happen when my mind is having a ceasefire. Though, to be honest my frustration over myself has a tendency to lead to angry lashes.

This all makes me wonder of my place in the world. I don't feel like it's being around people, it seems like the more I'm around people the more I show myself how much of a shade of a human I am. I've been alone for so long I'm the only one in my world. I talk to myself more then I talk to anyone else. Of course this effects the people I'm around, and more often then not I'm left feeling people would be better off without me, and frankly I have no reason to believe otherwise.

People talk to me about the bravery and strength I must have. Honestly their compliment feel like insults to me. Brave? Ha! Strong? lol! You have no idea, how scared and weak I am. Go inside my head on days like this and come back out, trust me you'll see nothing but a scared, confused, broken, and lost "person" who is so unsure of themselves they feel like person should be in quotation marks.

Fuck it, I'm done today.