Accepting Ketchup

When you change, it’s hard for others to understand. The question that will be the hardest to answer and therefore to understand is “why?”. It’s like tasting the color red. As much as you want them to understand, and it’s not that they’re trying not to or don’t want to, it’s not easy. It’s not them. They are not the one changing.

I heard an executive from the Pepsi Corporation speak a couple of years ago. She stated that her mother didn’t understand her being a lesbian. She stated that she had to allow her mom to catch up to her and that made sense. I’m the one who has known me and what I was feeling. I was the one who didn’t come out t anyone until I was 59. So, it was not something that was in the back of anyone’s mind. For those 59 years, I was one way, and now I’m different - changed. So, I’m halfway through the race and they’re just starting off.

Technically, I’m catching up to myself as well. I was using one set of pronouns and now using another. Of course I’m going to use the wrong one now and then. I know that I don’t have any malice towards myself and I don’t think anyone else is using the wrong pronouns out of malice, spite, or with an intention to hurt me. Even if they did, does it change anything? Nope. The only thing it might change is that there is a high probability of you not acquainting yourself often with that person.

Think of it as if you offered someone some ketchup and they don’t like ketchup. Is that going to affect you? No again. At least I would hope not.

Accepting someone else’s differences sometimes is easy and sometimes it’s hard. But their choices, likes, dislikes, etc., for the most part, won’t hurt or affect you. In the same way, you being you is something they will have to accept or not accept. You cannot change their mind or heart - they have to.

Sometimes their acceptance or non-acceptance will have a direct affect on you and that is when you have to decide if it’s as easy as accepting ketchup or their dislike of ketchup or is it harder?

If you are at a restaurant and order something with fries, they automatically bring you ketchup. If you’re like me, I prefer mustard - don’t judge. I don’t really think the wait staff cares if you don’t want the ketchup that was served. The restaurant owner might because his overhead just went up - but I digress.

Most people don’t care what you do - who you are - etc. They don’t care if you like ketchup or not.

Live your life. Accept what you can. Discard what you need to. And be the best authentic you.

It is as it should be…

The surgery was a success and I am healing beautifully.

I didn’t have an emotional reaction the next day at the post-op appointment as perhaps some may.  I wasn’t sure what my reaction was going to be when I saw myself for the first time in fifty-some odd years.  Yet, when I saw it, I was happy.  My chest - all-be-it swollen and bruised - was how I envisioned it - for years!

The mind is a powerful thing.  It can allow you to envision and see things as you want them to be as well as lie to you.  Only you have that ability to have it be positive or negative.  Motivational speaker, Denis Waitley, stated, “Our limitations and success will be based, most often, on our own expectations for ourselves. What the mind dwells upon, the body acts upon.”

They say to write down goals and you will achieve them.  Who's they?  They are Earl Nightingale, Steve Garvey, Pablo Picasso, Norman Vincent Peale, Zig Ziglar, Michael Phelps, Ted Turner, Andrew Carnegie, Dale Carnegie, Eleanor Roosevelt, Oprah Winfrey, Albert Einstein...and I could go on.  Recognize any of these individuals.

...and so I did.  If you look up any of the individuals I mentioned, or others, you will see that they also state that looking at that goal is powerful.  I can tell you - it is.  I had it written on a white board for about 20 years to get top surgery.  Grant it, I had no idea when or if it would happen, but I had it as a goal in front of me everyday when I studied for my Masters and my PhD.

As a kid, I saw movies about or involving college & university professors and saw myself as the male professors.  I didn't really realize that I really wanted to be a professor until I was about 40 years old.  But then I had to find the right path to get there.  Okay...I'm not yet a professor...but I do have my PhD and I will be a professor.  It's a goal and I will get there.

So what does that have to do with having top surgery?  Everything.  It was a path.  It was a goal.  I had to find my way to it - and I did.  But I didn't find my way there alone.  I had a lot of people that were very supportive - my wife, my friends, my chosen family, my church, and believe this or not, my work.  I would be remiss if I didn't mention my counselor as well.  Thanking them for being there for me seems so little to say - but I mean it with all my heart.

What's really interesting is that those that didn't know I had top surgery didn't notice.  They attributed it to the weight I had lost.  And here I was expecting to have to defend myself; which I'm sure one day I will have to.

But see, I'm not saddened that they didn't notice because they see me as me...as I should be...so far...the journey still continues.

(Adapted from an earlier post on “Final-Lee Me”, posted on 20190608)

It’s my journey and I’ll sigh if I want to...

Change isn’t easy.

Okay, so that wasn’t a profound statement.  But it is true.  In the past couple of years, change is something I have been dealing with on a daily basis.

Change for some is scary while others it’s an adventure.  For me - well - it’s both.

I see my life as an adventure; as something that I’m striving towards, exploring, experiencing, etc.  Life is like walking through the woods on a path and with every step, changes happen.  The path becomes treacherous, or just with hills, or paved and smoothed.  The weather changes from one extreme to another  - maybe not from 80 degrees to 22 degrees - but sometimes it does.  There’s enough change along the journey that it reminds you that you have decisions you have to make.

It’s those decisions that can be scary.  My scariest decision ever, was telling my family that I’m a transgender male.  Ever?  Yes.

When you hear the stories or see the movies or read about families’ rejection of those that are transgender - male or female - it sticks with you.  Will that be my family?   Will that be my story?  And at that time your steps become deliberate and unsteady instead of confident and sure.

And if you’re like me, I play out the worst-case-scenario in my head.  Why?  Because if I can face the worst thing that could happen, anything better than that is, well, great!  It’s not something that I suggest someone do.  It can give you ulcers.  Not fun.  Neither is the worst-case-scenario playing in the mind, but that isn’t yet real...and may never be real.  It’s just fear.

What is fear?  It’s an acronym:  False Evidence Appearing Real.  I didn’t come up with that.  Someone smarter than I did.  But I find that in most cases, it’s true.

In my case - it was definitely true.  I had built this scary scenario in my head, so when I talked with my Mom, I was trying to wrap my head around what was actually happening while my wife and I were still on the phone with her.  It was, in fact, not that scenario at all.

I let out the biggest sigh...and reminded myself that it’s my journey.  No one else's.  It is I that will take path, face the bad, and rejoice in the good...and remind myself to sigh...exhale...and most importantly, remember to breathe...in...and again, remember to exhale.

(Adapted from an earlier post on “Final-Lee Me”, posted on 20191118)

The journey starts with baby steps…so to speak…

“The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.”  — Lao-tzu

So does the journey start when one is a child and knows something is different about them - or does it start when they finally stop denying to themselves what they know to be true?

This is kind of like the question about the chicken and the egg.  Of course the journey starts at the moment one knows/discovers/thinks that there is something different about themselves that sets them apart from others.  Every interaction, emotion, circumstance, etc. makes that person what and who they are today.  And that part of the journey is extremely important to the journey of transition and becoming their authentic selves.  However, for all intents and purposes, the journey I am referring to, for this post, is the journey of transition and transformation.

An officiant for the church I attend, Dignity Northern Virginia, did a homily about life transformations.  He didn’t know that I was to soon have top surgery.  He was talking in generalization about life itself.  But I knew that this was a message from God to me - just as it was a message from God to someone else about their life.  What I liked about the homily is that he used the analogy of the butterfly.  I know...I know...we all know the analogy.  But when you realize how much of your life you have struggled and that each time you’ve come through the struggles intact - but you’re still not that butterfly, it’s a bit of a blow to the psyche.

I thought that after my top surgery, I would be okay and wouldn’t need to do anything more, like taking hormone replacement therapy.  I looked forward to settling in to my new “self” - and I did.  But as the months went on, I realized, I’m not yet the butterfly - and I struggled with that.  Because, you see, I hadn’t yet talked to my family which I was afraid to do.

So, with the encouragement of my wife, I took my first shot of “T”.  I micro-dosed at first not only due to my age but my fear.  Being female was all I ever knew (besides not yet coming out to my family).  Baby-steps...small steps...  I had to remind myself that this was/is a journey not a race.  Going slow allowed me to grow into who and how I saw myself.  It is also allowed my wife to grow with me while keeping her identity as a lesbian.  Little-by-little, I was becoming my authentic self.  And, in doing so, little-by-little, I found my way to talk to my parents.

I take the full dose of “T” now.  I have to say that going through puberty twice in my life was not something I had bargained for but I don’t remember the first time so I get to remember and understand it the second time.

The journey is scary, exciting, confusing, and very satisfying.  I took the first steps…baby steps…for many things within this journey...and I will continue to walk this journey slowly...baby-steps…

(Adapted from an earlier blog on “Final-Lee Me”, posted on 20190909)

The Top-Down Approach

In late April 2019, a major event happened.  I had top surgery.  For those of you who don't know what that is, it is the removal of the breasts.  The breasts, for many transgendered males, is the source of discontent, dysphoria, malcontent...you get what I'm saying.  And so it was for me as well.

This decision was not made lightly or in a vacuum.  It had been a long time coming and though scary - because it was a big change - it was also very exciting.

Decisions in businesses in the military are thought to be made at the top and moved down the triangle to be executed.  In some ways, this decision too was "made" at the top which is why for years it wasn't executed.  And by the "top", I'm meaning both God, myself, and my family.  I feel differently now about the "decision" by God but I will get to how that came about.

When I was young, I was taught by my family and the church for years that God made me and he doesn't make mistakes.  Well, I know God doesn't make mistakes but He made me, right?  So, how is it that I think like a male but I'm in a female body?  If that's not a mistake...what is it?

It's who I am.  Plain and simple.  I was made in the image of God - just as you were and everyone else on this planet.  What image is it then?  ME!  YOU!  THEM!  EVERYONE!  Yup, that's right.  I said it.  It wasn't a mistake, it was how I was made.  So this decision was made at the top - by God.  Whom, by the way, knew me before I was in the womb!  Whoa!  So my parents had no bearing on who I was going to be but created me as God intended.

So just as a business that is created and the founder of that business sets how the it is run (from the top) and those that are working for that business follow that (down) - God (top) created me and Mom and Dad followed that (down).

But now it is up to me to create the best me I can be - and that means physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  I have to make the conscious decisions to do the things that have to be done.  I have to make the decision in my brain (the top) telling the rest of my being (the down).

So how is it that I can come to make these decisions - not lightly, mind you - and have the peace that all is well with God?  I read a book titled, Conversations with God, by Neale Donald Walsch.  It allowed me to see the God of the New and Old Testaments in a different way.  Is it the Bible?  No - but it showed me how to interpret for myself the readings to have a strengthened relationship with the God.

I'm not trying to do a sermon here.  I'm just stating how I have come to make this decision and thought I would share.

In this "top-down approach", my top surgery was a decision that I made with prayer and thanksgiving.  As the date approached for the surgery, yes, I a bit nervous...but I was excited too!

It was my first step to finaLee and reaLee be me...

(Adapted from an earlier blog on “Final-Lee Me”, posted on 20190416)

The beginning...or pretty close to it...

"We'll start at the very beginning.  It's a very good place to start." - from the Sound of Music

It is a great place to start but I doubt that my birth, which I don't remember, is going to be very exciting.  After all, I ate, slept, and pooped.  So I will start with when I knew I was different.

I don't remember what instance came first but I know that one time when my parents, sisters, and I were traveling, Dad let me give the money to the guy at the toll booth.  Okay...to some of you who think, "wait...don't people use SmartPass?" - this was long ago in a land far away.  Actually, it was in the United States but it seems now long ago...and in a time that was different...which seems like a land far away.  But I digress...which I tend to do.  So I had a barrette in my hair (and I can't remember why since my hair was short) and the guy says, "Thank you son."  WOW!  I was confused but at the same time I was excited!  He recognized me as a little boy!!

Another time, I was elementary school age, I was playing with the neighborhood kids and they said that I couldn't be an army man because I was a girl.  Now, I knew that technically I was a girl, but I wasn't inside.  I didn't quite understand that.

There wasn't the internet and to go searching in the library would have been difficult because I didn't have a name for what I was feeling.  There were no words to describe what I wanted to know.  I hadn't even gone through puberty never mind understand why I fit in with the boys but girls were fascinating to me.

When I was in high school, the confusion was even more pronounced and because of it, I became somewhat shy about myself and had a distorted view of myself.  I wasn't sure what I was feeling or thinking.  I do know that when I dated this guy, it wasn't "right".  Something was missing.  I still didn't know what was going on.

It wasn't until the first year of college that I figured it out.  Now, I didn't just have an epiphany.  Nope.  I wasn't that smart or intuitive.

I went to a classmate's house and she was going to go to a bar in another city.  I wanted to go and after a bit of pleading, she consented telling me that it was a "different" kind of bar.  Not knowing what she meant but needing to get out of the college area for a bit, I didn't care.  Upon walking in, and seeing women dancing together, the first piece of the puzzle fell in place.  At this point, I could now stated that I was a lesbian.

I had my first kiss with another woman later that year; and as exciting as that was, it wasn't all that I was feeling but I still didn't quite get it.

It wasn't until my second year that I started putting together what I was feeling.  I didn't want to be a lesbian, I wanted to be a man.  I was even thinking about running away and figuring out how to change my gender.  But I didn't know where I would begin.

So I didn't.  I stayed as I was.  But now that I understood that, what was I supposed to do with that?  It caused a lot of confusion.  I saw that my dad has a strong dislike for homosexuality and that scared me.  I was quickly learning that society as well disliked homosexuality and "transexuals".  This added to the fear and confusion.

I pushed everything about me down so far that I struggled even to be who I wasn't.

I can't do that anymore.  I have to be who I am - male - not female who dresses as a male - but a man - and it's not easy.  I've been in a female body for 60+ years.

But - I am learning to reaLee be me...

(Adapted from an earlier blog on “Final-Lee Me”, posted on 20190331)