Humping On the Parking Meter, Leaning On the Parking Meter

I wish this tranny thing was tidy, but it’s just not.

All week long I’ve had these niggling* feelings, these nagging thoughts: are you sure you’re doing the right thing, Sam?

Something kept bubbling up from some viscous internal stream of unconsciousness; I kept catching myself, in the mirror, or simply in my own mind, questioning the need and motivation for such a dramatic change. “What am I doing? Is this some sort of emotional reaction to the intense, nay, devastating events that have occurred these past 9 months?”

Okay, fair enough. Let’s take a look at that. It was suggested to me recently, as I trotted out an abridged resume of what brought me to North Carolina (my participation in what I not unfondly refer to as “The Cult”) that I had rather a high tolerance for some sturm und drang. It would be awfully jejune of me to deny a history of big decisions and abrupt about-faces, particularly when I think about having uprooted my family (cats, partner, home we were buying) to go on some lunatic zealot crusade. For those unfamiliar with my history, let it suffice to say I was a member of a spiritual community who uprooted their crazy kingdom to move from Austin to Chapel Hill, and that I was deeply committed to the lifestyle of said group, which revolved around (for me) service, yoga, meditation and following the guidance of one man. Fairly benign, exceptin’ fer that last part, about the man.

Anyway, I have no regrets about being with this group, nor was it a “bad” idea to move here, but at the time - and here’s the thing – at the time it seemed like the thing I ought to do forever.

Then, some months after I moved here, I met a woman, left my partner, and fell hard in love. Like in a major way. Like, never felt that way before kind of thing. And this woman, who swore up and down that she loved me like I loved her, eventually dropped me like a hot, poop-covered, unpleasant to behold, rock. Turns out she had some other things going on and I missed that. And I had believed she was the person I was going to spend the rest of my life with. How am I supposed to trust myself and my decision-making capacity on the heels of these kinds of balls-out flawed choices?

So now you have a taste (gnarly) of why I might question my own judgement, why one might find oneself striking a handsome pose before the looking-glass, only to find it needs some serious Windexing, possibly even re-leading. I don’t feel right in the haid, y’all, I just don’t. And second-guessing oneself is a tragicomic occupation at best, a clown’s big-shoed pursuit of an acid-laced butterfly.

I looked at myself baldly, in the face, in the mildly warped medicine cabinet mirror, the very one that was installed in these duplexes in the 70’s, and asked: “Is this what you want to do?”

I liked the face I saw; it was my Sam face, the one I’ve always known. It doesn’t look different since I started T, although there are (a very few) new whiskers ‘neath my chin. My voice has been startling me a little – it’s deeper and I really can no longer sing successfully. I’ll be able to sing again when the nodes are done doing their nodey thing, but right now it’s pretty awful. There will be no going back from this. Is this what I want? I was saddened to leave this Sam behind. But I took my measure, even as I was afraid to do so, afraid of what might be revealed to me. The truth is, I see myself as a man. It is crazy-making, to live in a body that doesn’t correspond with reality, and to be so conscious of it. It is taking me to Crazy Town – not a far ride, as my friend Jessica might add.

As I walked down the cramped, 70’s duplex stairwell, I felt the body I think I live in. It definitely does not have these breasts. To cease injecting the T, to return to something softer and hippier, something more middle-aged lady, makes me feel the crazy. Without a doubt, I am male in my mind.

How many people live like that, and just deal? Like being homosexual: how many gay people live an unexamined straight life and just suck it up? I’ve been sucking it up for over 4 decades, my friend. It’s a huge decision, and good for me to look it square in the face and challenge it. I do not care to do so. Actually, I would rather someone did the thinking for me, but that never seems to happen.

Here’s an idea someone “gave” to me, a thought of someone else’s that I will indeed appropriate and integrate, and that is that I am finally coming into my being. I am evolving into the Thing That Is Me. How awesome, how powerful is that!? I’m going to embrace this sea-change; it’s not a mal-de-mer, it’s a glorious ocean, it’s Patti Smith’s Sea of Possibility. For this new season of trannyness, I am championing the change. I am embracing my power. What a tremendous gift I’ve been given! As I tell myself, in my daily manfirmation: “I am a lucky, lucky man.”

*not a rascist word