Saturday, October 06, 2007
I lack for words for some of this so; I hope this all comes out as intended. This story has an up side so be patient
It’s been a year this month I finally got honest enough with myself to admit I belong in the CD/TG ranks. In some ways it seems like only a few days and sometimes it seems like a millennia.
I have a background that can only be described as incredibly dysfunctional full of violence and uneducated ignorance. I grew up with no real life positive role models (male or female), so I made them up as I went along you might say. I wound up adopting a way of life that appeared ordinary from the observers’ point of view, but it was all based on what I thought others expected. Up until fairly recently I really had no idea how to take care of myself.
I’ve been married 3 times and each failed for no good reason that I can see. Even after much discussion about it with friends and relatives and lots of hindsight, no good reasoning appears. (In fact this a common thread in life so far, so many negative things happening for no apparent reason).
Long story short. 3 - 4 years ago just about everything that could go wrong in a person’s life converged. No job, owing way too much money and a spouse who considered me only so much furniture. I tried to go into business for myself, but that too failed. The church I had been a member of became only so much an upscale social club that didn’t appear to have an interest in real spiritual issues. I describe this period as living in a black hole; where you can’t escape. I also had some nagging health issues that I could not even afford to address. That’s not everything but in short, times were worse than could ever have been imagined.
2 ½ years ago I left everything and rented a room at my brothers house for $25 a week, found a minimum wage job, and pretty much was waiting for the end to come. (BTW I don’t do suicide, tried it once, it should have worked but didn’t (again for no apparent reason) so I decided if God wants me dead he will have to do it himself.. )
In any case I was left free to re-evaluate my entire life, which I have been doing ever since.
One thing about growing up the way I did is that you never get validated. That must be hard for people who already have it and learned it early to comprehend. You never learn that you are supposed o validate yourself. When you grow up around people who don’t have it, they pass that LACK on to the next generation and nobody knows the difference because of its invisibility. Ignorance gets passed on as if it were a something instead of an absence of something. I hope that makes sense. I know there are a lot of people out there who suffer from the same thing and have no clue. Good news is I finally got to square one on this and have benefited tremendously.
All of this led to me being forced to be honest with myself. One of the issues that came up with was the CDTG thing. The surrounding issues are still in flux but my present take is that my inner self is not attached to gender. Gender has nothing to do with anything on this level. On the physical level I am classed as male and have been socialized as such. I have children to prove it. But I have never been comfortable with behaving as a male as far back as I can remember. But I did it because that is what everyone told me and expected me to do. (Hormones I’m sure have a tremendous skewing effect in this.) I have always had some female mannerisms and behavior that got me into trouble at times. There are some things you can’t go back and change and I am left today to figure out how to live peacefully with both male and female characteristics. Some of which I cant do anything about. As a consequence I “feel” I’m really not very good (though passable) as either. Psychologically I am right in the middle with no compelling reason to favor one over the other. I basically just float from one to the other to both to neither at apparent random. I have consciously chosen to be non sexual from a mechanical sexual intercourse point of view as I find I no longer have the emotional and spiritual energy to maintain that kind of relationship. This has actually been quite liberating but probably doesn’t appear so from a hetero or homosexual point of view. I can talk to people with zero innuendo. I look at women because I would like to be more like them in general, not because I secretly want to bed them.
Today I make more $ than I ever could doing a regular 9 to 5 job. I get to travel to a limited extent, no debt, and have a much better idea of who I am. I AM borderline TG. Will it go one way or the other? I don’t know. But I now don’t worry about it. (Well sometimes).
This forum has been magnificently beneficial in helping me to work out the gory details of what it means to be CD and or TG and to some extent put my sexuality into perspective. Why? I think mostly if one want to be honest, then one needs to associate with honest people who see no shame in exposing things to see what is real and what is not. I am indebted to everyone who ever posted here. The social stigma remains, but I feel much more able to handle it thanks to you all! I still have a long way to go. There are still a lot of social skills that need a lot of work. Hoping to find some resources here in Texas to put more distance between here and that black hole mentioned earlier. I was a failure by most social criteria but now I’m not.
I made an analogy to feeling like an old airplane that had been in storage for 50 years when first joining this forum. Well, all I can say is I’ve been dusted off and the engines are trying to run once again.
Thank you everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love,
Sylvia
Its been a year or so
Moderators: KimberlyS, CathyAnn
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Sylvia H
- Miss Emerald Goddess
- Posts: 201
- Joined: Thu Dec 07, 2006 4:21 am
- Location: Colorado
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CJ
- Miss Diamond Goddess
- Posts: 3562
- Joined: Sun Nov 02, 2003 11:12 pm
- Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Hi all,
Wow, Sylvia! That was an awesome post.
Old Chinese proverb: "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
There are so many things to address in a reply to your post that I don't know that I can cover them all. So I'll concentrate on the "the black hole."
Any person not living genuinely, i.e., in accordance with who they truly are or feel themselves to be on the inside, is at risk of being sucked into that black hole. I sometimes refer to this inauthentic life as "existentialist dissonance" (Sartre himself calls it living "in bad faith"). If what we do or how we act or behave strays too far from who we are, we stand little chance of leading a happy life. The corollary to this (and it's something some people actively try to ignore out of some misplaced moral high-handedness) is that if you're not happy, you cannot see to anyone else's happiness either. To stay on philosophical grounds for a moment longer, Socrates' enjoined us to always search for--search for, mind you, not necessarily find--the truth of who we are; his entire life and teachings can be resumed by the two words inscribed at the entrance to Apollo's temple at Delphi: gnothi seauton... "know thyself" (a generation or so later, Aristotle, a contemporary of Socrates' student, Plato, would proclaim that "the unexamined life is not worth living"). When we live in an unreflexive manner, in such a way that we let the shape of our lives be dictated strictly by external factors, we walk the edge of an abyss.
I've been in that black hole as well. It's a place where it seemed nothing mattered any longer; I'd done my best in this life and I had come to understand and to see that I was a total failure--a failure as child, a failure as an adult with adult preoccupations, a failure as a sexually healthy person, a failure as a man, a failure as a person who could possibly make a difference in anyone else's life. Failure, failure, failure. The draw of an untimely death was strong in my life; I, too, toyed with the mechanics of suicide, so to speak. Most days, I was but the shell of a person, walking around aimlessly... a zombie in a world of ghosts. But my attempts at suicide never succeeded (oh, the irony!... I was a failure as a suicide).
It's almost inevitable: when you hit a psychological or emotional or spiritual rock bottom, you have no place to look but up. When I looked up, and around, and within, I noticed, as if for the first time, all the beauty in the world. I saw so much beauty, in fact, that it hurt, it hurt like hell. But I was still lost, not knowing where to turn nor how to get back up to a standing position. Looking back now, I realized I committed "social suicide"; I abandoned my apartment, left my city, cut up all my ID cards, and hit the road with roughly $50 in my pocket. I travelled in the rough, slept under the stars, ate at soup kitchens for the homeless, landed under-the-table menial jobs, volunteered in inner city missions, with nothing attached to my identity except my given name. I was off the grid. I did this for about five months.
It was during this time (just over ten years ago) that I discovered who I was and what truly mattered to me, as an individual. Over the next two or three years, having discovered myself, having come to "know myself," I worked my way back up into the world (or, rather, moved sideways back into the world). I left the edge of the abyss, walked away from the black hole... with only an occasional glance backwards.
Today, I realize that each single life, my own definitely included, is inherently precious. I place a very high value on knowledge--not instrumental knowledge, but knowledge for its own sake--and I've come to see that each human life can teach us something about being human and that, conversely, our own life can be enriched and enhanced if we can but open ourselves to the experience of others. This cannot happen, however, without our being receptive and wide open to what other human beings, other forms of life, the world itself, sends our way. Hence my also putting a high value on the honest communication and fundamental exchanges that are the hallmark of true friendship (in this, I side again with Aristotle, for whom friendship was the highest virtue).
That you've managed to pull through your own dark period, Sylvia, with most of your marbles still firmly in your pocket is a testament to your resilience and thirst for a life of meaning. Pulling away from a black hole may not be possible (yet) in the world of astrophysics, but, as your own little bio here can attest, it certainly is possible in the world of the human spirit. Bravo, Sylvia, on becoming who you are and on your determination to follow your own bliss!
I'm glad you find that you've been helped in this by mining the rich veins of oh-so-very-human experience here, on this forum. It's been my case as well; this place has saved my life in the not-so-distant past and it has helped me strengthen my sense of worth as a person. There is knowledge to be gained here. And there is friendship to be had. Eventually, we find out that we truly are okay just the way we are and that there's no shame in wanting to be such.
Again, Sylvia, thanks for your wonderful post.
Love,
CJ
Wow, Sylvia! That was an awesome post.
Old Chinese proverb: "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
There are so many things to address in a reply to your post that I don't know that I can cover them all. So I'll concentrate on the "the black hole."
Any person not living genuinely, i.e., in accordance with who they truly are or feel themselves to be on the inside, is at risk of being sucked into that black hole. I sometimes refer to this inauthentic life as "existentialist dissonance" (Sartre himself calls it living "in bad faith"). If what we do or how we act or behave strays too far from who we are, we stand little chance of leading a happy life. The corollary to this (and it's something some people actively try to ignore out of some misplaced moral high-handedness) is that if you're not happy, you cannot see to anyone else's happiness either. To stay on philosophical grounds for a moment longer, Socrates' enjoined us to always search for--search for, mind you, not necessarily find--the truth of who we are; his entire life and teachings can be resumed by the two words inscribed at the entrance to Apollo's temple at Delphi: gnothi seauton... "know thyself" (a generation or so later, Aristotle, a contemporary of Socrates' student, Plato, would proclaim that "the unexamined life is not worth living"). When we live in an unreflexive manner, in such a way that we let the shape of our lives be dictated strictly by external factors, we walk the edge of an abyss.
I've been in that black hole as well. It's a place where it seemed nothing mattered any longer; I'd done my best in this life and I had come to understand and to see that I was a total failure--a failure as child, a failure as an adult with adult preoccupations, a failure as a sexually healthy person, a failure as a man, a failure as a person who could possibly make a difference in anyone else's life. Failure, failure, failure. The draw of an untimely death was strong in my life; I, too, toyed with the mechanics of suicide, so to speak. Most days, I was but the shell of a person, walking around aimlessly... a zombie in a world of ghosts. But my attempts at suicide never succeeded (oh, the irony!... I was a failure as a suicide).
It's almost inevitable: when you hit a psychological or emotional or spiritual rock bottom, you have no place to look but up. When I looked up, and around, and within, I noticed, as if for the first time, all the beauty in the world. I saw so much beauty, in fact, that it hurt, it hurt like hell. But I was still lost, not knowing where to turn nor how to get back up to a standing position. Looking back now, I realized I committed "social suicide"; I abandoned my apartment, left my city, cut up all my ID cards, and hit the road with roughly $50 in my pocket. I travelled in the rough, slept under the stars, ate at soup kitchens for the homeless, landed under-the-table menial jobs, volunteered in inner city missions, with nothing attached to my identity except my given name. I was off the grid. I did this for about five months.
It was during this time (just over ten years ago) that I discovered who I was and what truly mattered to me, as an individual. Over the next two or three years, having discovered myself, having come to "know myself," I worked my way back up into the world (or, rather, moved sideways back into the world). I left the edge of the abyss, walked away from the black hole... with only an occasional glance backwards.
Today, I realize that each single life, my own definitely included, is inherently precious. I place a very high value on knowledge--not instrumental knowledge, but knowledge for its own sake--and I've come to see that each human life can teach us something about being human and that, conversely, our own life can be enriched and enhanced if we can but open ourselves to the experience of others. This cannot happen, however, without our being receptive and wide open to what other human beings, other forms of life, the world itself, sends our way. Hence my also putting a high value on the honest communication and fundamental exchanges that are the hallmark of true friendship (in this, I side again with Aristotle, for whom friendship was the highest virtue).
That you've managed to pull through your own dark period, Sylvia, with most of your marbles still firmly in your pocket is a testament to your resilience and thirst for a life of meaning. Pulling away from a black hole may not be possible (yet) in the world of astrophysics, but, as your own little bio here can attest, it certainly is possible in the world of the human spirit. Bravo, Sylvia, on becoming who you are and on your determination to follow your own bliss!
I'm glad you find that you've been helped in this by mining the rich veins of oh-so-very-human experience here, on this forum. It's been my case as well; this place has saved my life in the not-so-distant past and it has helped me strengthen my sense of worth as a person. There is knowledge to be gained here. And there is friendship to be had. Eventually, we find out that we truly are okay just the way we are and that there's no shame in wanting to be such.
Again, Sylvia, thanks for your wonderful post.
Love,
CJ
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Jennifer M
- Miss Platinum Goddess
- Posts: 361
- Joined: Thu Jun 14, 2007 9:04 pm
- Location: Upstate New York
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Georgia(SO)
- Miss Platinum Goddess
- Posts: 416
- Joined: Fri Mar 25, 2005 8:58 am
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KimberlyS
- Site Administrator
- Posts: 3341
- Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2004 4:01 pm
- Location: North Central USA, SD
Sylvia, I am glad you were able to find the route up out of the black hole. Bravo. As out of the black hole is a much better place to live.
It still marvels how much many of our lives have been so much the same. Just change the details, but the core story line is the same. It is so great to hear how others have made it through. Thank you for posting yours.
KimberlyS-CD
joe in a skirt
It still marvels how much many of our lives have been so much the same. Just change the details, but the core story line is the same. It is so great to hear how others have made it through. Thank you for posting yours.
KimberlyS-CD
joe in a skirt
Site Administrator
I am a physically male person that likes to wear feminine clothes at times.
Just trying keep a balance for my self along with keeping my wife and kids in mind.
I am a physically male person that likes to wear feminine clothes at times.
Just trying keep a balance for my self along with keeping my wife and kids in mind.
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Anita
- Miss Diamond Goddess
- Posts: 3068
- Joined: Mon Jan 05, 2004 2:55 pm
- Location: Burlingame, CA (San Francisco Bay area)
Hi sylvia--
That was a powerful entry. I don't have time to respond to it at any length, but it resonated with me in many ways. The liberation from sexual dealings has been going on for some time with me, but now that I'm on testosterone blockers, sex is very much on the back burner. I still look at women with appreciation, and a fondness of memory, but that's about as far as it goes. It is not a distressing thing at all for me. It's very much like reducing a need for food; fasting can be very liberating.
That was a powerful entry. I don't have time to respond to it at any length, but it resonated with me in many ways. The liberation from sexual dealings has been going on for some time with me, but now that I'm on testosterone blockers, sex is very much on the back burner. I still look at women with appreciation, and a fondness of memory, but that's about as far as it goes. It is not a distressing thing at all for me. It's very much like reducing a need for food; fasting can be very liberating.
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Virginia
- Goddess of the Universe
- Posts: 5543
- Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2004 4:06 pm
- Location: Strange Magic Hill
Awesome! I know of no other way to describe it! Regardless of the trials and tribulations faced you (and CJ) are here, here amongst us and we are so blessed! The strength that lies within you two and those of our sisters who are here and have struggled with life and are still here it takes an inner strength that hopefully we can learn to accept and appreciate and as CJ eludes to "know yourself!" Know that you are strong, you have endured, NO it may not be over, but also know that you have that inner strength that you can conquer, adapt and overcome.
I have to say this to my sister, CJ! Honey, I knew, I knew in my heart of hearts that your guidance here had to --- it just had to come from more than "book learnin!" You have offered far to much insight to not have actually lived the "been there done that!" I love you and thanks for sharing a little more of yourself with us.
Sylvia, you can do this, for the "gift" we have, understanding it, accepting it and of me, sharing it can make all the difference. I do not have to have on a skirt and make-up to have Virginia "front and center" in my life, well for me, she just takes front and center most anytime she wants, but she doesn't have to have the physical aspects related to her gender to make herself known. She is a woman, a woman that is different from her male alter-ego. She is gentle, caring, loving, concerned, and I think that if you let Sylvia participate in your life, you will find the same results, a gentle, loving, caring woman that probably does not need to be "dressed" to make a difference in your life and the lives that she touches.
Women are such wondrous creatures. Those of us who are blessed with even some of the intricacies that make up the nurturing aspect of females know we have a "gift" and we feel we should share it ---- it comes back to us 10 fold!
Sylvia, fly honey, fly!!!!!!!!!
Love you,
Virginia
I have to say this to my sister, CJ! Honey, I knew, I knew in my heart of hearts that your guidance here had to --- it just had to come from more than "book learnin!" You have offered far to much insight to not have actually lived the "been there done that!" I love you and thanks for sharing a little more of yourself with us.
Sylvia, you can do this, for the "gift" we have, understanding it, accepting it and of me, sharing it can make all the difference. I do not have to have on a skirt and make-up to have Virginia "front and center" in my life, well for me, she just takes front and center most anytime she wants, but she doesn't have to have the physical aspects related to her gender to make herself known. She is a woman, a woman that is different from her male alter-ego. She is gentle, caring, loving, concerned, and I think that if you let Sylvia participate in your life, you will find the same results, a gentle, loving, caring woman that probably does not need to be "dressed" to make a difference in your life and the lives that she touches.
Women are such wondrous creatures. Those of us who are blessed with even some of the intricacies that make up the nurturing aspect of females know we have a "gift" and we feel we should share it ---- it comes back to us 10 fold!
Sylvia, fly honey, fly!!!!!!!!!
Love you,
Virginia
First star to the right, then straight on 'till mornin!
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Penni SO
- Miss Emerald Goddess
- Posts: 169
- Joined: Mon Sep 04, 2006 10:10 pm
- Location: Australia
Hi ya Sylvia,I am in awe of you,your courage to keep going ,your courage to find your inner identity.
Sadly we are the product of our childhood and our experiences from an early age often dictate how we define who we are.
This world we live in places so much emphasis on success...and that success is to have and to have lots of..be it money,houses,cars,clothes etc etc...but all this does not make the person...it simply tells me that this person needs all these things to prove themselves to society..hey look at me.
You have found success...you my goddess have never been a failure,never as a child,a Father,a Husband...we all do the best we can...sometimes we do get sucked into that black hole...some will not come out of it...and this breaks my heart,because all that was needed was perhaps just one person to say...you'll be right mate,let me share your load for a while until you get back on your feet...to show you that you are worth it.
You have been in that depth of despair and you have found your worth and self esteem....you can only grow and flourish from here.
Our life is a journey to the day we die ,we will constantly be learning about new wonderous things about ourselves...we will evolve stronger,more loving,more feeling,it is a purpose in life...to find the roots of you,what you are all about how you tick this way and tock the other.
You my Goddess I could feel it when I read your post you have strength and I know that you know no-one ever is a failure..
Remember we have ourselves to answer to..that is all,we need to love and respect ourself,we need not seek approval...just guideance when we need it,love when we feel it....
You are one special person and I thankyou.
HUgs Penny
Supporting wife of Transexual partner
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Tekla
- Permanently Banned
- Posts: 243
- Joined: Wed Jun 27, 2007 4:21 pm
- Location: San Fran Bay Area
You know, by the time you get to be our age (Sylvia, CJ, and me) I'm not sure I would trust anyone who hadn't been through that kind of horrible year or two in their life. In the end, nothing worthwhile ever seems to come easy, and people who have not seen hard times are people who have not yet been tested. If they haven't been through any of that, how do you know how they are going to respond to the pressure? Tested is often what it takes to be truly tempered.
How do you really respond when things disintegrate?
And, really no different from any other group, bitter and/or extremely painful divorces and separations are not rare. Many of us have had that day come in our life where "You woke up one morning and everything you had was gone." Or we have come to a point where a lot - or perhaps even everything - of what you have accomplished no longer makes you happy, or brings you fulfillment. Still other of us came to find, in the words of Led Zeppelin, "there are two paths you can go down, and there's still time to change the road your on." Still, that is not to say that such change is not hard. After all, it only stands to reason that life changing events will change your life - and that is never easy. On top of all those things, like the icing on a cake is the reality that things don't always go the way we want, or expected them too. Nothing (no one) is perfect after all.
I'm lucky to have been able to work in a lot of great things in my life. As is most of life, they were not mine alone, but rather found in that which we share as people, be it the making of art (or, at least, darn good entertainment), working with great ideas, having very good teachers and students, creating meaningful political change, working hard with an excellent crew, or just having fun with a great bunch of friends.
Of course there are days, then there are days between. Things that didn't go right, or went totally wrong. Things that were just plain wrong. Sorrow to match the joy, weakness to match the strength, pain to match the happiness, failure to match the accomplishment, and that is the fullness of our life. I've had some low points that can counter any of the up moments I've had. Some lasted days, once it lasted a few years. In contrast to the above stuff, these moments are always alone. A path that each of us can walk on only for ourselves, only by ourselves.
I've been writing about the blues for another board, and I have been thinking about how powerful that link is between an old African-American farm hand down in the pre-war South and ourselves in the modern age that we can still relate all of that to our lives today. That many of us have a sure and certain knowledge of the very hard times in our own lives to know - to feel - what Robert Johnson was saying when he sang: "There are stones in my passway, and the road sure is dark tonight."
I've always been glad that I never knew the future. I'm afraid I would have rushed through too much to get to those high points, and done stupid stuff to avoid the low ones. No premonition ever showed me how dark those night would get, or how many stones are put out in you path at such a time - how much stumbling in the dark can become its own path.
And no amount of wonder will ever get you close to the lessons you learn in such times. I'm not sure what its worth to find out that if you have not eaten in days its not the rich guy who is going to share with you, its the other guy who also hasn't eaten in two days. But I do know that it taught me to trust. That sometimes you just have to trust - be it in others, or a better future, or just dumb luck - and that trust will pull you through. That, and like the good times, nothing lasts forever.
From time to time I'm in situations with other people who are in the midst of having 'one of the biggest days/nights of their lives.' To me, its just another night. And I can help share that calm and that certainty with them to a degree. And something of all those experiences comes through when I tell them to: "Chill. It's going to be fine. We would not let this happen any other way." - and they wind up believing me. So much confidence is a bluster, a bravado that only amps things up even more - when its real, its very calm, very sure and very contagious. And, in turn they share that joy, that excitement and that moment with me. A most fair trade off.
And when you crawl from that wreckage, get up, and find someway to get on with it than that becomes a powerful source of self-inspiration in our own lives. And it also is one hell of a testimonial to others also. Besides, who knows what's coming next? Its been one hell of a ride so far.
I do know this however. The truer you can be to yourself, the more you represent yourself as exactly what you really am, then the better your life is, in good times and bad ones. To the degree that you are honest with yourself, and with others, the more options along those line open up to you. Turns out, that if you give people the option to like the real you, some of them just might take you up on it. What changed me about sex was the realization that no everyone was going to want to play the same way I did. Perhaps only 10% or less. Once I knew that, and understood how to find that, I no longer had to bother the other 90% with any of that (or play a lot of courtship/dating games with the 10% who did) and that has been good.
Its weird what saved me in the times I needed a bit of salvation. And in the most profound time, it was CD that provided a safe and fun space in my life that helped me get through. It was something that brought me out, got me out, got me dancing, meeting people, doing things. Had I not had that at that exact moment in my life - then I might have slipped on down. But the CD was a very powerful deal during those years, and gave me some structure where I needed it, regular events to look forward to, and some people to talk to who had a lot in common with me. I met a whole new range of people through these things, so much so that my life coming out of that time has been radically different from what went on before. And that is cool.
Perhaps I just needed to go through all of that. That I had to lose everything to find out what mattered most - and it wasn't stuff. That I had to have those nights - sleeping hungry under the stars in a major US city with a cardboard blanket to know that I can come through that - and it makes a whole lot of other stuff seem much less scary. That if I didn't have all the time and none of the money I would not have needed to go to the club so early that I didn't have to pay a cover charge, that being there that early I got involved in doing some stuff, that it was a good way to meet people and participate. That if I had the money I once did, I would have been at Macy's and not Goodwill, and would not have met my good CD buddy shopping the second-hand racks. That had I not been so down&out that people would not have had to reach out to me, and make my life better for them being there and taking the effort.
We have our issues with gender and that is kind of unique to us, but we also have issues with sex (not unique with anyone), with jobs, kids, wives, money, relatives (again, not unique) and all that other stuff. The details of the stories vary, but the bottom line message is still the same. It can get better (to the degree that we work at it). Some have to re-evaluate their childhood, others need to sort out the myths of adulthood, and I don't think either happens in a vacuum. You almost need to be be down so god damned long that it looks like up in order to be able to break that stuff down and sort it out.
And, any learning, when taken to heart is good. Books are among the most powerful tools that men and women have ever invented, there is a reason they get burned by people like Hitler. They are dangerous, and can reach out over time and space and shake us to the root. And what is this forum (or indeed any internet forum) but a book, with comments, that we all share in reading and writing? I've learned a lot from forums, from reading what other people think, have done, and the rest. Sometimes its a good suggestion, other times its bad example to avoid - both are good bits of knowledge to have and to use.
How do you really respond when things disintegrate?
And, really no different from any other group, bitter and/or extremely painful divorces and separations are not rare. Many of us have had that day come in our life where "You woke up one morning and everything you had was gone." Or we have come to a point where a lot - or perhaps even everything - of what you have accomplished no longer makes you happy, or brings you fulfillment. Still other of us came to find, in the words of Led Zeppelin, "there are two paths you can go down, and there's still time to change the road your on." Still, that is not to say that such change is not hard. After all, it only stands to reason that life changing events will change your life - and that is never easy. On top of all those things, like the icing on a cake is the reality that things don't always go the way we want, or expected them too. Nothing (no one) is perfect after all.
I'm lucky to have been able to work in a lot of great things in my life. As is most of life, they were not mine alone, but rather found in that which we share as people, be it the making of art (or, at least, darn good entertainment), working with great ideas, having very good teachers and students, creating meaningful political change, working hard with an excellent crew, or just having fun with a great bunch of friends.
Of course there are days, then there are days between. Things that didn't go right, or went totally wrong. Things that were just plain wrong. Sorrow to match the joy, weakness to match the strength, pain to match the happiness, failure to match the accomplishment, and that is the fullness of our life. I've had some low points that can counter any of the up moments I've had. Some lasted days, once it lasted a few years. In contrast to the above stuff, these moments are always alone. A path that each of us can walk on only for ourselves, only by ourselves.
I've been writing about the blues for another board, and I have been thinking about how powerful that link is between an old African-American farm hand down in the pre-war South and ourselves in the modern age that we can still relate all of that to our lives today. That many of us have a sure and certain knowledge of the very hard times in our own lives to know - to feel - what Robert Johnson was saying when he sang: "There are stones in my passway, and the road sure is dark tonight."
I've always been glad that I never knew the future. I'm afraid I would have rushed through too much to get to those high points, and done stupid stuff to avoid the low ones. No premonition ever showed me how dark those night would get, or how many stones are put out in you path at such a time - how much stumbling in the dark can become its own path.
And no amount of wonder will ever get you close to the lessons you learn in such times. I'm not sure what its worth to find out that if you have not eaten in days its not the rich guy who is going to share with you, its the other guy who also hasn't eaten in two days. But I do know that it taught me to trust. That sometimes you just have to trust - be it in others, or a better future, or just dumb luck - and that trust will pull you through. That, and like the good times, nothing lasts forever.
From time to time I'm in situations with other people who are in the midst of having 'one of the biggest days/nights of their lives.' To me, its just another night. And I can help share that calm and that certainty with them to a degree. And something of all those experiences comes through when I tell them to: "Chill. It's going to be fine. We would not let this happen any other way." - and they wind up believing me. So much confidence is a bluster, a bravado that only amps things up even more - when its real, its very calm, very sure and very contagious. And, in turn they share that joy, that excitement and that moment with me. A most fair trade off.
And when you crawl from that wreckage, get up, and find someway to get on with it than that becomes a powerful source of self-inspiration in our own lives. And it also is one hell of a testimonial to others also. Besides, who knows what's coming next? Its been one hell of a ride so far.
I do know this however. The truer you can be to yourself, the more you represent yourself as exactly what you really am, then the better your life is, in good times and bad ones. To the degree that you are honest with yourself, and with others, the more options along those line open up to you. Turns out, that if you give people the option to like the real you, some of them just might take you up on it. What changed me about sex was the realization that no everyone was going to want to play the same way I did. Perhaps only 10% or less. Once I knew that, and understood how to find that, I no longer had to bother the other 90% with any of that (or play a lot of courtship/dating games with the 10% who did) and that has been good.
Its weird what saved me in the times I needed a bit of salvation. And in the most profound time, it was CD that provided a safe and fun space in my life that helped me get through. It was something that brought me out, got me out, got me dancing, meeting people, doing things. Had I not had that at that exact moment in my life - then I might have slipped on down. But the CD was a very powerful deal during those years, and gave me some structure where I needed it, regular events to look forward to, and some people to talk to who had a lot in common with me. I met a whole new range of people through these things, so much so that my life coming out of that time has been radically different from what went on before. And that is cool.
Perhaps I just needed to go through all of that. That I had to lose everything to find out what mattered most - and it wasn't stuff. That I had to have those nights - sleeping hungry under the stars in a major US city with a cardboard blanket to know that I can come through that - and it makes a whole lot of other stuff seem much less scary. That if I didn't have all the time and none of the money I would not have needed to go to the club so early that I didn't have to pay a cover charge, that being there that early I got involved in doing some stuff, that it was a good way to meet people and participate. That if I had the money I once did, I would have been at Macy's and not Goodwill, and would not have met my good CD buddy shopping the second-hand racks. That had I not been so down&out that people would not have had to reach out to me, and make my life better for them being there and taking the effort.
We have our issues with gender and that is kind of unique to us, but we also have issues with sex (not unique with anyone), with jobs, kids, wives, money, relatives (again, not unique) and all that other stuff. The details of the stories vary, but the bottom line message is still the same. It can get better (to the degree that we work at it). Some have to re-evaluate their childhood, others need to sort out the myths of adulthood, and I don't think either happens in a vacuum. You almost need to be be down so god damned long that it looks like up in order to be able to break that stuff down and sort it out.
And, any learning, when taken to heart is good. Books are among the most powerful tools that men and women have ever invented, there is a reason they get burned by people like Hitler. They are dangerous, and can reach out over time and space and shake us to the root. And what is this forum (or indeed any internet forum) but a book, with comments, that we all share in reading and writing? I've learned a lot from forums, from reading what other people think, have done, and the rest. Sometimes its a good suggestion, other times its bad example to avoid - both are good bits of knowledge to have and to use.
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Lucy Michelle
- Miss Golden Goddess
- Posts: 728
- Joined: Tue Feb 27, 2007 9:46 pm
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Stephanie W
- Miss Golden Goddess
- Posts: 905
- Joined: Mon Sep 26, 2005 9:57 pm
- Location: Ontario, Canada
Sylvia
Thank you for sharing your amazing story. You really are an inspiration to all of us. Thank you too CJ. Your eloquence at describing your own similar experiences, I'm sure, resonate with many of our sisters here.
Sylvia, with so many failures in life, I wonder if you ever look back and take pride in one of them. That of your failure to extricate yourself from this precious life we have. Given your emergence from all the despair and the courage you found to walk away from that black hole, I'm so happy to see you 'revving up those engines' again. That speaks not only to your resilience at overcoming the obstacles that life throws at us sometimes, but also taking comfort in the knowledge that the wisdom and wonderful support of our sisters here can make a difference.
Stephanie
Thank you for sharing your amazing story. You really are an inspiration to all of us. Thank you too CJ. Your eloquence at describing your own similar experiences, I'm sure, resonate with many of our sisters here.
Sylvia, with so many failures in life, I wonder if you ever look back and take pride in one of them. That of your failure to extricate yourself from this precious life we have. Given your emergence from all the despair and the courage you found to walk away from that black hole, I'm so happy to see you 'revving up those engines' again. That speaks not only to your resilience at overcoming the obstacles that life throws at us sometimes, but also taking comfort in the knowledge that the wisdom and wonderful support of our sisters here can make a difference.
Stephanie
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Sylvia H
- Miss Emerald Goddess
- Posts: 201
- Joined: Thu Dec 07, 2006 4:21 am
- Location: Colorado
Wow!
I am absolutely speechless.
I wanted to convey my appreciation to everyone and your responses are overwhelming. I haven't had a good cry for a while, but its ok, its the good kind.
CJ- Your compassion is very powerful. It gave me goosebumps.Virginia said it right.
One if not the main point of posting that message was a culmination of a lot of things going on in this brain recently. I didn't believe it a year ago, but there IS light at the end of the tunnel. I just had to give a little history to put it into context. It was not easy to write. If I can say anything to those who are in a "black hole" or feel one getting close, there IS a way out!!! You have to hang in there and never say die!
It is quite evident there are many here who can attest to that with some authority. Quite an illustration of loving your neighbor as yourself.
You all are the best!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love,
Sylvia
I am absolutely speechless.
I wanted to convey my appreciation to everyone and your responses are overwhelming. I haven't had a good cry for a while, but its ok, its the good kind.
CJ- Your compassion is very powerful. It gave me goosebumps.Virginia said it right.
One if not the main point of posting that message was a culmination of a lot of things going on in this brain recently. I didn't believe it a year ago, but there IS light at the end of the tunnel. I just had to give a little history to put it into context. It was not easy to write. If I can say anything to those who are in a "black hole" or feel one getting close, there IS a way out!!! You have to hang in there and never say die!
It is quite evident there are many here who can attest to that with some authority. Quite an illustration of loving your neighbor as yourself.
You all are the best!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love,
Sylvia
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Tekla
- Permanently Banned
- Posts: 243
- Joined: Wed Jun 27, 2007 4:21 pm
- Location: San Fran Bay Area
“I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me.” -- Hunter S. Thompson
Everyone needs to find out what works for them. Might be Thompson's list, or a revision of it. Whatever, its your life, you make the choices. Some are good, some are bad, and it depends on the person, not the choice more often than not.
And I try not to concentrate on the bad moments, those low points, we all (at least those who have been there - and if that is not you yet, have hope, it still might happen, and as bad as that is, the worst deal is to go through life without it - for those people know the cost of everything, and the value of nothing - something that is all to easy to see in the posts where everything is a bit to easy to be real) seem to know all too well what they are, about being hungry, about having "no home, no place to pillow my head" about having less than nothing and fighting to keep that. All of that is of a similar cloth. It don't make a whole lot of difference if your canopy is the stars or the lights from a hundred skyscrapers with people burning the midnight oil for the next set of the never ending reports. Either way, you wake up hungry - and cold.
What is cool, what is hip, what is real - is what got us out of that place, not what put us there. Its the crawling out - not the falling in - that defines us as persons. We are about the survival, not the tragedy. At least I am. I'm not going to be defined by what got to me, but rather by what I got over, by what I got through, by what I've climbed out of, and not the hole that I fell into.
Tragically - or not - there is more than one black hole in each of our lives, for those of us who have been through one or two, at least we have some safe knowledge that they will not all hit at once. And I've seen that happen. One abuse on top of the other till the abuse stack is so huge that it takes you down with it.
That's why I'm so against having anyone on my crew who is of age and has not had all this stuff fall out of the sky on them. If not then, then when? Not on my shift thank you.
Like Jethro Tull said, "I may make you feel, but I can't make you think." And, as he goes on: "your sperm's in the gutter, your love's in the sink." So, are you, thick as a brick? Do you have what your contemporaries have? I have no time for fifty year old guys who don't have kids (and grandkids) to worry about. If you were too busy to have kids, guess what??? I'm too busy to take care for you now. Hell, I'm too busy to care about you now. You should have done that long ago. Not my problem anymore.
I don't need any other old person' s recipe for success, mostly cropped second-hand from people who were stealing it third-hand to begin with. I want your success, your life, your time, your kids, all that. Real life, real stuff, real deals. In the end, its the only thing that matters, and the big house, the big bank account, they ain't nothing compared to family, to friends, to children, to good work done.
And that is what is missing in so many TG testimonials I've read on the web. I get how hard their life is - and hey, that much I know. But how did you get over on it? Get on with it? Get through it? That is what interests me.
Everyone needs to find out what works for them. Might be Thompson's list, or a revision of it. Whatever, its your life, you make the choices. Some are good, some are bad, and it depends on the person, not the choice more often than not.
And I try not to concentrate on the bad moments, those low points, we all (at least those who have been there - and if that is not you yet, have hope, it still might happen, and as bad as that is, the worst deal is to go through life without it - for those people know the cost of everything, and the value of nothing - something that is all to easy to see in the posts where everything is a bit to easy to be real) seem to know all too well what they are, about being hungry, about having "no home, no place to pillow my head" about having less than nothing and fighting to keep that. All of that is of a similar cloth. It don't make a whole lot of difference if your canopy is the stars or the lights from a hundred skyscrapers with people burning the midnight oil for the next set of the never ending reports. Either way, you wake up hungry - and cold.
What is cool, what is hip, what is real - is what got us out of that place, not what put us there. Its the crawling out - not the falling in - that defines us as persons. We are about the survival, not the tragedy. At least I am. I'm not going to be defined by what got to me, but rather by what I got over, by what I got through, by what I've climbed out of, and not the hole that I fell into.
Tragically - or not - there is more than one black hole in each of our lives, for those of us who have been through one or two, at least we have some safe knowledge that they will not all hit at once. And I've seen that happen. One abuse on top of the other till the abuse stack is so huge that it takes you down with it.
That's why I'm so against having anyone on my crew who is of age and has not had all this stuff fall out of the sky on them. If not then, then when? Not on my shift thank you.
Like Jethro Tull said, "I may make you feel, but I can't make you think." And, as he goes on: "your sperm's in the gutter, your love's in the sink." So, are you, thick as a brick? Do you have what your contemporaries have? I have no time for fifty year old guys who don't have kids (and grandkids) to worry about. If you were too busy to have kids, guess what??? I'm too busy to take care for you now. Hell, I'm too busy to care about you now. You should have done that long ago. Not my problem anymore.
I don't need any other old person' s recipe for success, mostly cropped second-hand from people who were stealing it third-hand to begin with. I want your success, your life, your time, your kids, all that. Real life, real stuff, real deals. In the end, its the only thing that matters, and the big house, the big bank account, they ain't nothing compared to family, to friends, to children, to good work done.
And that is what is missing in so many TG testimonials I've read on the web. I get how hard their life is - and hey, that much I know. But how did you get over on it? Get on with it? Get through it? That is what interests me.
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Absaroka
- Miss Diamond Goddess
- Posts: 3344
- Joined: Fri Feb 04, 2005 8:30 am
Sylvia that was a wonderful post. I don't have time right now to say too much about it and also I'm not sure much needs to be said since you expressed everything so well anyway.
I'm glad things seem to be working out. I agree with Tekla that an awful lot of people eventually go through some sort of similar crisis-perhaps without some of the same outward sign but wrenching nonetheless.
I'm glad the forums were of help to you. To me that is what is best and most important about these forums.
Absaroka
I'm glad things seem to be working out. I agree with Tekla that an awful lot of people eventually go through some sort of similar crisis-perhaps without some of the same outward sign but wrenching nonetheless.
I'm glad the forums were of help to you. To me that is what is best and most important about these forums.
Absaroka
everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon