Pressure And Time

I remember when my children would walk through my parents house. Invariably, they would see a picture of me when I was growing up. It can be kind of confusing to anyone. People have wondered what happened to the sister. They think there is a possibility that a child died. I once heard my youngest daughter say “that girl is my Daddy?”

There are times when I have a lot of trouble refuting any of that really. There are times when I am not ever really inclined to try. It is a child I have been trying my whole life to recapture. I often think about the subject of transgender youth. There was never a time in my life that I cannot remember wishing or wanting to make this a reality. However, actually being a transgender youth was definitely not in the cards for me. I read stories about youth that are able to go through high school as being transgender and then get surgeries on their 18th birthday.

While on some level, I do agree with being able to be as comfortable as you can be with who you are as quickly as possible. However, I am now who I am now. The situation as it stands now are that there are two children who I would not give up for anything. Had I been the transgender youth that I fully intended to be, then all of that would have been either radically different or more than likely never have happened. I can go back and summarily examine every stage of my life to see when it would have been a good time. Naturally at the time I always thought that it was a good time. Now, I do not see how it might have been a good idea before now. Then again, I never would have known the difference either.

I keep coming back in mind to Ozymandias of the Watchmen as well as Andy Defresne from the Shawshank Redemption. Andy had daily progress with the rock hammer. There is a part of me that does not care how long it all takes as long as I can be assured of daily progress and that one day it will happen. Red talks in the movie about how anything could be accomplished with pressure and time. Rather pressure, time, and progress. The trouble is that my body since those days of those pictures, the progress has been all in the wrong direction. I wanted to make progress in one direction. Then I simply wanted to not make progress the other way. Mostly what I wanted to do was stop the way things were going.

For all my wishing, I kept getting exactly the opposite results. I tend to hold to the belief that everything has a reason and everything happens for a reason. Somehow, my continual failure in this matter has managed to go on long enough to where I now have a support system in place in my own household for it. I am not sure how that happened other than knowing that everything has a reason. Today, I was in a good place. The talk last night really kind of lifted a weight off of my chest. It was enough progress for now. I could have gone on to make an announcement and put the blog on the face book. However, it all seemed like a bit much. Let the people that know now get used to it all before moving on. For some reason, I am less worried about money these days as well even though I do not really make all that much more. It just seems to come in more.

Part of me wants to only tell any body anything after they have no possibility at all of stopping anything. Like Ozymandias “I triggered it 35 minutes ago.” The next expansion would be letting three or four more people on my friends list know. One that I either feel like I could trust or at the very least would be supportive. People, as I have stated before, are not stupid. Somewhere down the line, they are starting to figure it out. They are starting to talk. Not to me obviously but people are starting to talk. I remember when dealing with the trans on my newsletter list a few years ago.

They honestly wanted me to forward them every email or chat log that I received on them. I sent them one of the more mild ones in order to gauge a reaction and they went completely insane about it. I felt uncomfortable and that they had no real right to even ask for such a thing no matter how much they might want it all. You cannot really do anything these days without people knowing and conversing about it. In some ways, I can almost feel the discussion. Just tell one person, a good friend. Swear them to all kinds of secrecy. They promise but you know that there is the out of the one person that they can trust. They are held a little less forcefully. So on and so forth and boom I have almost started a betting pool on when some high school classmates will end up being the quiet guy who snapped on CNN.

I know that I have a problem with bottling things up. I have also learned that that it is incredibly dangerous. The other night, I felt like not completing a shift because I was too worked up over whether or not to post to face book. I did not and do not have to do anything however the thought was weighing adversely on me. It was a pressure of my own making but it was a pressure none the less. Now, after last night, I feel happier and better than I have in a long time. Nothing has really changed but talking about it has really made me feel lighter. Feeling better about myself might get a bit addictive.

I have had a lot of pressure and time. Now I just need to add progress.

Till tomorrow.