Brooks Was Here

You never want to have a day at work like I had today. The odd part is that there was a lot of ups and downs to it. The actual work today was not all that bad. It was just that there was an email in the queue from the site director. To keep in line with the over all theme, a man I will call ‘Brooks’ passed away suddenly. There are actually times when news like this does not bother you on anything more than a “Its just sad to see a human life gone level.” ‘Brooks’ was a bit different and bit more. The email said that he had been working there for a long time. That did not really tell the story.

‘Brooks’ had been there long enough to be able to choose his own schedule regardless of what schedules were being offered. For those keeping track at home, that is over ten years. ‘ Brooks’ was almost an old world character and a gentleman. He had slicked back greasy hair and a big bushy beard. He wore rainbow suspenders and a belt. For the record, ‘Brooks’ was a huge mass of a man. He was getting on up in years and walked with a cane. The cane kind of added to the overall effect.

‘Brooks’ was on my team last year. He sat a couple rows behind me. He always had a booming voice and very infectious laugh. He wore glasses that could more accurately be called spectacles. The last time I really talked to ‘Brooks’ was earlier this year. We were both in an advanced troubleshooting course together. There was another older black woman in that training who walked with a cane as well. On the last day of training, we all pooled our food on a training table and the three of us talked and had a good time. ‘Brooks’ took forever to walk. I walked with him out of the building. The journey seemed almost impossibly slow and he gabbed the whole way. ‘Brooks’ was one of the people who you just felt better about your self after you spent time with him. He was always entertaining and part of you felt like you were in line for a merit badge.

The older black woman never forgot that I was hungry. Every day after that, she would pass by my pod and give me leftovers from her meal. When she did not have leftovers, she would just give me money. One day she stopped stopping by. I heard she lost her job. Honestly, with all of her medical conditions, I was glad that she was not dead. Unfortunately, ‘Brooks’ has now passed on. I read the email over and over. It talked of his devotion to the company. It talked of how he will be missed. I read the attachment on dealing with grief. The attachment cleared up a lot of things for me. It said that in grief it was important to maintain a routine and not make to many changes.

‘Brooks’ is now not only an inspiration but some one who reminds me of fictional characters. I think of Brooks from the Shawshank Redemption who had become institutionalized by the jail. I think of the old horse in Animal Farm. He was a good worker. He gave everything he had to the company. He will be remembered fondly by all who knew him in the company that he would never leave. There was a quiet dignity to ‘Brooks’ that you had to admire. I loved the guy. I respect him and I will miss the hell out of him. His dignity is not a dignity I want. It is a dignity that I think we need more of. He found his company and stayed with them through thick and fine. He was a fine man.

I think a lot about The Shawshank Redemption. For the first real time the most trendy phrase in that movie has hit me square in the face. It took ‘Brooks’ passing to do it for me.

‘Get busy living or get busy dyin’.

One of the few other trans I knew well in person used to say it all the time. Somehow, coming from them, it just seemed really selfish. Of course, I think that they missed the point of much of movie other than that you can really have everything that you want. They lacked a lot of patience. We all have our failings. They had not earned ‘get busy living, or get busy dying.’ It was not written anywhere in the building but it was everywhere that I looked today,

‘Brooks was here.’

Part of me wanted my legacy to be that I walked away one day. So that the writing underneath it would read ‘so was Red.’ I’m going to miss ‘Brooks,’ but I am always going to keep the things that his life and eath taught me. I am starting to think that it really does not make sense to live any other way than simply the only way that makes sense to you.

It is perhaps poignant that my team at work celebrated a pot luck today. One of our members is moving on to a different job in the company. There was a ton of food. There was a great cake. It was all really sweet. I did not know where to go with my emotions. I was happy for the woman moving on. She had gotten together with our manager after tell our manager that she wanted to leave. They found a plan and a place in the company for her. I saw the lesson in that one as well. I started to think that one day they might even find a place in the company for the real me. I just have to put my numbers in line before I can feel comfortable asking.

Today, I saw an ending.

Today, I saw a beginning.

Today, I got a hint of the bread crumbs on the path. I had to find a place during my lunch break where no one would see me to cry.

‘Get busy living or get busy dying.’

I think I am starting to get it now.

Till tomorrow.

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.

The Sherryshank Redemption

“I’m not a comic book villain. Do you seriously believe that I would explain my masterstroke to you if there remained the slightest possibility you could effect its outcome. I triggered it 35 minutes ago.”
– Ozymandias. The Watchmen

I have mentioned before the one trans that I knew (who in my opinion really took about things the wrong way, as if there was a right one I guess), but the part that always got me was that their favorite movie was The Shawshank Redemption in that they seemed to be such a poor Andy Dufrense. They announced, sent out letters, and immediately went about transitioning at work. I don’t think that they quite had the patience of Andy’s pressure and time. No real love for geology. Pressure and time and progress.

When I was a freshman in high school, I went to band camp and had a nearly religious experience. The band was a close knit group (get it out of your systems ‘this one time at band camp…’) . They told me that when I got to high school, I did not need to worry. They were there for me. They were the only real friends and family I would ever need once I got there. These were my friends. This was my world. I was finally in a place where I was accepted. I believed them. While I was in the band, I would never need anyone else. I did not read the fine print on that statement as much as I should have.

“While I was in band…” I made the marching band but I was not a good enough player to make the symphonic band. I was still in the band but I was put in sort of a band study hall. I went into a practice room every day and practiced… alone. Symphonic band was in the spring. I went to that room and practiced alone every day. It was kind of a microcosm of my freshman year out side of the practice room as well. I was alone. I was not really in the band, so my ‘family’ kind of drifted away. In the euphoria of marching band, I had not bothered to meet any new people. I had not bothered to make any new friends. So, I was really alone that semester. I was alone… and I learned a hard lesson that I would take with me for the rest of my life.

I had given one group the power to take every thing away from me. Why? Because I had given them that power. I had given them everything. Exclusion from the group meant exclusion from everything. Ultimately, the ostracization was my own fault because I had given them the power to do that. Never again would I give any group everything. Never again was I not going to have at least one other group that would really know nothing of at least one other group that I was a part of.

When I wrote my first book (and there have been a few) I assumed that my friends and family would be so happy for me getting published that they would constitute the core of the people buying the book. However, they generally either expected a free copy because they ‘knew the author’ or they did read it and hated it because it was not whatever they thought that I should write. I was despondent over my ‘failure.’ That was until I started to get fan letters from people that had read my book and loved it. These were people that did not know me. These were people that connect with the work. I learned another very important lesson. Your friends and family are your friends and family. Your audience is your audience. Your audience will seek out your work. Your friends and family may happen to be your audience but that would only be kind of a happy medium.

So to review.
Never let one group have so much power over your life that their exclusion would cut off all of your social ties. Always have a group that would be happy to have you increase your presence in that group. No one ever gets everything. Second, those who support you may not necessarily be your friends and your family but they do exist.

Then there is Ozymandias and Andy Dufresne. Never tell anyone a plan until it is too late for them to possibly do anything about it to effect the outcome. That is why myself as Sherry needs to be built in really careful steps like bricks in a building. There is a very real possibility that everyone I know is going to reject who I really am. I accept that. However, by the time they have the option of accepting or rejecting me – there should already be a support network in place to deal with that. Before I announce to anyone en masse, there is going to be a concrete plan in place that will involve work, home, and beyond. There should already be progress or completion of changing the name as well as counseling as well as support network just in case. Andy Dufresne crawled out of Shawshank Prison on his terms. Ozymandias explained his plan only after it was done. Any announcement will be basically saying what has been done and what they missed, not what will be done or asking for any type of permission.

Important ones will know. At some point I will start to invite people that I already know and can hopefully trust into reading this particular blog. They will be based on the people that I think would be most accepting as well as most capable of holding everything in based on our friendship. They will not be among many of the people that I currently consider to be my best friends. The paradign is starting to shift. I can see that now. Every day that I get in relative seclusion and secrecy is a day in victory. It is a day to lay down another brick and tunnel a little bit farther out.

At heart, I am a bit of a planner. I am also a bit of a surpriser. When I announced to my family that the divorce was taking place, my ex wife already had a job and a place to stay. It was more of an announcement of where she would be moving too. When I moved my family across country, I had already secured the interview or which I was sure would end in a job, contacted about a place to stay, quit my old job, and let my lease run out. I was already at a point in which there was no turning back. I will know when the moment comes, but it will not be anything like ‘here I am, it is just kind of something that I am telling everyone.’ It will be announcement that will require knowledge of every step that I had taken already that no one ever knew. That is how you make progress having utilized pressure and time.

Do? I triggered it 35 minutes ago.

Till Tommorow..