One Hurdle at a Time

Through this blog I met another mother last September who had recently found out her son was transgender.  She and I have been conversing through our blogs ever since.  She has followed my story about Chris and me and I am following her story about her son and her. Since finding out her son is transgender, she began a new blog where she can write about her feelings and experiences with regard to her own journey.  It's been four months since her son came out to her and yesterday I read on her blog that she is at the point where she will now be referring to her son by his new chosen female name and referring to him with female pronouns. Like me, she has been struggling tremendously with all that is happening with her child, but she is a loving mother and has made this major step toward accepting and supporting her child - one of, if not the, hardest steps of all.

When I read this on my friend's blog I got tears in my eyes, as I am so proud of my friend.  It may seem like something very simple to those who are remote from such a situation, but it is a decision that can take many hours and weeks of conscious thought and determined strength to make, if you are the mother.  While it is a question that truly has only one answer, it can take a long time for a mother to reach this point of acceptance.  I am on my own journey with Chris for over a year now and do not find it difficult to call Chris by his new name anymore, while I still forget sometimes.  Every time my friend uses her child's new name, she will find it easier and easier.  And after a while, the name will match the face she sees that is changing.  And then the new face and new name will eventually wiggle their way past the old name and the old face to find that their place in her heart remained exactly the same.

I feel happy for this friend of mine, as I know that once you cross this difficult hurdle, you will encounter many others, but it is a huge step toward letting go of the fear, sadness and anger that tries to stand in the way of truly supporting your child.  I am no teacher of any of these things, but I have traveled some of this road ahead of my friend and, while I am happy for her success, I am even happier for her daughter's, as I have come to learn that supporting these children is detrimental to their survival.

We are two mothers traveling a similar path on a road none of us chose, but we are making thoughtful, determined and sometimes difficult choices to help our children.  That is all you can ask of us.

One hurdle at a time.  One hurdle at a time ...

Old Dogs and New Tricks

I was on Instagram scrolling through the random pictures of food and baby animals and sunsets.  I come across a picture of Chris and so I click on it.  He looks really nice in the picture.  It was not Chris's Instagram that the picture was on, but on a page that was for a certain brand of men's underwear and Chris was representing the brand. It took me off guard.

About the time you think you're prepared for anything that can and will happen, something new comes along that shakes you, even if it's just a little bit.  I go along just fine these days; believing I am accepting and supporting Chris, and then I see or hear something like this that rattles me.  Maybe it's because there are still parts of me that remain in denial.  Maybe it's because I just can't wrap my head completely around some things - like the fact that Chris wears binders to flatten his breasts (until he can have surgery) and wears "packers" (Google "packers for transgender" if you want to know what these are) so he feels and appears more male.  I understand the need for Chris and transgender individuals to do these things, but they are still concepts and practices that are foreign to me.

When I saw Chris on this Instagram page representing for a men's brand of underwear, it was like I didn't even know him, as it was something I didn't realize he was doing, but also because there were tons of other models (transgender), as well, and there among them was Chris - my child ... who I have always known as girl until this past year.

I was talking to Courtney the other day about a transgender female friend they have that I saw in a picture.  I said, "Is she trans?  She's really pretty."  Courtney said, "Yes, someone we knew back in high school that we're still friends with."  I said, "So, she use to be a boy?"  Courtney said, "Yes, but you shouldn't say that.  That's not correct.  That's not how they see themselves."  But wasn't she once a boy?  And wasn't Chris once a girl?

I don't know all the politically correct ways to refer to transgender people yet.  I'm learning new things everyday.  I'm constantly finding that I tip-toe around the words and constantly find myself making mistakes that I am being corrected on.  I understand that Chris and other transgender individuals want and need for us and for me to be informed and educated and accurate when we are referring to them or are in the process of learning, but I become discouraged and hurt and even angry when I am constantly being told that I said this wrong or did that wrong, especially with regard to Chris, and especially because I am trying so hard.  It is not my intent or desire to be and remain ignorant regarding the ways of transgender people.  I wish my mind would just click over to that place where I always say and know the right things to say and do.  Sometimes I refer to Chris as "she" and don't even realize I do it.  It's just a habit I am trying very hard to break, but I am finding it is harder to quit than heroine - this reconditioning my brain to do the thing I sincerely want to do, but it just seems to find the old, practiced way easier to remember.

I know that being transgender offers Chris many obstacles and challenges every day - most, I probably can't even begin to imagine how difficult, but I sometimes wonder if Chris and others are truly aware of how difficult the challenges have been for me.  And I wonder if he and other transgender individuals realize the many, many changes we, as their parents, go through to adjust, learn and accept these changes that shock us, scare us and confuse us so much of the time.

The amount of strength it takes a mother to be at ease with this thing is enormous.  As much patience as a mother has to find in herself to learn it all and accept it all is the same amount of patience the child should require of themselves to deal with that mother when she sometimes fails at succeeding ...

Chris and Me

It is the second day of a new year and I sit here with tears streaming down my face.  I am remembering how the past year was for me and my family and I feel blessed to have survived so much of it.  You think you have control over your life until that day when your life takes control of you.  We all try our best to plan and predict what will happen, but sometimes we are our worst enemies because we lose focus.  I pride myself on my ability to control my life, and yet, in 2015 I lost control and found myself almost losing things and some of the people that I love the most.

I lost faith in people in 2015, in many ways.  And people lost faith in me.  I'm not sure that has all been repaired yet, but I forgave a lot and I was forgiven a lot and because of that we are mending our lives together.  I never meant to hurt Chris with the sadness and fear that controlled my life for so many months of last year, but now that I am able to look back on all of it, I realize I had to go through those months to get where I am now.  I also realize the chain of love that lives in our family; of how it was Chris's twin, Courtney, my daughter, who kept the bond between Chris and I from breaking.  Because of Courtney's commitment and love for her twin - because she was and is Chris's greatest friend and advocate - because she was and is willing to lay herself down for Chris, she showed me how to do it, with grace and compassion and truths and hope and faith and trust and love. There were times when Courtney scolded me.  There were times when we fought vehemently.  There were times she said things that pushed me further away, but then came back to reign me in.  She knew, as I know now, that Chris needed me - not just as his mother, but as an advocate, as well.

When this all started with Chris after Christmas last year, I was consumed with so much sadness and anger and filled with so much resistance.   It took me a long time to where I could call him Chris - refer to him with male pronouns.  I swore I would never be able to do either.  I swore we'd never help in his transition by way of paying for any surgeries.  I swore I'd never be able to let Chloe go and call Chris my son.  I swore a lot of things, as did my husband.

But ... here we are, on the second day of the new year - almost exactly a year later from those days when I was blinded by hopes and dreams I held for a little girl I thought was being stolen from me. Chris said once in a video he taped this past year that he spent a lot of years protecting Chloe, but the day came when he realized that it was Chloe who was protecting him.  I guess you have to be living this kind of trauma and pretense to truly understand how hard it is and then how hard it is to come out from under it.  I still struggle with wondering how and why it all happened, but I understand more of it now.  Mostly because I see how happy Chris is and that has made a lot of difference, as he spent many years in a darkness I really knew nothing about, but saw manifested in depression and self-hate.

Chloe wasn't stolen from me.  I still have her in my memories and in my heart.  I remember everything about her.  I loved her for so many years and I am so fortunate to have known her and had her in my life.  Now I see and know that she was and is so much of Chris's strength - that person who led him to the point where he found his truth and then he laid down her life so he could be who he was meant to be without her.  Even though she is no longer who we see, she is inside of Chris and inside of me.

I am finally there, I think.  That point where I am completely prepared to know who Chris is besides Chloe.  I never thought I'd be here, honestly.  I guess after you cry the tears and mourn for long enough you begin to see that you can survive your own sadness if it means ensuring another's happiness.  I knew I did not want to live my life without Chris and to have him in my life I had to embrace who he was meant to be and not who I thought he was meant to be.

You can control some things in your life.  Chris is proof of that.  I am, too, I guess, as I consciously made the choice along the way to remove focus from Chloe and me ... to Chris and me, and that has made all the difference ...