Monday, September 19, 2016

Strength is Often the Only Choice

Other mothers have reached out to me since I have started this blog.  Recently, this mother said:

I am overwhelmed and confused but want to be supportive to my child. My daughter says she feels more gender fluid but prefers "him" and "his" pronouns and has expressed a desire for a binder. He is bullied at school by ignorant little brats and it is killing me and I am sure his spirit. I don't know what to do at this point to help him. I support him but there are times when I am just exhausted and feel helpless. 😞 Any tips, suggestions or advice is greatly appreciate!!

I know some of the feelings this mother expresses only too well.  Can you even imagine the fear and sadness and frustration this mother feels?  Can you even imagine the fear and sadness this child feels?

Is there a place in this world where people can be free to be who they want or need to be?  I do not know of such a place, yet, but this child and this mother are now in my world and the world of me and my children and I am going to do whatever I can to help her and her child work their way through this journey that is, not only difficult, but nearly impossible, sometimes, in our society as it is, to survive.

I gave this mother my phone number to contact me if she wants or needs to.  I am not her answer or anyone's answer, but I will do my best to help her pave some sort of path to solace, if I can.

The turmoil of this child is one thing.  The turmoil of this mother is another.  Only a child living this knows the struggles.  Only this child's mother knows the struggles.  Society and the world need to leave this child alone - leave this mother and family alone, to survive this struggle that is already difficult enough to survive without meanness or judgement.  But it is survivable.

Where in anything written or noted or pledged or documented does it give anyone the right to demean another person's spirit?  I want to hug this child.  I want to give this child a binder from FLAVNT Streetwear (www.flavnt.com/) - the company my twins own.  I want to tell this child and his mother, "Be brave.  Be strong.  Weather this journey, every single step of it, because if it leads to happiness for this child - and it will and it should - then it will be worth it."

Do not EVER allow anyone to destroy your spirit and do whatever it takes to make sure no one destroys the spirit of any of your children.  After all ... it's really all you have to ward off anything that can harm you.  It is the part of you that tells the world they have no right to define your worth or your destiny.  It is the part of you that God made the most powerful.

We - the mothers and family and friends and siblings and fathers of the children who are fighting so hard to find their place, make a place, demand this place for themselves in this world do not need anyone to condone or understand or love or accept, even.  All we need is for those who disapprove to move out of the way so those of us that do (or are trying) to understand and accept and condone and love can surround and help guide and support our transgender children or loved ones to a safe place. If you want to help, then you are welcome in our tribe, but if not ... move out of the way because we will walk over you and through you if that's what it takes to help protect our precious children's spirits from yours.

These are some of the things I want this mother to become at ease with in her journey, become an advocate for, become about.  The beginning is the hardest part.  I want her to reach the place that I have reached - the place where eventually all you care about is moving in sync with your transgender child to the point that you will do whatever it takes to be at ease with yourself so you and your child will survive the process.  And ... I want her and her child to not just survive, but to thrive.

This journey is a battle on so many levels and on many fields and with and between so many people, but battles are won or lost by choices.  This mother's child (and my child) is making one of, if not the most difficult choices of his life and one of the things I have learned on mine and Chris's journey is ... the choices I make, as his mother, can help or hinder him from winning his battle.  Chris needs to win.  They all need to win.

You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have ...

Saturday, September 17, 2016

I Feared Leaving Her Behind

I started this blog in August of 2015.  I began writing it as a way to document my journey with Chris, a way to put my feelings and experiences to paper, and also a journal that I was considering turning into a book one day.  Over the course of the past year I have written 57 posts; stories about Chris and I.  Last month I began writing the book "Faces"; using all the entries from my blog as the meat of the book.  As I am retyping each blog story into the book I am reliving the emotions and events I wrote and I am simply amazed by how far Chris and I have come since those beginning days.

It's a metamorphoses, this journey.  The watching of a human being you love transform themselves from something they reject to something they desire or need to be.  The watching of yourself move from a fear-filled place to a place of acceptance and supportive.  A transition.  A transformation.  An evolution.  None of which can occur easily on anyone's part.  None of which can occur easily if the involved parties are unwilling or unable to allow change.  None of which can occur without strength or sense of direction.  None of which can occur, to a desirable place, without ... love.

I'm around Chris a lot these days, and I can not be around him without thoughts constantly still crossing my mind.

When we are in a public place and he wanders away, I wonder, "Is he using the men's restroom?"  I know he is, but I seldom witness him entering or emerging from any.  I still have a sense of fear for him.  A sense of awe.  A bit of anxiety for him and about this.

When someone refers to him as "Sir", I wonder, "Does that feel strange or right to him?  Does it make him happy?"  I know it must make him happy, as there is little confusion now and he is male passing, and that's the goal, after all.

I know FTM (female-to-male) transgender individuals wear packers and I often wonder, "How does it feel?  What does it look like?  How does it work?"

I sometimes hear Chris's voice from another room and I think, "His voice is growing so deep.  Will there come a day when I forget, altogether, what he used to sound like?"

When I started writing on this blog, documenting my feelings in the early months, I often said that I feared losing Chloe and that I feared I would never allow her to "die" or be taken away from me.  I honestly believed that there was something inside of me that would never let her go, and yet, in so many ways, it appears that she is gone.  I think, early on, I was afraid to let her go, even if it meant saving Chris, because I loved her so much, but also because I did not believe anything or anyone could replace her or be as special to me as she was and I did not want anything about her to change.  I did not want to believe there was anything wrong with the child I gave birth to and nurtured - the child I taught and raised - the child I thought was perfect.  What I have learned is that by allowing Chris to become who he needs to be, I did not have to leave Chloe behind, because it was and is the love I have for Chloe that enabled me to let Chris leave what he did not like about her behind.

I do not see Chris as Chloe anymore, nor do I have anger or sadness that he changed her.  The way it feels to me now is ... Chris did not like things about Chloe or see her the way I did, but he has taken all the very best parts of her to become Chris.  He does not look or sound like Chloe anymore, but she is still walking this journey with us.  Without Chloe's heart and strength, I do not believe Chris would be surviving and thriving and I do not believe if I allowed her to completely die or fade into some sad place that I would be able to walk this journey with Chris.  I'm not saying that I want Chloe back or that I am living with some belief that she is hidden or something.  What I am saying is that Chloe lives inside of Chris and I don't need her to be as she was to me, because I have all the pictures and memories of who she was, and now, because of my deep love for her, I am living and seeing who she was meant to be, in spite of me, in spite of everything.

Chris.


Tuesday, September 6, 2016

The Bear Behind Me

I've been filled with a lot of anxiety lately.  I'm not quite sure of the exact source, other than there has just been so many things that have gone wrong in our family over the past several months and just a lot of things going on, in general. Maybe it's just that I'm getting older by the day and don't handle things as easily as I did in past years.  I hate to think that that is the reason - I hate thinking about getting older, at all, but I am, and I feel the affects and fears of aging more often than I care to admit.

Chris has his top surgery scheduled; he will have it done in January.  I keep meaning to find the time to sit and really talk about the details of where it will happen and exactly when.  He has told me the doctor he will be using, but even that is not something we have discussed at length.  I think this is probably the core of my anxiety right now, while I go along as though I am dealing with the reality of it all.  I know he must be scared, and yet he seems confident and happy, and so I guess that is why I don't probe or push the discussion.  I know I need to, but it is only at this moment right now that I am really exploring my feelings about Chris having top surgery.  As with so much of what has occurred through the course of this past eighteen months of Chris's transition, I tend to push subjects away to some place behind some wall that keeps me from having to really deal with situations.  I become just involved enough to know what is going on, but not so much that I have to digest details or deal with unexpected emotions that might surface or potentially overwhelm me.

People tell me all the time that they appreciate how strong I seem.  If they only knew of how I have learned to mask my insecurities and fears behind my actions.  I go through a million motions that keep me in motion and offer actions that suggest support, involvement and sometimes even guidance, but beyond the motions are untouched subjects and unaddressed feelings and questions ... sleeping like some bear in a cave where no one is aware or can see.  I am a master wall-builder.  I learned it from the time I was really little when things seemed wrong in my world but I could never quite define why or how, and so I'd build walls to protect myself.  I believed, as a child, that there was something wrong in my world but there was nothing wrong with me.  Hence the walls ... to protect myself from real things that hurt me - and from perceived things I imagined could hurt me.

I'm going to find time to talk to Chris about his top surgery and other things I feel we need to discuss. Maybe then, some of the anxiety will lift if I let the bear out of the cave.  I can easily convince myself that strength is built on bricks and mortar of the walls I place between me and adversity, but my heart truly knows that strength comes when you allow those walls to crumble, because it's in those wall-crumbling moments that you are forced to face your fears head on.  And maybe the person I would be with the bear beside me, instead of behind me, would be more of what Chris needs to survive than the pretend me that offers support in disguise ...