The Price of Happiness

You find yourself sometimes in life trying to spend money you do not have.  You go to use a debit card at a store and the transaction does not go through because you do not have enough money in your account.  You become embarrassed and scramble to find another card in your wallet that you can use to cover the transaction so you won't be forced to admit you do not have the money or abandon your purchase and walk away.  Sometimes you don't even really need the things you are trying to buy, but you will still pay with a credit card if you have it, simply to avoid the embarrassment.

People have asked me, "What if Chris changes his mind?  Can he go back?"  And they've also, innocently offered, "Well, maybe he'll change his mind.  Maybe it's just a phase."

This is not a purchase he does not need.  This is a basket of groceries he can not afford, but he has to have them.  It's hard to understand the urgency of needing a thing so badly and then trying to rally the support and guidance you need to ensure a safe and accurate road to success.  Could Chris change his mind?  Of course.  Could he go backwards from where he is right now - from where he will be once he goes through with top surgery and then maybe even bottom surgery in the future?  Of course.  Is that something he has worked into his plan? I don't believe so.  I don't believe Chris would ever go back to an identity that, for whatever reasons, tortured him.  He will and has to find a way to rally all the support and finances and courage to continue this journey to the end.

I said to a friend today that our denying acceptance is the same as our denying joy to our transgender children.  There are few times in life where we would consciously deny our children joy, yet, we, as mothers, as parents, resist acceptance of this with almost everything we have inside of us.  It is such a battle I have had with myself - the line between accepting and approval.  Accepting easily, early on, was not a possibility.  No matter how many people urge you to be at peace with the inevitable, urge you to accept, there was no way to easily reconcile all the worries and anger and confusion into some simple idea that things were going to be okay - for me or for Chris.  It has taken time - months - to work through the battle I have had with myself to where I finally came to a point of acceptance.  I know almost the exact moment when I gave in to myself - when I chose acceptance over my own desires and fears.  Approval came quickly after that moment of acceptance, because once I committed to allowing this change (in Chris's life and in my life) then I had to offer my approval or the acceptance would mean nothing.  I say "allowing" because that is what you do - you concede.

Were these conscious decisions on my part?  Yes.  I have said it before in previous posts I've written here.  It's a matter of laying yourself down for your child.  Laying down every worry and fear and belief and resistance to the point that you are putting all of theirs above any of your own, so they will survive in the only way they believe and know they can.  When I began to really hear and see that Chris's existence, his survival, his happiness depended so much on my acceptance and approval, it was then that I laid myself down for him.  The journey that got me to that point was like standing in that line, not having the money to pay and searching my wallet for a card - any card - that I had that would pay for this purchase.   I knew I would find a card at some point.  It took me a while because, like so many of us mothers, I was looking for the card that would save Chloe and there was none. When I finally stopped looking for a card to save Chloe and found the card that was meant to save Chris ... it also saved me.