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I have spent what seems like an inordinate time wondering why I am trans. Oh I know, there are several scientific reasons and more are still awaiting discovery, but I have suddenly found that it isn't really important WHY I am trans, but that I AM trans and, surprisingly, that seems right somehow.
I spent my entire life failing at everything I tried to do,never realizing that the REASON I failed was because I was approaching my life from the wrong perspective. I tried, and sometimes succeeded temporarily, at being a boy, a man, a male, but my heart, my soul if you wish, was always uneasy, somehow always pushing me without my knowledge toward a different way of being.
It was only after a series of like altering circumstances that I happened to luck into someone who somehow knew that I had more problems besides the obvious ones of job loss, friend and family losses. She somehow read the need in me to unburden myself of feelings that had long been festering inside me and got me an appointment with a therapist.
From there, the walls I had built in my life began to slowly crumble and fall and I found the ME that I had been hiding, denying, all of my life. I found a profound truth from the lips of a cartoon sloth who said, "Sometimes you gotta forget the past so you can have a future." I found the real reason I had never succeeded in anything. It was because I HAD built those walls. I HAD denied my true self and so, everytime I had something good happening in my life, I sabotaged it unconsciously so my prophesy became self sustaining.
Funny how the mind works, isn't it? You think you know what you're doing and all of a sudden, like a freight train, things smack you so hard you fall on your metaphorical ass so hard it jars things, thoughts, into being. The truth becomes so evident that you are shocked and amazed that you never saw it before!
Thus it was that I started to succeed at things. I began to write. I began to make friends all over the world, thanks to a machine and the internet. I became a writer with a real book to my credit, thanks to Erin, and I managed to gather a few real fans of my writing. Oh I haven't set the world on fire, but I did accomplish one thing I thought I never would. I finally LIKE me!
I likely never will finish my trek on the transition trail due to many different things. Age, financial inadequacies and others stand in my way, but that's okay. I can live where I am now and I can feel good about myself now. I've been helped by many, I've helped some people and I've found an inner peace that sustains me. Most of all I've found a faith in God. NOT RELIGION, but God.
Religion is a manmade thing, not a God made thing. Religion gives us rules. God gave us simple LAWS.
But this is not a blog about God. It's more about me and how I became me... and why it's okay to BE me... and it's okay for me to LIKE who and what I am.
I've removed all those roadblocks, those stumbling blocks that kept me from enjoying who and what I am and I feel free for the first time in my life. I'm still alive, I have friends, I am accepted as who I am, and more importantly I have accepted MYSELF as who and what I am. No mean feat for someone who was as disatisfied as I used to be.
So, to all of you I say this. Stop blaming yourselves. Stop searching for reasons why you are and start accepting that you ARE, and find solace in the fact that you are not alone. BE you, whoever and whatever that is and let society be damned! If you wish acceptance from others, you must first find it in yourself, for yourself. Once you find that, you will find it in others.
I am Catherine Linda Michel. It's who I am supposed to be and who I will always be. If the world doesn't accept it... well, the world doesn't know what it's missing.
I hope all of you can find the strength and courage to simply accept who and what you are and move on from there.
Catherine Linda Michel
Comments
Truer words
You wrote: "If you wish acceptance from others, you must first find it in yourself, for yourself."
Truer word were never spoken. Acceptance of yourself is the first step to the acceptance of others. I kind of discovered that when I first started going out as me, instead of always presenting to the world the person society seemed to demand of me. At first it was with fear and trembling that I appeared on the public scene as the true me. I was sure that everyone would see me as a man in a dress and look on with disdain or outright make derogatory comments, or at least point and laugh. So I avoided direct contact with others simply walking through malls or downtown streets. As a self fulfilling prophecy, those things happened. People would go out of their way to not be near me; some would call others attention to me and point. Not often, but it did happen.
When I worked up the courage to actually enter a store, I expected to be accosted by employees and asked to leave... it didn't happen and finally, I actually made a purchase and was surprised that my money was as good as anyone else.
It wasn't over night, but as I gained confidence in me, not in my presentation, but in me, I began to accept that I was me and it was alright that I was who and what I was. I took a short time after that that I went out and was kind of in your face, going out of my way to make sure that those I dealt with knew I was male presenting as female. Or even sometimes presenting as male and buying women's clothing, or jewelery for me to wear. At the height of that silly time, I was in Sears after work one day, still wearing my work uniform and asked the sales clerk if there was some place I could try on a dress. She ushered me right to the ladies fitting rooms and came back to ask if it fit OK or did I need a different size.
That was kind of an epiphany for me. There was no doubt that she knew I was male and yet she just treated me as if I was any other woman.
Fast forward a decade or so... I began dressing to suit myself and going out to malls, grocery stores an acting as if I belonged there. I got treated like I belonged there. My family (wife and daughters) see me as me all the time and its loving family. Stores where I'm a regular have people who go out of their way to make me feel welcome.
I accept me as me, they accept me as me. It's taken decades to achieve, but I'm glad I'm me, just as I am.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt