SL Wedding put back a month
With the current wedding planners dropping out a week before the actual wedding we had hoped to get something put together in time, but as our kitten wont be online for the day either, we have decided to put it back a month.
Lilly Noodle and Trinity Dejavu will be wed in SL, Monday 13th July, 3PM SLT (PDT). Plenty of time to build our location and arrange all the details (I hope .. P A N I C !).
Bradford
My daughter is over, the following started as a conversation with her and my mother after Dinner and I got to thinking and came up with this. It's not to far from the actual thing.
Me: My friend was in hospital and he died for 30 seconds. Heart stopped and everything, they they plugged the oxygen back in and everything started up again.
Daughter: So he was going up to heaven saw the light and was yanked back?
Me: Oh no, you don't go to heaven when you die.
Daughter: Where do you go?
Me: Bradford.
Mother: Bradford? Why not Heaven?
Me: Hard to believe inst it, both are such mystical places.
Daughter: Bradford!
Me: Afraid so, in fact, if you ever meet anyone from Bradford they are actually already dead. Nothing the dead like more than to play mind games with the living.
Mother: What about the other place?
Daughter: Yeah, what happens if you are bad?
Me: Fiji. Gets quite warm.
Mother: I know people who've been to Fiji on holiday.
Me: Let out early for good behaviour?
Daughter: You're crazy.
Me: I have the certificates to prove it.
Mother: I don't doubt that.
Me: Good! Wouldn't want you to think I was just making this up.
Daughter: [Blank stare].
Not much to say…
Aside from HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!!!!!!!!!!!
I've not got a lot to say really. I'm off the anti depressants, headaches and dizzyness have gone now and generally I feel more me than I have in a long time.
Christmas was ok, I just miss Miya so much, especially over the holidays. We are working on things and it's getting better. I did get to spend some time with my daughter, so that rocks :)
The housing situation isn't really going anywhere as everywhere is closed for xmas, hopefully things will move pretty quickly now we are in the new year. I need to be somewhere by the 18th of Jan at the very very latest or im under a bench someplace.
Lilly will be over soon and I'm so looking forward to seeing her, just hoping we will have somewhere to stay!
Finally, a couple of pics I took today in SL, been working on my house a lot and I think the new jail cell kicks ass.
Missing
Woke up this morning from a series of intermingled bad dreams, so many people, so many places, so many memories. Crying in my sleep and hard to hold it back now I'm awake.
I miss my baby.
I miss living for today and dreaming about tomorrow.
I miss riding shotgun with my hand on your lap.
I miss reading bedtime stories, pick two books.
I miss watching you sleep, your face next to mine when I wake.
I miss McClain and Tumwater, Pheonix and Jim.
I miss the stars on the ceiling.
I miss circle boy, hip cat, and the kitchen stink.
I miss hearing my name, I miss saying your's more.
I miss Wendy's and Denny's and Happy Meals with you.
I miss my independance, my time and my space.
I miss talking to you on my smoke break.
I miss your eyes and your smell, your hair and your taste.
I miss holding hands, your touch, your embrace.
I miss PST, RTV and ABC 1560.
I miss remembering and not crying.
I miss my baby.
Back in England :(
After a long and tortuous trip I'm now back in England in one piece ... well, physically anyway.
I've left heart and my home in Olympia. I miss Miya and Sarah so much, I'm trying to put a strong face on things but inside I'm screaming. I've not been able to get more than a few hours sleep at any time, if I don't cry myself to sleep I wake racked with grief. I keep expecting to see them just walk in or when I look up from my laptop, and when I don't it breaks my heart.
I don't know how long I have to live in exile, I don't know when I will see them again and its killing me.
Following my encounter with Garcia when I first landed in the US, I was worried he had put stuff in my file that would make future trips much harder than they should be. On the way back my fears were realised. My checked luggage was searched at every airport in the US I passed through, seems the TSA have me on their lists. I'm terrified I will try to go back to the US and find I've been red flagged, get taken for an interview only to be turned away and flown home. All because I'm trans and Garcia doesn't like trans.
Being back in the village I grew up isn't comfortable for me. Went out to the pub for a meal to celebrate my Dad's birthday,feeling shattered and jet lagged I decided to walk home before everyone else. Big mistake. Walking the familiar streets home I felt more afraid for my own safety than I have in many years, more terrified than I have ever been at any time during my transition.
When I was a teenager I was beaten frequently for having long hair and looking girly, several times it happened as little as 50 metres from my front door. I remember being so scared that I wouldn't leave the house on foot, and walking home has brought all those memories flooding back.
I know most of the people responsible will have moved on years ago, I know I shouldn't be as afraid as I am, but I don't feel safe here out alone. Don't think I ever will.
Happy Birthday Baby!!!
I love you more than I can say, my love, my life, my pet, my everything. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!
The folks at the TGL organised a suprise party, you can see my pic's on flickr here, and Caitlyn's here.
Jim and Sarah came over and we all went out for a family meal to Three Margaritas, miya had something very weird, I discovered mushooms were yummy. Sang happy birthday and her mom called her miya, played on a ATARI 2600 flashback retro games console miya got for her birthday followed by Apples to Apples. We all had a really fun day. Big thank you to everyone who made it happen :)
On behalf of everyone I hope you have the best year yet, love you.
Diary of my Dreams
I've been toying with the idea of writing my dreams down for years, just another one of those things that come bedtime I've forgotten about, no biggie, I don't remember my dreams anyway, never have.
Now my dreams stick with me for days and I can't shake them. Fears, uncertainty and memories mingle exposing the fragility of things taken for granted. Hopes and desires papering the cracks fall away like tissue paper leaving me hollow. More often than not I wake wet with tears and if I don't, the memories dragged back into focus reach into my heart and pull with such force that I can't stop.
The following are just summaries, all I can bare to commit into writing.
The first dream I've left the US and I'm unable to go back, something happens to miya in my absence and I can't comeback to say goodbye. When I finally do many months later I visit her parents home and see her ashes in a tin on the side. Sarah isn't here either, I need her and don't know where she is. My heart is broken, ripped from my body smashed into a despair so intense that I take miya upstairs, open the tin and cut my wrists over her cremated remains. I give her my life in the hope she will live again and we will be together forever.
In the second I'm out shopping with Zoe (my daughter, 7), we're inside a sprawling makeshift building with many rooms and staircases in every direction each with people selling everything you can imagine, things layed out on tables and colorful blankets. It feels like a carboot sale or market. Zoe is excited and difficult to control, I have to keep chasing her from place to place, telling her not to touch, telling her there are things she can't have or doesn't have the money for. My exwife is here but she doesn't look well, here face is tired and looks thin. She needs to find something but I'm distracted with Zoe and can't help her.
I wake, it's very early and I lay in bed crying and trying to clear my head. Sarah and miya are here with me asleep. I know I should wake them but I wont. The sounds of them sleeping are soothing and bring a smile to my face, Let them sleep, just for a little longer.
I'm ok, just dreams, I still don't remember them most days, I think that's for the best.
Goodbye Inkland .. Hello Amelica!
;
I'm writing this on the plane with miya looking over my shoulder, she's board (lawl), so please excuse a lower than normal amount of spelling mistakes, grammatical gaffs and general dyslexia.
After a few hectic days of packing and giving things away, the last 31 years of my life has been reduced to two suitcases, a laptop bag and a couple of boxes in my parents loft (mostly books). It has been heart wrenching at times to have to go through everything and decide what I would keep and what was sold or given away. To give an idea of the volume of stuff to go through; I was living in a 3 bedroom house, chock full of all the things you would expect. Of everything I will miss my kitchen and sofa the most.
Leaving the place I've called home for the last five years wasn't as hard as I had feared, maybe it hasn't sunk in yet. The people I loved there is another matter. Every room in that house has so many memories of us all living together, a constant reminder of days passed. Many times I've found myself lurching from room to room breaking my heart as the memories come flooding back. Being with my wife, the sound of Zoe playing, decorating with Daizy. Staying in that house for so long after everyone moved on has made their parting so much harder.
I love you all so much, not being near you is the hardest thing I have ever done. But I need to stop crying over what has passed and relearn to look forward.
We arrived at Manchester at 7am, a whole hour ahead of when we needed to be here due to problems getting a later taxi, then we find out our plane was delayed. Fast forward 5 hours and we finally got going an in the air. The flight has been uneventful so far (crosses fingers), the staff are nice and the meal was ok, soft and mushy, but good. The entertainment is dire, shared video screens that turn everyone a healthy umpa-lumpa orange, more static than sound over the headphones and no chance of sleeping. Ah well, could be worse.
We land in Atlanta in a few hours time, then some waiting, then another four hours in the air to Phoenix and I only have an hour of battery life left. Sigh, hopefully I can find some power and wifi when we land.
To be continued....
Bye Bye Russel
You've been with me everyday for ever, I love you, I can't take you with me, I wish I could. I'm sorry boy.
Time For a Change
Following on from news of my redundancy a few days ago, I got home from work feeling more than a little depressed. I had emailed the news home as soon as I knew it and spent the rest of the day worrying about the short term future, how to survive on what I would have as an income is something that filled me with dread. It's been tight at the best of times balancing my income, credit card debts, rent, taxes, bills and food.
We (myself, miya and Sarah) had always planned to go to the US in mid to late June (at the end of their allowed tourist stay in the UK). The plan was to have all the required paper work in place so that I could change my status in the US and remain there to stay. So it was with some surprise that I was greeted with smiles and optomism when I arrived home after work. Upon hearing of my redundancy they had been busy working out a solution.
We're leaving for the US at the end of April, I will stay there for 3 months on the visa waiver program (basically tourist, with no option to change status on that trip). By the end of the 3 months we hope to be settled somewhere in Washington (state, not capitol) and I will return to the UK in time for my daughters birthday. During that time we hope to have everything sorted out so that on my return to the US at the end of August I can enter the country on a visa that will allow me to stay.
I've given notice on my rented property and am working to offload everything I can't take with me, which is pretty much everything!
In future I will try harder to work past my problems, try harder to treat adversity as a challenge and try harder not to slip into self defeating depression. Its not easy, especially while trying to get my mind back together after two years on anti-depressants, but I'm getting there with the help of my friends and new family.
Thank you all so much for showing me that even on the worst days there is always hope.