New Home!!
Well, I've moved into my new house. The bottom floor is all mine, just a couple of rooms, not to much space to rattle around in, It's small, but it's mine.
I'm glad for the independance, just wish it didn't feel so empty.
Indiana Update
Just been to see Indiana Jones and was quite surprised, I was expecting to be blogging today about how George Lucas had finally killed my inner child (which he did batter to within an inch of its life with star wars *shudder) but I really enjoyed this latest incarnation of Dr Jones. Yes, Harrison Ford is getting old, but it didn't show. The plot stretches things just a little, but no more than any previous movie. Wouldn't mind watching it again to be honest.
In other news, we're about a week away from going up to Washington, really looking forward to getting out of the desert. I just don't understand why anyone would live in Phoenix by choice, suppose some people just like being trapped indoors / roasted alive on a daily basis.
The letting agency (VS Webb) I rented my old house from are refusing to return the deposit claiming the house was left in an appalling state because we left a couple of bits of furniture. The house wasn't clean when we moved in, the kitchen fell apart as soon as we looked at it (and we were even told we needed a new one several times!!) and on and on and on. Have to wonder what they expect from a damp vintage Victorian terrace. The deposit is only £350 so it's not worth the effort fight and get it back, I would spend more than that just getting a few legal letters sent.
Missing everyone back in the UK loads, hope you're all ok. We're in a terrible routine here at the moment, tend to sleep most of the day away and get up mid to late afternoon as it starts to cool down. Going to try and stay up and make some phone calls in the morning. Love to everyone :x
Oh, and if you ever wondered why teaspoons vanish from communal kitchens, there has been a study...
Home Sweet Phoenix
We arrived very smoothly at Phoenix airport and were very quickly off the plane and meeting up with miya's sister and brother in law who had kindly come to pick us up. Nipped out for a quick smoke while we waited for our baggage to come down and went from feeling ok to drained in a few seconds upon leaving the air conditioned building.
It's hot here, very hot, very very very wall-of-heat hot. The temperature outside is in the low 90's at times so you spend your day running from one air conditioned oasis to the next. But I digress...
We just about managed to fit the 5 of us and luggage in the car and drove to miya's parents house where we're staying for the next month, the only thing that stuck with me from the journey was how cold the air conditioning was and how big all the cars and trucks are.
I was a little aprehensive meeting miya's parents and very aware that after 25 hours on the move how frazzled we all were. miya's mother is wonderful and I just hugged her as soon as I walked in the door. After some introductions we dumped our bags and all went out to Dennys for some proper solid food.
The next couple of days are a bit of a blur, between not sleeping much and traveling round shopping I'm not sure what happened. We've eaten out quite a bit, drove miles between shops and bought a car. Jet lag sucks.
Phoenix is mostly beige and consists mainly of cacti, scrub and rocks. Mornings and evenings are cool, during the day you just bake. Everything is a lot cheaper than in England.
It's great :)
Garcia to Phoenix
Landing in Atlanta was bouncy on the way in, but there is nothing like the feeling when the plane stops on solid ground. The plane is running late but we have a few hours before our connecting flight.
The next two hours were probably the worst of my life. Because of the length of my visit without a visa (89 days, right up to the very limit) and not doing the usual tourist thing - my passport was placed in an orange folder and I was taken for an interview. There were about 20 people waiting for their entry to be cleared when I arrived, a single desk with two immigration officers and voices that carry.
An hour later my turn came up and I ended up with officer Garcia, who, having watched knew to be a slime ball. He wanted to know why I didnt have my return plane tickets (that you don't get till you check in on the day your're about to fly), what I was doing in the US, why I didn't have enough cash in my purse to last 3 months, who I was staying with and on and on and on.
He decided to rummage in my bag and look through all the photo's on my digital camera. Not good. I had foolishly not deleted all the pictures before I flew (some of which were VERY personal). He took the camera to the back room, ten mins later he invited a collegue to come in and have a look, ten mins later he came out still looking!
Decided to look through my laptop but thankfully I don't think computers were his thing.
Then he found my change of name documents and birth certificate and his attitude went from bad to downright sour. Eventully after a lot of typing he said..
"Against my better judgement and as its your first time here, I'm going to let you enter the US"
OMG - SInce when did entering the US depend on a clerc's better judgement!! I really hope all the shit he has typed on my file doesn't impact future visa requests.
I was in shock. I took my stuff and got out of there as quicly as I could to meet up with miya and Sarah. It felt like my world had just split in two and half of me was going back to the UK.
I never never never ever want to find my life in the hands of some random guy again.
The rest of the journey I was drained, on the flight to Phoenix was next to the emergency exit and it was drafty, spent the whole trip with miya curled up in my lap dozing. Next stop Arizona.
To be continued...
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....
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.
And Relax!
About a month ago I had some blood come from my left nipple, I immediately typed this into Google and as you would expect, came away with pages and pages of information on breast cancer. Now, understanding that all medical symptoms are cancerous when typed into Google I wasn't overly concerned.
I couldn't feel a lump in my breast but decided to mention it to my GP at my next visit (already booked for the following week). Then it happened again and the area behind the nipple hurt. My breasts are tender anyway but this was propper ouchies. So by the time I got to my GP I was just a little worried.
My GP was very understand as usual, gave me a quick check and decided that better safe than sorry and referred me for an NHS outpatient appointment. That was yesterday afternoon. The doctor at the hospital gave me a through check, talked to me about my medication (both prescribed and self medicating) and was very understanding. Finally someone in the medical profession who is transsexual aware!
He couldn't find anything unusual and as my nipple hadn't discharged anything since before I spoke to my GP he was quite confident that all I needed to do was keep an eye on things.
The whole experience has made me realise just how important my growing breasts are to me. I've not had them long (only been self medicating for about 6 months) and already they are a very important to me both physically and physiologically. They are a concrete physical change that for the first time in my life moves my body and mind closer together.
I’m Afraid
I've finally received the news I've been looking forward to and dreading, the date my exwife, boyfriend and daughter will be moving out.
When I separated from my wife, we were still very very close, there was no future together as partners but we still loved each other very much. We stayed living in the same house (although sleeping apart) so we could both be with our daughter, Zoe.
Early this year my wifes new boyfriend moved over from Germany to be with her, he is a kind and genuine man who we both get on with, so, while upsetting for me, having him in the house with us wasn't the end of the world.
Seeing my wife with her new lover wasn't easy and I shed plenty of tears over it, but we both knew we had to get on with our own respective lives and we all decided initially to live together and see how things went. I got to stay with my daughter and frankly that was all I cared about.
Our daughter got on very well with the new man about the house too. A bit too well for my tastes, and when the games started involving pretend family units, with a child, mummy and a daddy it broke my heart. Hearing her call someone else, even in play, the name that was once reserved for me was just to much. I spoke to my exwife about it and was offered no help, to paraphrase "if that's her way of dealing with what you're doing, then I'm not going to stop her from saying it".
To be fair, I had not to long before asked Zoe to call me "Trin" all the time, going out with her was becoming more and more difficult. I felt I was passing ok and not drawing attention to myself, until the little girl at my side said "Daddy". Then the whole world in my immediate vicinity would seem to freeze in time, everyone looking round with looks of astonishment or disgust.
So maybe it was my own fault, maybe she needed to call someone Daddy, and if not me, then why not her mums new boyfriend. I tried talking to Zoe about it and while she understood what I was saying, seemed more interested in pleasing her new parent. Thankfully she stills calls him by name, and while the games are still played and still as painfull, its not transfered to general use.
Over the course of the year my daughter has slipped away from me, I find I can't compete for her attention. When its just the two of us she is fine and we have a great time, when its not she will openly reject me. Her attitude towards me changes the instant her mum and lover enter the picture, happy and playful changes to embarrassed and hostile, almost like she has been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
I can't blame her, she has been through a very rough time with my changes and our separation, and clinging to the closest thing she has to a normal family is understandable. I wouldn't want to deny her the happiness she has found, I just wish it didn't hurt so much when she pushes me away. To be rejected by your own child is a special kind of hurt that never looses it edge.
In 5 short days she will be out of daily life forever. All of us living together and seeing how it went could never last long term and now this chapter has finally come to a close.
I'm haunted by fear of loneliness, the life only a child can inject into a house gone, empty rooms that echo with the ghost of better times, left over toys with no one left to play with them.
She isn't moving far, I will do my best to see her and have her over to stay as often as I can, but I have to wonder, will she want me to. What does the future hold for our relationship.
She has just caught me sobbing as I finish this post, I don't want her to remember me like this.
The Wonder Years
I've wished I was born a girl since puberty (at which point everything just seemed to go the wrong way). I remember the excitement of 'Sex Education' in high school and learning about periods, breasts and babies. It simply didn't click during the first few lessons that I was a boy and non of those wonderful things would happen to me.
I remember walking between classes and it hitting me like a sledge hammer - I wont have periods, I have the wrong bits. I broke my heart in the toilets and was late for my next class, sobbed most of that night wishing I had never been born and it's stuck with me ever since.
It's not like I hadn't known I was a boy, I suppose I just expected things to work out in the end. Maybe it would drop off, maybe I would wake up one morning in the right body, I knew you "changed" during puberty. Maybe I took the meaning of the word change to far. All I know is that my physical gender wasn't an issue till I found out it wasn't what I knew at heart.
My teenage years were a living hell. I found the company of few girls better than many of my male friends, I grew my hair long, my waistline curved in where a womans does and my breasts did bud for a short time. I looked and felt different and was almost always alone or excluded.
I used to get beaten up for my appearance, a couple of the rougher groups of lads would make my life hell at every opportunity, and a couple of boys made sure I left the encounter stained with my own blood and in a mess.
In the end I was scared to leave the house, going to the village centre was out of the question and when I ever did go out, I adjusted my routes to be sure I wouldn't bump into them - it didn't always work. The resulting depression would see me standing at the top of the stairs willing myself to dive down them in the hope I would break my neck and die. Fear of failure stopped me.
It only ended when the worst bully was pratting around on a bridge over the railway lines, slipped and fell on the power lines, then fell again to the track. He lived, electrocuted, frazzled, badly burnt and broken, but alive. Safe to say I've been a firm believer in Karma ever since.
Family Matters
When my old life and the lies that held it in place finally crumbled a year and a half ago. I was terrified of telling my family, parents, wife, siblings, because I was afraid they wouldn't understand and would reject me.
My parents didn't understand or accept. They still don't. I doubt they ever will.
I talked and talked and talked with my Mum, sent her easy to understand information on gender dysphoria, gave a book (that she didn't read). She formed the conclusion that I was choosing to do this because I was depressed, not that this was the cause of my depression, that I was just gay, that I was throwing everything including my daughter away.
".. I wish you could have waited till your daughter was grown up, thats what most people do .... I don't understand why you have to push it in everyones face, the gay couple next door don't .."
It didn't matter what I said. The only thing that changed was she made every effort to call me by my old name and HIM and still does. We stopped calling each other, stopped visiting and for the first time in my life they didn't come round on my birthday (I only found out they weren't coming when I called them).
Since the initial coming out, contact with them has dwindled to the point of nothing.
I can understand just how hard this is for them to accept.
I want to reach out but feel I can't, its been over a year since I started living full time and legally changed my name, hearing my old name, the constant male references and having to say "I'm not gay!" just feels like a bat that i'm being hit with over and over again. The constant reminders of the old me simply push me back to the place I found myself at the start and wondering - would have been simpler if I had actually killed myself. I can't help thinking they would visit more often if I had.
In the very near future my wife, her boyfriend and my daughter will be moving out to a new home and a new life, and I will be left alone in the house. My worst fears that needing to be the real me have been realized. When it comes to family, I really have lost everything.
I know I will see my exwife and daughter again, and see them as often as I can. But it wont be the same. The empty silent house, the little inconsequential constant contact with my daughter will be gone. I know it has to happen and in some ways i'm looking forward to starting out on my own.
I'm terrified. I want my mum. I miss her so much.
(I'm sorry if this post is a bit all over the place, i'm crying so hard I have to keep stopping because I can't see the screen.)