Some small smidgen of enlightenment.

This morning when I woke up everything made sense. That might seem silly but that's how I feel. For weeks I've been searching for meaning and happiness and now I finally feel like I'm on the right path.
I believe that the potential for happiness is within all of us. When I say happiness I'm talking pure, cosmic, orgasmic joy. Most people will only experience such a feeling for fleeting moments at a time. I believe that through training and practice that one could experience this sensation all the time.

I've been trained and conditioned my entire to life to judge myself negatively. In turn I've learned to judge others the same. But why? When you judge someone you exert some sort of perceived control over them. I'm right and you are wrong. This is foolish. As long as someone is not hurting themselves or anyone else how can they be wrong in anything they do?

If I'm ever going to be happy I need to stop judging myself and giving other people permission to judge me. Instead of letting my mental conditioning dictate my feelings I'm going to do my best to remain mindful of what's going on around me so that I can identify the things that upset me and then dismiss them as the nonsensical thoughts that they are. I realize that this is going to take years of training, but it's something I know I can do and I've given myself permission to not be perfect.

My new philosophy is one of love. Instead of hating myself as I have for so long I'm going to love myself. In turn I'm going to love everyone else as best I can. I think that at the core of our being everyone is capable of pure love; it's just that some people have problems with their mind that prevent them from experiencing this. Be it through environmental conditioning or perhaps through a medical defect, some people are cruel and hurtful. I will do my best to love the part of those people that is capable of love and to forgive them for their hostility.

Throughout my life, nothing has ever made me happier than helping other people to be happy. That's exactly what I'm going to focus on doing utilizing the science of Tantra. I feel like the storm that's been raging in my heart, my desperate search for purpose, has come to an end. (At least this particular storm, as I'm sure there will be others.) So now I finally have a direction and a general idea of where I want to go. What a relief, and what a joyous feeling.
Mabey I'll even sleep tonight! =P

Pete/Page

And a poem

I started writing poetry again.  Uh, so far it's been really obvious how out of practice I am.  I finally wrote one that I'm happy with.  (So see?  A happy post!)


Poem # m3 = I am the Raven upon the back of the wolf -

I am The Raven upon the back of The Wolf.

When She is blind I can see
And I know that all is The Hunt
Four paws beat upon the ground
Frantic, rhythmic, incessant
as it should be

We seek
Satisfaction
Flesh and Knowledge

My Black Wings Spread
And I ascend

The lay of the land
and the wickedness of Man
His boarders mean nothing
We hunger
But at least that is something

Her Maw craves meat and lusts for blood
I await for absolution upon the back of the Wolf

I circle above the prey
I scream
I scream
I can't stop
Screaming

Help me
For I hunger as well

And then Her jaws collapse and silence his voice
Warm wet salt darkness
And she is complete

Again, I descend
To roost upon the dead.

I am the Raven upon the back of the Wolf

She hungers and I question

And never are we satisfied

Together and disconnected

Obscene love of The Flesh

Forever Hungry . . .

I am The Raven who Rides Upon the Back of The Wolf

My Eyes are Black as Night

And while she stalks you

I can't stop screaming

screaming

Your Name ~

Happy New Year

With all the commotion of the holidays I haven't had much time to post lately.  Suffice to say, it's been an "interesting" year.  If my blood work comes back normal I will begin HRT on the 17th of this month.  Obviously this will be the begining of a major change in my life, and I like the fact that I'm going to begin this journey at the start of the new year.

In regards to me gender orientation I still consider myself bigender.  Sometimes I lean hard towards going MTF, but I always come back to guy mode.  Lately I've been worried that once I start hormones I might slide all the way into that camp, but worrying is a lot of work and I'm going to do my best to just take it one day at a time from now on.

My dysphoria has been very bad lately and this is the year when things will finally start to happen to change my physical appear to better reflect how I feel inside.  As I mentioned hormones start on the 17th for one.  Secondly, I have a follow-up appointment with the dermatologist and I'm going to see if the VA will do the laser resurfacing that I'm going to get done for my face.  They proboboly won't, but if they can it will save me a ton on money so it dosen't hurt to try.  If they say that they won't, I already have a Dr. out in town who I would like to do it and I will call for a consultation that same day.

So that's where I stand today.  I'm sure it's going to be another "interesting" year.  Hopefully it will be one that brings me closer to finding inner peace, which is what I wish for everyone.

Love,

Page

Disappearing

I'm in 100% girl mode for the third strait day now. This afternoon we had a going away luncheon for one of our staff members at work.  My dysphoria was already bad, but when we all met up at the restaurant I damn near had a panic attack.  My body and mind are completely out of sync.  While I know that while no one looking at me and could possibly know what was going through my head, my brain kept(s) screaming, "I'm a girl" over and over again and I became convinced that my coworkers were going to look at me see how I felt.  (That sounds odd but it's the best way I could describe it.)

I was able to come home early only to find my wife distraught, as while we spend all our time together I'm really 100 miles away in my mind, desperately trying to come to grips with whatever the hell I am and am becoming.  

She told me, "It's like you're disappearing". I sort of feel like that, but it's more like the masculine part of me is disappearing and in it's place, well, I don't know. I don't want to lose my wife, and I don't want her to lose the person she fell in love with and married.

Future complications

Note - I'm writting this from my phone so sorry for any spelling errors.

My wife hates the city and dreams of moving to a quiet, rural town one day.  I've always shared that dream, but now I'm realising that it might not be possible.

To put it lightly, I'm not quite normal.

In the city people are more tolorant and I have acess to medical care and the lgbt community.  I won't have that kind of support out in the boonies, and because of the physical changes that I need to make to my body the risk of violance against me (and my wife) is increased.

Just what am I and what am I to become?  I almost wish I was fully transgendered so that I could at least have a clear goal as to what I need to do.  Because I'm both genders, (and a little more to spice things up) I plan on making my body as androgynous as possible through hormones and minor surgery.  This is something that I need to do if I'm to stay sane.

How would people view my wife and I in a small rural town?  Would they think we were lesbians?  Would they think we were some sort of sick, sexual deviants?  Would I be forced to remain in the closet for the rest of my life?  I tend to always think of the worst case scenario and being a member of the trans comunity I know that a worst case scenario would be life ending.

Now I know that just because a town is out in the country it does not mean that all it's full of transphobic biggots.  (We have plenty of them in the city.)  I just don't feel like I will be safe there, or have the support that I need.   I knew that the path I'm on is going to have a huge effect on my future, but now I'm realising just how much it's going to fuck everything up for my wife if she remains with me and I feel guilty as hell. 

The worst part is that there's nothing I can do to change the course I'm on, even though it's going to take me strait through a hurricane and my wife is along for the ride.  I hate this.

Gender Euphoria (AKA - This isn't going to end well.)

So here I am, a woman trapped in a man's body.  I'm ok with that however, as I know that over time, with HRT, surgery, lot's of hard work, blood sweat and tears that can be corrected.  Right now as I type this I feel like I could take on the world. 

My dysphoria is gone compleatly as I know that I will one day I'll be a woman not only in mind but in body as well.  In the mean time there's very little I can do about my present condition so getting strung up won't help my cause any.  My whole body is tingling from my scalp to the tips of my toes and I feel a joyful warmth deep where I imagine religious people think the soul might be.  It's as though the fog has lifted and how my path to womanhood has been laid out before me.  I am Page and Pete is gone.

Since I began this journey I've never felt so wonderful, like everything finally makes sense and that I know what I am and what I have to do.

Very soon, I'm going to fall.  HARD.

Gender Euphoria is not an uncommon experience to many in the trans community.  While someone who might identify as a trans-man or trans-woman feel as though they are one gender trapped in the wrong body, a bigendered person experiences both genders (or more, or sometimes none) at different times.  (Many people experience gender in different ways so please don't be offended if you don't agree, I'm speaking in the simplest terms that I can for a general audience.) 

So for me, right now I am ready to live the rest of my life as a woman.  I have my five year plan ready for my appointment with the endocrinologist on the 20th and if I never shift back to male I plan to stick to it.

But I'm Bigendered and I WILL switch back, as this is not the first time this has happened to me.  All of the sudden I will think to myself, "The rest of my life as a woman?  Surgery?  Why the hell would I want to do that?"  I'll empathize with my female side, but I won't understand what it felt like to be her.

That might sound like I have two personalities but that's not it at all.  It's two different genders. (Uh, sometimes more.)  When I flip from one mode to the other you won't even notice.  With the exception of subtle differences in my speech patterns, the way I move and carry myself I'm the same person.

I've never felt more like a woman and I love it.  But while I still have so much to learn about myself at least I've gained a tiny bit of wisdom thus far regarding my bigendered nature.

"Everything changes."

I'll try to enjoy it in the mean time though. 

Page

The face in the mirror (Edit)

Edit - I need to like, proof read the stuff I write before I put it up.  What a concept huh?  Anyway, I fixed this post to be somewhat coherent now.  Sorry.  =P

___________________________________________________________
Who do you see when you look into the mirror?

When I was a child I was fascinated with my own reflection and I would stare at it for long periods of time in the giant mirror that my grandparents had in the living room. My grandmother would yell at me to stop, but I don't remember why.  Probably because it seemed narcissistic, but I'm not sure if that was the case.

I just could never really except that it MY face. I was looking at another person looking back at me. I made funny faces and he made them right back at me. (Alas, to this day I am the king/queen of funny faces.) Who was this boy in the mirror? Why did he look like me but was not me? (And me at the same time?) 

When puberty hit my face betrayed me. Have you ever seen an acne ad where they show a person with the worst possible acne in the world?  That was me.  No exaggeration.

I'm not going to be a misery dick http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=misery%20dick right now and go into my teenage years but in the aftermath my face is a ruin of scars and craters. I hate my face. Where it once held fascination it now mocks me and yet when I encounter a mirror I still have a hard time looking away. Ok, I can't NOT look away.

“That can't be me,” I think. But yeah, that's my mug staring apologetically back at me, as if to say, “Sorry Bra, not my fault your hormones are all out of wack.”

I learned to live with my face as a man because men can have scared, craggy faces and still be excepted by society because that shit sometimes happens to “us”. When I came to grips with the fact that I'm (mostly) a woman trapped in this body that all changed.

I remember an incident that occurred shortly after I finally “came out” to myself and accepted the fact that I was bigender. It was probably a day or two after I had done so. I stepped out of the shower, looked in the mirror and saw someone else looking back at me. I was a woman in mind and spirit, but my reflection was that of a pasty white, overweight male slob with a ruined face. I threw up violently in the toilet for several minuets.

That was my first real taste of gender dysphoria, and it's something that I still struggle with every day.

Right then and there I changed the way that I live my life. I eat healthy and mostly vegetarian, I do moderate exercise for an hour a day, I went to the dermatologist and I'm on retain a which has thus far had a noticeable impact on my skin quality. Les and I have two grand saved up for either dermabasion or laser resurfacing for my face, which will hopefully either eliminate or greatly diminish my acne scaring and smooth out my complexion.

I still have “man fat” around my waist that makes me feel disgusted, but my body looks sooo much better than it used to. I've trimmed at LEAST 30 pounds of fat and I had to pull all my old pants out of storage. (Despite all the problems it's raised my wife says that realizing that I'm bigender was the best thing to ever happen to my health.)

But back to my face. While there used to only be one reflection now sometimes there are more. There's the “Ugly Reflection” where I see every issue with my face that I could probably imagine amplified by 100 times. Sadly, that's the one I see the most. Then there's “Guy Face”, with his strong jaw, steely eyes and serious expression. Then Androgynous Face, still masculine by birth but soft and feminine. I like that one.

But sometimes, I look at myself and I see a phantom face behind my own. That of the woman who I so often am inside. It's like I can't focus on her, but she's there, trying to manifest herself in my world. “I'm here!” She screams, like someone trapped on the other side of a mirror in a twilight episode. “See me!”  (Don't you dare start singing The Who right now.  Well, hell, let's at least sing it together. . . )

As I modify my body through surgical intervention and as I feminize myself with hormones will her reflection become clearer? And once I can look into the mirror and see her, will it finally be myself looking back at me? Or just another stranger?

Page Abendroth