Total Meltdown
Joanne was off to the Walmart to purchase the staple goods needed to help her in her new business venture selling Mary Kay Cosmetics. She called me from the store to let me know the good news that while she was at the bank opening a business checking account, the associate helping her remarked how she would love to have Joanne do a Mary Kay party for the employees there sometime soon.
I was ecstatic but the thoughts also hit me like a ton of bricks.
I was preparing my dinner over the stove when the thoughts all came at me at once. I realized it all - why I went into the computer sciences - to escape from people and having to deal with gender issues. The panic attacks I used to incur around women. the realization that I was not a woman, perhaps not ever going to be a woman and now married to a woman I loved dearly. I truly wanted to do exactly what Joanne is doing now; something in the cosmetics industry or fashion industry. I've grown to loathe my profession with a passion - this same profession that I had been in for 25 years. True it has paid the bills and provided for us well but it has become soulless work for me and I had grown apathetic in my endeavors to strive in it any longer.
I was happy for Joanne - not jealous - but I realized how much I had lied to myself over these years in so many ways - how many decisions I made to continue that lie and now the consequences of realizing the truth of who I was - who I was meant to be - and yet still having to continue to live that lie day by day by day.
It was all too much and I felt trapped in a prison of my own design and that i had constructed with each lie I had created to continue it.
I dropped the pan onto the counter and began hysterically crying like I had never before in all my life. It wouldn't stop and after 10 minutes or so of this it became wailing more than crying - my whole body convulsing. I stumbled downstairs to the basement office and dropped to the floor sobbing relentlessly.
Joanne called to see what I was up to and I asked her if I could drive up to meet her at Walmart. I couldn't stay in the house another moment - I had to get out. She sensed that something was wrong in my voice as I held back my emotions and shrugged it off as the congestion of my cold I was getting over. i don't think she bought it but said for me to drive up and join her.
It was a 12 mile drive and took about 20 minutes. Every time I thought I had caught my composure, I would break down in tears and wailing moans while driving. The road was empty and not a car on it as I slowed the vehicle down. Somehow I made it to the store, gained my composure and proceeded in.
When I ran into Joanne, I never realized just how bad I looked. I wondered why I was receiving odd looks from others who passed me by. Joanne wondered if I was having an allergic reaction. My face had swelled and turned red as did my eyes which were squinting slits. I waited to tell her the truth after we left the store.
It was the tug of war between my love for her and not wanting to hurt her emotionally or in any other way and the torment I was feeling inside living my life as a lie. I looked at other men now and realized how distinctly different I was inside from them - how more closely aligned I was to women - all the time knowing that I could never be in their circle and knowing how much of a failure I was around circles of men. I felt completely alone inside a body which I felt was not my own and not wanting to destroy another's life in the realization of the fallacy of my own.
They crying is over now but I feel emotionless, devoid and numb within my own self.
I hope that things will get better soon...
I was ecstatic but the thoughts also hit me like a ton of bricks.
I was preparing my dinner over the stove when the thoughts all came at me at once. I realized it all - why I went into the computer sciences - to escape from people and having to deal with gender issues. The panic attacks I used to incur around women. the realization that I was not a woman, perhaps not ever going to be a woman and now married to a woman I loved dearly. I truly wanted to do exactly what Joanne is doing now; something in the cosmetics industry or fashion industry. I've grown to loathe my profession with a passion - this same profession that I had been in for 25 years. True it has paid the bills and provided for us well but it has become soulless work for me and I had grown apathetic in my endeavors to strive in it any longer.
I was happy for Joanne - not jealous - but I realized how much I had lied to myself over these years in so many ways - how many decisions I made to continue that lie and now the consequences of realizing the truth of who I was - who I was meant to be - and yet still having to continue to live that lie day by day by day.
It was all too much and I felt trapped in a prison of my own design and that i had constructed with each lie I had created to continue it.
I dropped the pan onto the counter and began hysterically crying like I had never before in all my life. It wouldn't stop and after 10 minutes or so of this it became wailing more than crying - my whole body convulsing. I stumbled downstairs to the basement office and dropped to the floor sobbing relentlessly.
Joanne called to see what I was up to and I asked her if I could drive up to meet her at Walmart. I couldn't stay in the house another moment - I had to get out. She sensed that something was wrong in my voice as I held back my emotions and shrugged it off as the congestion of my cold I was getting over. i don't think she bought it but said for me to drive up and join her.
It was a 12 mile drive and took about 20 minutes. Every time I thought I had caught my composure, I would break down in tears and wailing moans while driving. The road was empty and not a car on it as I slowed the vehicle down. Somehow I made it to the store, gained my composure and proceeded in.
When I ran into Joanne, I never realized just how bad I looked. I wondered why I was receiving odd looks from others who passed me by. Joanne wondered if I was having an allergic reaction. My face had swelled and turned red as did my eyes which were squinting slits. I waited to tell her the truth after we left the store.
It was the tug of war between my love for her and not wanting to hurt her emotionally or in any other way and the torment I was feeling inside living my life as a lie. I looked at other men now and realized how distinctly different I was inside from them - how more closely aligned I was to women - all the time knowing that I could never be in their circle and knowing how much of a failure I was around circles of men. I felt completely alone inside a body which I felt was not my own and not wanting to destroy another's life in the realization of the fallacy of my own.
They crying is over now but I feel emotionless, devoid and numb within my own self.
I hope that things will get better soon...
Comments
Post a Comment