morgan_edwin: (Default)
I had a dream I was a merperson. I was genderless in the dream, and humans didn't know how to swim. I loved humans, and wanted to be with them. So, I hurled myself out of the sea. It was hard to crawl, but, as luck would have it, I found a wheelchair on the beach!

I climbed into the wheelchair, and, though it was difficult wheeling through the sand, I eventually found a man to push me. (He looked just like the receptionist at the men's salon yesterday.) He was amazed by my merself, looking at my shining scales. He wondered what it would be like to swim. So, I taught him. I taught a few more people to swim over the next week, and we had a party on the beach. It was good to show people that the water was fun, and nothing to be afraid of. 
 
Eventually, I found a way to walk (I don't remember how; some futuristic anti-gravity thing) and it was great because I could stay on land, but I could still go back to the sea whenever I wanted. I ended up spending most of my time on land, but going back to the seashore at the end of the dream to watch the sun set with some merfriends. 
 
This is such a great metaphor for being trans, at least for me. I love how my brain does this! 

Being a merperson was fine, but I knew there was a different world I needed to explore. This is like me being born a girl, but knowing from an early age that I would have been happier having been born a boy.

The sea, in this case, was full of people of my same gender (whatever gender that was; who knows, fish change gender all the time.) The land was the opposite gender. Coming out of the sea is as obvious a metaphor as you can get, so I won't explain it.

The man and the wheelchair were the support I will need along my journey to "walking," meaning, becoming a guy. 

Wouldn't it be wonderful if cis people were amazed and delighted by the beauty of transition? Teaching people to swim was teaching them to understand being transgender. They would never swim in the deeper ocean I once did, but they can enjoy the shoreline. 

By the end of the dream, in my real-life future, I was autonomous (as a man), and I felt comfortable going back to the sea to visit. This is a longing to come back to friends and family who knew me as a girl. It also symbolizes being able to express my gender fluidly. I don't have to give into toxic masculinity. I don't have to give up liking traditionally "feminine" things.The great part is that most of the "land-walkers" in my life whom I really hold dear have already accepted me, congratulated me, and offered their support. 

I can't force my mother to learn how to swim, and I have no desire to drown her. She told me a story once about how her father (my grandfather) tried to teach her to swim by throwing her into the water.  I dropped hints for years, but she never picked up on them. Now, I have sent her a book about being the parent of a transgender person, and another with a thoughtful and positive take on transgender people from a Biblical point of view. All I can do is hope.






 
morgan_edwin: (Default)
 I know I would be happier now had I been born male, so why do I feel this mournful attachment to the woman I am leaving behind? I thought, "Is it because I am doing the wrong thing?" But that didn't seem right, because when someone calls me "sir," or when I am referred to as my spouse's "husband," I feel like I'm being paid the best compliment I could ever be given. Still, I look back at pictures of the woman I was, and I feel sad. Maybe it's because she was really kinda hot, and I feel more dysphoric now that I am trying to hide my breasts more and putting an effort into being seen as masculine by others who don't know me. Yet, I look back, and think about the moments when those photos were taken, and I remember what hard work it was to keep up that appearance. Societal expectations and stuff. Don't get me wrong, it's fun to look fabulous, but it's also difficult to pull it off for long, at least for me. 

I wondered if I was the only FtM who felt mournful about their feminine selves, So, I asked the question in a Facebook support group for FtMs over 40, and I got the most wonderful response. N wrote:

"I totally mourned her, said my goodbyes, and sent her off into the nothingness. Similarly to how I have mourned the loss of friends and family. People occasionally ask if I am her brother, and I admit that we did grow up together. I transitioned after 40 (knew I was trans from a child, but psychotherapy didn't know what to do with trans kids in 1983.) I spent a lot of time with the person that I tried to be for everyone's comfort, so it seemed reasonable that I mourn her passing.

I grew up on the stage, and I mostly saw her as a character that I had played for a very long time. In the past when I've played parts for long times on stage, there also was a mourning process as you shed the character. I'd say it was similar."

This resonated  with me deeply. Of course I'd grown up with her! Of course she was my "sister!" So, I've decided to do, not exactly a funeral, but a send-off sort of ritual that resonates with my spirituality when I can figure out how best to do it. After all, she's not exactly dying, she's just evolving. I hate to use a tired metaphor, but one of my first online names, in my early 20s, was a variant of chrysalis, as if I knew, all those years ago, that I wasn't fully developed as a person. I didn't know how long it would take for that to happen. The cocoon is beginning to turn from opaque to clear and little cracks are forming in it, and I can see the way out, now. Last spring, I hatched two butterflies from caterpillars to cocoons to fully-formed insects. Maybe I can do something similar this year, as part of my sending-off ritual. 

Goodbye, Heather. My mother will miss you.

July 2019

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