I'm So Thankful

Last year I celebrated Thanksgiving in San Diego, California with a family who took me in for a week so that I wouldn't be without family and so that I wouldn't be homeless.

Sound familiar?

But last year, even though I laughed and smiled and ate so much that I'm STILL trying to lose all the weight that I gained I was still miserable.  I was still depressed and I was still considering suicide.

Because I was living my life as a woman, even though I wore a strap on everywhere I went.  It was also because that Saturday I was heading back to Florida to be with my biological family again and the prospect of that was beyond horrific to me.

Three years before that in 2007, I was the guardian of a young girl, whom I affectionately called "Chipmunk" and was thankful for her.  But still, something was missing.

The year before that I was barely conscious, barely sober, because I'd lost my fiance' and our unborn child within months of each other.  One to brain cancer and the other to a miscarriage.  Thanksgiving 2006 is not one that I remember.

But this year, even though there's a perpetual lump in my throat because this is the first year that I'm celebrating Thanksgiving as Vicktor Aleksandr B. (Thought you were going to get the full name didn't you? LOL)

This is the first year when I have an actual family.

This is the first year that I have a father who is proud of me and who supports me. Someone who was actually honored that I asked him to be my dad and someone who told me that he was determined to be a real father to me (and people think he can be "skeery" so I wouldn't dare tell him that his son is an abomination-it's only in your best interest).

This is the first year that I have not one, but THREE mothers who support me and encourage me and give me hugs (even if they are virtual) and who are fiercely protective and loving of me (try saying something bad about me to them-I dare you).

This is the first year that I have an awesome older brother who cares about me and worries about me and who can totally teach me about how to be an awesome gay man, but more than that he can totally teach me about how to be an awesome human being (but he can be very blunt and fierce too, so I could totally see myself saying: "I'm going to tell my big brother on you!").

This is the first year that I have EIGHT older sisters, all of whom are awesome and beautiful and talented and strong and future world changers (and would totally rip you a new one if you hurt or talked bad about their baby brother-I actually like being referred to as their baby brother and have no problem with hiding behind them and pointing people out to them and saying: "It was them Big Sister!").  They not only help me to be a better writer, but they are determined to see me be me, be who I really am and are determined to not see me hurt.

This is the first year that I have a younger sister and THREE younger brothers who all make me smile and who love me and who amazingly think I'm cool (and don't you dare tell them differently-I like them thinking that I'm awesome) and who make sure that they tell me all the time how much they love me and how honored they are to be a part of my family.

This is the first year that I have two of the coolest aunts ever born on Earth who make me laugh, threaten to turn me over to a Star Wars "mob" because I've never seen the movies, and who have no qualms about talking to me about sex while simultaneously watching over me to make sure that I'm taking care of myself and writing blogs about me to tell others how much they support me.

This is the first year that I have a host of friends who are supportive and encouraging of me, not the image that I'm forced to project.

This is the first year that I have a Nieceling and Nephrews who all think I'm cool and brave and awesome and who will even go to bat for their "Uncle Vic" because "he's the bravest man that I know and that's what he is, he's a man and yeah he's a man that likes men, and you may not see the man he is just yet, but he's still a man" (the Nieceling).

This is the first year that I have someone who knows who I am and still finds me sexy and doesn't see anyone other than Vic.

This is the first year that I'm a published writer.

This is the first year that I go to sleep and wake up in a house full of love and support.

This is the first year that I am on the right track to becoming on the outside the way I've always been on the inside.

This is the first year that I can say that I'm truly thankful for my life and my family and know that it's not just lip service, but that I really and truly mean it.

I am so thankful.  So completely and unbelievably thankful for so much that's it's clogging my throat and filling my eyes with some sort of strange moisture.

I will not think about all the things in my life that could be better, because that would be so easy and honestly, a total waste of time, but, I will focus on the things that are so amazing in my life, the things that make me smile throughout the day, the people who enrich my life and make stand up taller, square back my shoulders and let people know who I am and that I'm not ashamed of that.

This is, for me, truly, my first and so far, my best, Thanksgiving ever.


Have a Great and Happy Thanksgiving Day All!!!

-V. A. B.

Dating My Policeman is Bittersweet (a.k.a. A Perfectly Imperfect Couple)

So I was told that I never told you guys what Jack did for a living.  My bad.  I thought I had.

Jack is a police officer.

Yes, I know.  I pinch myself on a daily basis to make sure I'm not dreaming this all up as well.  But we've actually got a lot of really hot police officers here in Florida and according to Jack not all of them are "completely straight."  Whatever that means.

Anyway, I have dated a sergeant in the Army, a manager of Mcdonald's, a professor, a few college students, a financial manager of Amscot....not all of the relationships were great, some of them really sucked, but there you have it.

Dating a police officer is...different.

For the most part I know that Jack is going to be okay, he doesn't work the overnight shifts a lot but every so often I will be asleep in bed and hear sirens and wake up suddenly and reach for him to make sure that he's in the bed with me.  He always laughs when I do this and pulls me to him a little tighter.  It makes me feel better but in the morning when he goes off on duty it makes me sad and as the days pass I get more and more sad.  Not because being with him is horrible, but because it's so amazing.

I love to see Jack come home in his uniform and I must admit that I've had a number of mental erections over that whole uniform covering his wide chest and his firm ass and of course JJ who is like my second favorite person in the world (Jack Jr.-he has a mind of his own I tell you what).  If I'm sitting on the couch when he walks in the front door I put the computer to the side (because it's always on my lap) and I turn with my head up for a kiss.  He tells me I'm silly, kisses me and then goes to change.  If I'm in the bedroom, I usually just "assume the position."  But every day we seem to burrow more and more into this domestic scene, becoming more and more of a couple, referring to ourselves as "we" and "us" and "Vac" or "Jic" (yeah, guess who came up with those names?), making plans for trips to Italy and Australia and Boston and New York and Brazil, both of us knowing that they will never happen.  We lay around and fantasize about a future that we know we will never have.

And it's not just because Jack's job is so dangerous.

We're always aware that cops get shot in broad daylight, especially here in Florida, especially here lately.  We're aware of hostage situations, stand-offs, meth labs, drug busts gone wrong, car accidents, and criminals who will do anything to not go to jail or return to prison.  We know that but we still laugh and fantasize and settle into domestic bliss, neither of us wanting to borrow trouble.

But that's not what makes it bittersweet.

It's knowing that our relationship had a date of expiration.  We don't like to focus on it, we actually try to ignore that it's there but a simple conversation about us possibly moving in together (since I'm pretty much living here now anyway) turned into a few deeper conversations and us finding out that there were a few things that neither of us were willing to compromise on.  Things that put a timestamp on our relationship things that let us know that while we seem so...well...perfect for each other, we weren't meant to be together.

And that makes dating him bittersweet.  Neither of us is ready to let go.  Neither of us is ready to say goodbye to the other.  So we're both holding on to this relationship that is guaranteed to end at the end of the year.  Both of us growing more attached to the other.  Both of us falling more and more in...like with each other (you can't make me say the other word no matter how hard you try *sticks out tongue*).

And while I'm looking forward to my trip to New Orleans for GRL in two weeks, and my trip to Tennessee to spend Thanksgiving with my "family of the heart" from California, and then my trip to New York for Christmas, I want to cancel them all because they just take me away from Jack.  And then I want to call his job and tell them that he quits so that he can sit around all day with me and maybe we can figure out a way to make the impossible possible or barring that so I can torture myself and fall just a little more in like with him.


ETA: So Jack wants me to tell you all why we know.  It's more than just the fact that I need to move.  Every day that I'm here in Florida, I feel like I'm suffocating and like my spirit is being crushed.  I have always been aware of when it's time to move on and I should have left a while ago, I really never should have left California, but I did.  But again, that's not the only reason.  You all know how much I want to have kids and so does Jackson, but Jack doesn't want to have kids...ever.  For both of us it's an issue that neither of us will compromise on.  He doesn't want children, he says that he never will and that's something that I want desperately...almost as much as I want my "manjunk."  LOL.  So while we want to be together, unfortunately, it's not enough.  Jack wanted you all to know so that you didn't try to give me the whole "But VeeVee you can stay" talk.  I already had that talk once and it's just a little too hard right now, to have it again.
But don't worry until we have to say goodbye, we will be lighting up the sheets.  And yes, that is a term.  *Rolls eyes* You guys!  LOL.