Damien & Roman: Forever (Part One)

Blurb:

Damien & Roman Forever:

     Meet Roman.  He is a gay romance writer, a screenwriter and a father of quads.  He also used to be a woman.  Roman was born Rachelle and after coming out to his parents and having surgery is now living his life as Roman.
     Meet Damien. He is an architect who is also an out and proud gay man. He is a father of quads and is happily married to Roman.
     Join Damien and Roman as they share the tale of their lives.  Their coming out stories, how they met, fell in love, started a family and coped with being not only a gay couple, but an interracial gay couple raising children in modern day America, with one of the parents being transgender.
     Told as if Damien and Roman are being interviewed, "Damien & Roman: Forever" gives you the reader a chance to experience a side of the LGBT community that few if any, are ever privy to.

Part One:

Roman's Introduction

     I'd always hated my vagina.  I think that's the reason it was so easy for me to get the surgery done.  I had spent most of my life pretending as if it didn't exist.  I walked around, acted and even fucked as if I was born with a cock in between my legs.  I should have been born that way.

     By some strange twist of fate, divine, pre-retribution for all of the shit that I would create later on in life, I was born a woman.  Not even a curvaceous, sexy one at that.  Oh, don't get me wrong, I had my moments.  There were times when even I stood and stared at myself in awe, but they weren't many.

     My parents had five other children.  I was just one of six, so I was expendable, replaceable, which they proved to me the day I sat them down and told them I was a gay man on the inside and not the straight woman that they expected me to be.

     I expected the anger, the venomous words, the Scripture that they hurled at me, the fire and brimstone that they tried calling down.  I didn't expect the hysterical laughter that proceeded it.

     "I'm a gay man too Rachelle," my mother giggled, sitting between my father and stepfather.  Bot of whom grinned widely at what they thought was my obvious sense of humor.  I'm hilarious.  I spent a lot of time making people laugh, but I'd only recently come to the conclusion that if I made them laugh then they were too busy to see how miserable I really was.  It was why I had devoted most of my life to making others smile and being the life of the party, making sure that everyone had fun and that they were all laughing.  No one paid much attention to the ravaged look of hopelessness and despair on your face when you were making them laugh all the time.

     My parents continued laughing and I let them.  Their hysterical laughter was so much better than what i knew was coming.  When their laughter stopped I cleared my throat and handed them the pamphlets and the copies of the receipts that I had made for my genital reassignment surgery.  The surgery wasn't cheap, neither was the therapist that I'd been seeing so that I could get the surgery.  I had invested a lot of time and money into this.  This chance, this opportunity for me to be happy finally, to be comfortable in my own body.

     I was serious.  And now they knew.

     I told them that I'd had to do therapy first, and then I'd had to take testosterone treatments but that I would be having the surgery soon...with or without their support.  They said it would be without it...seconds before kicking me out of their house and disowning me.

     It was a good thing I'd already packed up my car.

     I didn't look back.  I just grabbed the keys to my white SUV that I'd left on the kitchen counter and walked out of the door.  I climbed in my vehicle that was stuffed with all of my belongings and drove away.  I had no idea where I was going, only that I was going.  I drove for hours with a large smile on my face, singing along to Lady Gaga's new album.

     I may have lost my family, but I'd found myself, which was so much better.  And you know what?  If I had not left that day, I wouldn't have ended up where I did.  I wouldn't have met Cody who is married to Kelvin who has a brother named Damien, who ended up being the love of my life.

Ouch!

"I do not have to accept you.  The law may have to give you certain rights, but I don't have agree or accept your choice and your new found lifestyle."  These words are still ringing in my ears even though my mother said them to me an hour ago.

Let me back up.

I had an appointment with the VA at 0945.

I forgot.

Blame my pain meds, I took a cyclobenzaprine and it's 10mg and it always knocks me out.  I didn't wake up until 0900 and it took 15 minutes for the fog to clear and then I wanted to finish my paperwork for my SSI disability stuff.  So anyway, I didn't remember my appointment until my mother knocked on my door and came into my bedroom to hand me the phone where my doctor was calling to make sure I was okay.  This is because the last time I missed an appointment with her it was because I'd fallen out of the bed and was laying on the ground for two hours in pain-yeah, my family didn't realize I was down there-sucks, *shrug* but it's life-now I always have my cane on hand as well as my cellphone-I'm not a complete invalid but when you have a back and a hip injury and you're already laying on the edge of the bed because your clean laundry is on the other side of the bed, because you just felt too lazy to do it?  Yeah rolling off the bed isn't unfeasible.  My cane was by the wall next to my chair, my cell was in the kitchen-I've since learned to conquer my laziness and do my laundry in its entirety before bed. LOL.

So, my mother hands me the phone and then she notices the brochures, notes, websites, papers, groups, etc. related to transgender, bi-gender and transsexuals and related to gender reassignment surgery.  I noticed her noticing and my stomach dropped, my heart leaped into my throat and tears came to my eyes.  I know that I should have been more optimistic, but I also know my family and my mother, she was livid, so mad she was shaking (yeah, you see where I get it from).  She let me finish my call and then she started in on me.

Mom:  Vee, what's this?
Vee:  A brochure.
Mom:  I know it's a brochure.
Vee:  So why'd you ask what it was? (I told you I'm rebellious and a bitch, even with my mom sometimes)
Mom:  Don't get smart with me young lady (since when am I a young lady?), why do you have this filth in my house?
Vee:  It's not porn Marmie.  It's brochures about gender reassignment surgery, transgenders, bi-genders, transsexuals-
Mom:  It's about homosexuality and saying that God made a mistake when He made you a girl.
Vee:  No, I'm saying society made a mistake when they said I could ONLY be a girl.  God made me both and you said He never mistakes.
Mom:  So you're saying God made you this way?
Vee:  I don't understand.  You tell people that people are born gay, but I can't be born bi-gender?
Mom:  No.
Vee:  Why?
Mom:  Because you're my child.  No child of mine is gay or bi anything.  I raised you to know better.
Vee:  I'm still me!  None of that has changed!  I'm still the same girl I was yesterday and last week and last month and last year.  Nothing about me has changed except I'm more comfortable in my skin.  I'm on my way to being happy.  Don't you want me to be happy?
Mom:  Not if you're going to be happy on Earth only to wind up in hell.
Vee:  *rolling eyes* So now I'm going to hell?  There's no verse in the Bible that says I'd go to hell for having my sex changed.
Mom:  But there's one about homosexuality.
Vee:  Don't go there.  You read the paper I wrote on that, so you know you're wrong.  Besides, since you say I was only born a girl, I'd still be having sex with men, just with a penis.  So think of it this way.  They'd be gay, I'd still be straight.
Mom:  Don't joke with me.
Vee:  Don't turn your back on me and condemn me to hell and stop loving me because I'm different.
Mom: I'll never stop loving you Vee *sigh* You know that.
Vee:  You just won't accept me...
(silence)
Mom:  I do not have to accept you.  The law may have to give you certain rights, but I don't have agree or accept your choice and your new found lifestyle.
(silence)
Vee:  I don't want to talk about this anymore.
Mom:  Okay, but you know that I won't accept this, if you get this done, to me you will forever be my daughter and I won't let up until you get the surgery reversed and you know your stepfather-
Vee:  What about him?
Mom:  If you get it done, he'll want nothing else to do with you.
Vee:  Meaning, I'll have to move out and find another place to stay.
Mom: (shrug)
Vee:  Can you just go please?

Then she walked out.  This conversation is etched in my brain.  I wish I could say this is the first time my mother has told me that my stepfather is going to "kick me out" and she's going to support him, but it's not.  I am painfully aware that I am no longer a priority in my mother's life and that's as it should be.  I'm an adult and really only living here because all of my benefits and disability money isn't enough to sustain me living on my own right now.  But if I did?  I wouldn't be here and this wouldn't be an issue.

I'm not telling you all this to garner sympathy.  I don't need it.  I knew that this was a possible outcome when I went to see the doctor.  I'm telling you all this so that you can come to the same realization that I did.  My family's opinion of me doesn't matter.  My opinion of myself is all that matters.  Me.  I can't make THEM happy and myself miserable, trying to please everyone is what leads to depression and thoughts of suicide and suicide attempts and all manner of things that you do to ease the pain of pleasing everyone but yourself.  I have to please me.  I have to make me happy first and then and only then can I worry about everyone else.

I'll probably have to come back and read this myself a few times over the next couple of years just to remind myself of this truth.  But I can do that.  What I can't do is continue to live for others.  I must live for myself.

So while my mother's words induced an "Ouch!" reaction in my heart, it didn't shatter my spirit or destroy my soul as I thought it would be and to me, that's a victory in itself.