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.

July 27th, 2006-When Love Remained

Five years ago on July 27th, 2006, Christopher, the love of my life, passed away from brain cancer.

We met November 21st, 2003 while I worked in Victoria's Secret.  He came in and bought over $500 worth of merchandise, got approved for a VS card so that I could get the commission, all the while telling me that he was buying the items for his girlfriend, who was around my size, we bought everything that would fit me that he thought was sexy.  He asked for a card to write a note, stuck it in the back on top of the tissue paper, went outside to take a call and never came back.

When I opened the card he'd written:
                       You seem like the type of girl to like big romantic gestures, so here's mine
                        If I seem interesting and you'd like to go on a date with me give me a call (#)
                        If not, enjoy the merchandise and the commission
                                                         -Christopher

I thought he was crazy.  I thought he was sweet.  I thought he was romantic.  I thought he was fucking gorgeous (he and Danny Gokey would be IDENTICAL twins).  I thought he was fucking insane.

So I called him.

We went on our first date, and back then I was a "first date sex" type of girl.  Christopher was a Southern gentleman, he asked for permission for everything.  "Can I hold your hand?"  "Can I kiss you?"  "Can I call you tomorrow?"

He was amazing.  We dated for three years.  He was a musician, I was a singer/songwriter.  I was an artist, he was a sexy subject.  I was a nympho (still am) and he made me wait.  I was a writer and he thought my writing was amazing. He needed someone to take care of him and I love taking care of people.  I was bossy and controlling and he made me feel small and protected.  He proposed to me on December 25th, 2005.  After having one of the most romantic, deepest, soul-stirring loving relationships and love stories I'd ever experienced, he made it more perfect by proposing on Christmas Day and telling me that I could have the wedding of my dreams.  Our wedding date was set for December 24th, 2006.

He died on July 27th.

It took me YEARS to get over him.  To not cry every time I heard "What Hurts the Most" by Rascal Flatts, which is what they played at the funeral.  To be able to shop in Victoria's Secret again.  To be able to get through the day without drinking or without needing to get high or kill myself and join him.  Last year July 27th came and went and all I felt was a small bit of pain.  This year, I didn't even realize that July 27th had come and gone.

Until about twenty minutes ago.

I had just finished checking out some posts of Thorny's when my cell phone rang.  It was Christopher's mother.  Usually I call her every year and we sit on the phone and cry together, or I let her remember Christopher.  I let her tell me about how I was the first black girl he ever dated and about how before he met me he'd never even met "a gay" but that when I came along he started hanging out with them and how they were a little worried that he would be gay but then they learned to accept "the gays" for who they were and how she was so glad that Christopher met me and fell in love with me and how I made them a family again.  Those phone calls helped me get through the agonizing soul-crushing loss of the very person who I felt made my heart beat in the first place.

I was pregnant when Christopher died, I miscarried a month later, and with every phone call I was reminded of not only Christopher but of our baby that I lost as well.  It took me a while to realize that those phone calls were doing more harm than good for me.  They weren't helping me to heal, they were keeping me paralyzed in emotional agony.

I didn't call this year.  She called me though, twenty minutes ago.  She ranted and raged at me.  Yelled at me, called me horrible, filthy names and most shockingly told me that I never loved Christopher and that I probably killed our baby on purpose.

Then she called me the "N" word.

My happy bubble had been crushed, because while I understand that grief causes people to say and do ugly things, I think that sometimes it makes people say what they've been feeling all along and I think in her case she was finally being honest.

Even with her completely shitting on my day and man, making me relive one of the hardest moments of my life, all I kept thinking was "Christopher, do you even realize how much I loved you?  Because if I didn't love you, there's no way I would put up with your bitch of a mother right now."

But more than that it makes me want all of my friends, everyone I know to find someone that they can love, will love with their whole selves, with their souls.   Because while the lost of Christopher was so heart-stoppingly hard, I wouldn't trade the fact that I was able to love him for anything else in the world.  And I know I'm usually very happy and bouncy and silly but damn, she hurt me and I needed to just kind of hurt for a moment.