Life-Changing Song: Take Me As I Am by Mary J Blige

Some Title.... (Vic Speaks)

I am a writer.  I write.  I create situations and characters and scenarios that are woven together to make a beautiful story, but I can't even BEGIN to think of what to name this post.

Today I had to take my sister to school.  This is my baby sister, the one who just started college, not the one who graduated from college.  So I dropped her off, waited to make sure that she got to her classroom safely and then I went to leave.  I was in full on Vic mode today.  Jeans, T-shirt, I had on my strap-on, my Boston Red Sox baseball cap and my shades.  I was looking pretty damn sexy.  So I went to take off when these two really tall, really sexy guys stepped out in front of the car.  I slammed on brakes and just sort of looked at them in shock.  Didn't they see me driving?  So I put the car in park and got out of the car (I regretted how fast I got out as soon as my feet touched the ground, I'd left my cane on the backseat).

"What the hell?  Didn't you guys see me driving?  I don't discriminate on who I will hit, this isn't a crosswalk, a sidewalk or a pedestrian crossing, it's the parking lot which means if you're walking you have to watch out for cars, jackasses!"  Not my finest moment, but I was shaking a little from fear, having a flashback from 7 years ago when I saw the old man get hit by a car and then run over by a car behind us while Christopher and I were driving.

"Sorry," the shorter of the two guys says.  He looks like a football player, with his thick neck, brown hair, square chin, hugely muscled frame and his big hands.  I know that my strap-on is plastic, but I promise you, I got an erection...like hardcore.  More than that my "gaydar" was going off something fierce.

"It's alright," my voice instantly changed from angry motorist to "smooth Vic."  My voice is naturally husky because I'm a singer in addition to everything else and when I slide into my "Vic" voice, I'm usually looking to score and since it's been over a year since I've been laid, I'm jonesing for some loving....real bad.

The two guys walk towards me and I'm totally checking out the hot football player.  In my head we touch hands, feel the spark, I ask him out on a date, he says yes, we go out to dinner, go back to his place, make out, I fuck him, he fucks me, we fall in love, he's with me when I have my gender reassignment surgery, we move in together, move to New York, I get a job on LOGO Tv (that's a secret dream of mine), we find a surrogate, have us 4-6 kids, write this blog together, and live happily ever after.  So we all are introducing ourselves to each other.  His name is Jackson, goes by Jack, and he introduces his brother, William, who I will from now on refer to as "Dick" and not in a good way, in a 2 inches, slim, can hardly find it, totally disappointing, makes you mad when you see it, kind of way.

So very effortlessly we start talking and I notice that Jack keeps looking at my crotch.  I've gotten this reaction before whenever I wear my strap-on because it's one of those BIG black ones, you know the MONSTER cocks?  LOL.  Because the Italian man inside of me, Vic, has a big ass dick, thick and long.  *Grins*  So after he looks for like the third time, I clear my throat and he looks at me with this really cute blush on his cheeks.

I'm a little worried that you know Jack is younger than me, because I'm almost in my 30s, but he's 34 and he does what I do, he brings his 18 year old brother to and from school.  So I sort of step closer to Jack, just a little, and let my hand brush against his hand and yes, the mental erection I had, just got bigger, because I heard his breath catch.  Apparently so did Dick.

"You know my brother's gay right?" he asks me with this really ugly snarl on his face.  I laugh and said yes.  I notice that Jack is blushing again and he's really so cute.  Even though he's got like two or three inches on me, I want to sit him on my lap...after fucking him into the wall of course (Over a year people....I'm a walking hard-on).

"So why are you hitting on him?" Dick asks me.  I shrug and say, "Because he's hot and I think we'd have a really hot...I mean a really hard...I mean a really fun time together."  I notice that Jack is smiling wider and wider with each "mistake" that I made.

"But he's gay and you're a chick.  He doesn't date chicks," Dick says, looking at me like I'm stupid.

"I believe that Vic is transgendered William," Jack says, looking really embarrassed.  I just grinned, "Well, I'm bi-gendered.  I'm both female and male, not a female born in a male's body or vice versa," I explained, still smiling because oh man I can almost TASTE Jack's sweat.  My thoughts had drifted from the romantic to the erotic.  I was imagining what would happen if he just dropped to his knees in front of me and started to....

"Oh my gosh!  You're some kinda black freak huh?" Dick yelled.

SCREECH!!  Hold up!  Stop the presses.  What the FUCK did this bastard just say about me?

"William!"  That was Jack.

"Listen here asshole."  Yep, that was me, Vic.  "I am not a freak, first of all.  I was born this way, it's acceptable, I am okay with it and if you're not then fuck off.  Secondly, I'm not black you dumb fuck.  My skin may be brown, but I've probably got more WHITE in me than you do, it's just that my family learned to look past race and all that other bullshit to make a beautiful family tree."  By this point my hands are shaking and there are a few people standing around looking at us.  I hadn't realized that I was yelling, but apparently I was.

"I am so sorry.  He's not a homophobe or anything.  I mean he's really accepting of me," Jack is apologizing.  JACK is apologizing for WILLIAM.  How fucked up is that?  All the while William is glaring at me with his arms folded.

"You don't get to apologize for him Jack.  That's not your job.  He should apologize for himself," I say, still shaking in anger and trying to keep "Vee" from making an appearance.  I WANTED to be pissed off.  I didn't want to be compassionate and understanding right then.  I wanted to beat the shit out of this bastard.  I know that I have a temper problem, it's something I'm talking about with my VA assigned therapist, but hell, I don't get mad easily or often, but when I do, it can be a problem.

"I'm not going to apologize to some ugly black bitch that can't decide if she's a man or a woman.  She's probably crazy anyway."  Yep, you guessed it, that was Dick.

By this point some other black students have started to walk forward angry and I know that I have defuse this situation before it gets out of control.  Polk County doesn't get a lot of racially motivated fights or hate crimes, but that racism thing is always just underneath the surface.  So I glared at Dick, gave up on the fantasy of me and Jack together, in love and happy, and said, "So, what I'm hearing you say is that you're upset because I chose your brother over you and you were hoping that I was a girl that was open-minded so you could fuck me and be open to you introducing your best friend to me so that the three of us could have sex together and he could fuck you and you won't technically be gay or even bisexual, you only did it for the girl you were with?  Right?  Sorry to burst your bubble, but I'd be fucking the both of you and when I was done, you'd be gayer than your brother.  Asshole."

I turned and limped my way back into the car, which was thankfully still there, and pulled off.  This time no one stepped out in front of the car.

I was five minutes down the road when I had to pull over because I was shaking and crying too hard.

My looks and the color of my skin have always been a source of contention for me.  In my family I was always the "dark one."  That wasn't said in a nice way either, but in a "we'll forgive you for it" way.  And in the past 27 years, I've had only one person in my life who ever consistently told me I was beautiful, my cousin Val and she died 9 years ago.  Everyone else has maybe told me a total of five times and only when I was skinny, had my hair and nails done, was wearing makeup and dressed up.

I grew up feeling ugly, feeling as if I were too dark, as if I didn't belong in my skin, in my body, in my family and just as I start to embrace and live my truth, here comes this asshole and makes a huge dent in my armor.

I then got pissed off because I was JUST starting to embrace and live my truth and here comes this ASSHOLE and with a few well-placed words he TRIES to make a huge dent in my armor.

I don't think that Dick knew that I keep every email, every message, every comment that is encouraging and uplifting and supportive and once a week, sometimes once a day I copy and paste them into a word document and when I have bad days like today I read them so that I don't let them bother me too much.

So I came home and read the comments, the statements, the encouragement that you all left me.  The emails from Thorny, Sid and Kate.  The comments from Lucy/Kat and Sylvia and LC and Xara and Archie and Brad and Becky and Katharina.  The messages on GR from Matt and Luci and Laura.  And then I pulled out the letters from Christopher and the last letter from my cousin Val.

By the time I was finished I felt so much better, then I felt disappointed because DAMN Jack was fine.  But you know what?  There will be others, but more than that I found out how strong I am.  A few years ago, a statement like that would have sent me spiraling into depression, but today it just lit a fire under me to continue to live MY truth, regardless of who likes it.

{FIST BUMP AND SNUGGLES}
{HUGZ AND SQUEEZES}
Vic

Truth in a Joke-I am Static, I am Bi-Gender, I am Me

So I talked very briefly to my brother this morning and he asked me if I still loved him after everything yesterday. (DUH!) I told him that nothing he did or said would ever make me stop loving him.  I helped to raise him.  We've had our fights (knock-out, drag down fights-he only won once-hehehe), we've kept each other's secrets ("Vee, why do you have a plastic toy in your drawer that looks like a penis?"), and we've always stood up for each other ("Listen up bitch, you hurt my brother again, I will kick your ass from here to Sunday.").  So of course I'm not going to let a little thing like him struggling with depression over the fact that he's being kept from his son and a woman he loved has been using him for his money this whole time, stop me from loving my baby brother.  Even if he killed someone, I'd be UBER disappointed but I'd still love him.  I asked him if he'd still love me if I got a penile implant.  He laughed and said he'd wondered what was taking me so long to "grow a pair."  We both laughed but you know what?  I wonder if he was really being honest with me.

I know that in their own way my family loves me and that my friends support me, but if I rock their comfortable worlds and become "abnormal" or "transgendered" or "bi-gender"?  I was talking to my new friend Kate about it and I confessed that I've always struggled with this.  Feeling both male and female.  Some days just wishing I had a dick and a cute guy to fuck in the ass and then other days feeling so feminine and wanting to be fucked myself.  Plus I love my tits you know?  But, I come from a Christian family and that stuff isn't even considered.  As I get older and care less and less about the opinions of others, I think more about what would make me happy.

I love being a woman, but there is a part of me, a rather loud, dominant and obnoxious part of me that yearns to be a man.  So while my family teases me about being a "big, biker dude" on the inside, I'm not sure that they'd be so supportive if I took steps to actually make myself more comfortable with who I am on the inside. I wouldn't even know where to begin.  What steps to take, who to talk to.

What friends can I depend on to still stick around if I did this?  How do I do this?  Can I do this?  I know for the first time in my life I feel this weight lifting slowly off of me, because I've admitted it to myself and to others.  Kate teased about therapy and the truth that came shooting out of my mouth was shocking even to me:
      There are times when I love being a woman, love being me, but most of the time, I wish I were a man. I'm not sure what to do with that and honestly going to therapy over the whole thing means (to me) that there's something wrong with feeling this way. I don't think that there is. I was born this way. There weren't circumstances that made me this way, no one's telling me to be this way, if anything society is telling me that I have to choose one or the other. Why? If I was born feeling "static" feeling both like a man and a woman, neither of them really conflicting with the other, both complementing the other half and both of them attracted to the same gender, what's the problem?

Growing Up

When I was younger everything got to me, the slightest provocation, the slightest insult, criticism, but for some reason my 26th birthday changed so much for me. I realized that I was worth so much more than I was expressing to others. I realized that others opinions of me was just that, an opinion and their opinion does not DEFINE me.

I was recently in a relationship, and this relationship was kind of the proverbial nail in the relationship coffin for me. I was EVERYTHING to this guy. I was his fount of knowlege and wisdom. I was his cheering section, his biggest fan. I was his cook, his maid. His dog walker. His housekeeper. His lover. His advisor. I met his family, I fell in love with his family and they in turn fell in love with me. I, who was hesitant about marriage already, found myself daydreaming about spending the rest of my life with this man. I lost myself in him. I lost my identity, my purpose. Oh, I still talked about it, but only to him, and he encouraged me in one breath but in the next breath kept me in my place as a woman who lived to serve him. He doled out his affections like Christmas presents and I found myself like a little puppy, so excited when that small treat came, a cuddle here, holding my hand in public here, a kiss there. Don't get me wrong the relationship wasn't all bad, but unlike what I fooled myself into believing, it wasn't all good either.

I think that's something that we all do. Not just women, but men also. We get in these relationships because we're either desperate for companionship or because of some illusion we have about the person we want to spend the rest of our life with. Then we start making concessions and excuses for their behavior, their lack of appreciation, their total disregard for us. We settle. We grow complacent. We wind up entangled, ensnared, trapped in a relationship that we probably shouldn't have been in in the first place. Everyone has their flaws, their quirks, habits and shortcomings and I don't deny that, but if you'd determined within yourself that you wouldn't spend the rest of your life with someone who was in favor of abortion and then you meet someone who favors it but you're at a season of your life when you or those around you feel as if you should have settled down, would you compromise?

I guess that's what this blog boils down to. What are you willing to compromise on? In my last relationship, I compromised on almost everything. Losing myself, my dignity, my identity because of the opinions and the expectations of others. I've gotten to the point now in my life where the opinions and expectations of others don't affect me like they used to. Whereas they used to provide 97% of the foundation for my life and actions they now provide 3%, the 97% comes from within. I found that inner strength, that inner wisdom. Oh, I still hear the snide comments, the remarks, the opinions and "well-meaning," "good-natured" advice from those who surround me telling me to do this or to not do that or that I should get over this or that I need to prepare myself to get married one day (*scoff*) but now I just smile, nod my head and continue on my way.

You see, I encourage myself now. I advise myself. I cook for myself. I make money for myself. For what I want to do. My personality is still there. I'm still just as giving, generous and selfless as I always was, but I'm no longer the pushover, the little girl desperately seeking approval, admiration, encouragement, love. I approve myself, I admire myself, I encourage myself and I love myself. I encourage you to encourage yourself everyday, to love yourself everyday. No one else's love, encouragement, approval, or admiration will fulfill you quite as much as your own does.

This was just something on my mind, so I thought I'd share. Oh by the way, since my relationship with my ex ended, I started writing my second book, I lost twenty pounds, I got in shape, I started eating better, got a great job, found myself, and remembered what makes me me. The ending of that relationship was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. Remember that. Sometimes watching someone walk away from your life means welcoming someone or something new into your life.