Sunday, March 30, 2008

Jenny Boylan asked;

"What Would You Tell Your Younger Self, If You Could?"

I liked my answer so much, I decided to share it here;

Oddly enough over the years I've given this question so much more thought than
most people. Then again, I've had to, and everytime come to the same conclusion.
Not a blessed thing. I've studied way too much about way too many things.
Metaphysics being numbered amoung them.

Back when I was eight, and the pain was so bad I wanted to die, this woman showed up and held me all night and let me cry. She didn't say a word, but the intensce love, peace, and air of life she had snapped me out of my funk when I looked in her eyes and saw pain and knowing there. To my eight year old self, she seemed amazingly old, and amazingly beautiful. She looked a bit like my Mom, but wasn't here.

I took with me then some of her strength, which she gave to me freely. I fell
asleep there and a woke the next day with a renewed interest in living, and
strength I'd not had the night before. She touched me, my heart, soul and spirit
with a gift of love, life, strength and tenderness, and I often think back to
that day.

Four years ago, shortly after I had lost the last of reasons and started transition a few months before in 2003, I was lying there in my room crying and in pain once again. This woman showed up again, but I knew her eyes this time, she was older and yet the same, and she seemed even stronger, and happier than last I'd seen her thirty eight years before. Again she touched my life with tenderness and strength, love and more without saying a word.

But I knew. Who, how, why she was and was there. She's the woman I see now everyday in the mirror. Nothing major in terms of words where exchanged when
she sowed up four years ago... I simply looked into her eyes, my own eyes and
thanked her for my life, our life. She said "What? No questions now that you
know?" and in stereo I replied "Temporal paradox" and we both laughed.

Some might consider this some kind of twisted narsisstic fantasy, but I know the truth.

What have I said? Not a word.

What is, was, and ever shall be, world without end...
I'd love to say I made this all up on the spur of the moment, but I can't. So instead I'll say thank you for letting me share...

3 comments:

~K~ said...

That's a nice perspective. As we transition people who are supportive tell us they feel bad we had to hide for so long and generally ask now that you know what this is like, are you sorry you couldn't take care of it 20 or 30 years ago.

i guess there's some sense of peave in your story. I wish I could go back and reassure myself that the pain i endured would be temporary if even in a great amount of time. I'd probably tell myself to be who I am and everything would be ok.

I think enduring the pain of living male has given us a certain gift to truly appreciate being female, something that natal females take for granted from time to time. I know the road we travel is rough but if we can make thr journey somehow we are so much stronger for it ...

your story has a nice sense of peace about it.... something we all need...

Samantha Shanti said...

Thank you Karyn!

What makes that question from other people so hard is that 20 or 30 (and longer) ago years I did know. I asked my parents if we could go to "uncle John's" and get it fixed. Uncle John was the family MD and he fixed things you know, or so my five year old mind reasoned. Why couldn't he fix this?

Mom was okay with it, accepting, loving, not totally sure what it was all about, but okay. My Dad beat the crap out of me, put me in one of my sister's dresses left me heart broken and terrified. For the next dozen some odd years all I ever wanted from him was a hug and some love. All I ever got was physical, mental and emotional abuse to last a lifetime.

By the time I was eight, I finally wanted the pain to end. All I knew about death was the pain stopped and people went to a different area code where they don't have phones so we could call them. I wanted that, so my Dad couldn't hurt me anymore...

It's taken a long, long time for me to reach a sense of peace, but it sounds like you're getting there too!

Rock on girl!

~K~ said...

I knew from around the age of 5. I grew up in a very homophobic household and I learned to hide it. When i was 13 my mom caught me playing with a pair of my grandmothers pearls.Instead of being nuturing in living she simple asked me if I was a "Queer" It stuck with me for the rest of my life and caused me to feel ashamed. Obviously I was never able to admit the truth by that point and just learned to live with things as they were. I guess I knew no different.

Looking back on that question it still would be a hard answer though. As much pain as being stuck this way has caused me, I would never have my beautiful daughter or granddaughter. Would I have love to be at peace with my inner self, definetly had I not know what my future would bring.

Sometimes we get caught between heaven and hell in issues such as this. In my blog you posted a saying that I've believed for many many years. It was so familiar to me because I grew up with it.

"what does not kill us will only make us stronger"

Those words are so true and thanks for reminding me of them ..

~K~