Love & death (and some other stuff)

Field Notes In/On Transition.

Love & Death

The peace of mind I seemed to gain in December, going through the emotional turmoil of losing my free electrolysis/laser appointments (which I detailed in a previous post) is lost to me now. I’ve had a nagging cough/cold from the day I went back to work. It is okay now, with maybe one or two wee coughs in the day now, all the other cold symptoms are gone though. I feel reasonably healthy, at least physically. Psychically, emotionally, though I am kind of a wreck.

I really do not foresee my cost of living going down, or my income going up; but it kind of has to. The only place I want to live anywhere in the world is becoming too expensive for me. If I end up having to move I plan to dump my RRSP, penalties and all, pay off my line of credit, VISA, and start fresh in some freezing cold other part of Canada. Le Sigh. These fears for the future drag me down a lot. I understand that you can’t predict the future, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be addicted to thinking about it. It’s a hard habit to break, constantly worrying about things that in fact you (and by you I mean I) probably have little or no control over.

A good friend of mine, and local store owner (an icon of “The Drive”) in my neighbourhood recently passed away; (Rest In Peace Patricia) and any number of my friends are either ailing themselves or have loved ones in very bad health. I have a hard time seeing the life going on around me, with all the death and illness. 

Sometimes I do though: when I hang out with my coffee friends, or do some gaming with other friends, or have a great Movie/Art conversation at work. The balance though is really tipping in my life. I’m down on everything, lately. There is so much bad news in the world, and so many people being willfully obtuse about the few hundred rich people who are turning the rest of us into starving artists.

I say starving artists, as our culture tells you exactly that all day every day. You are not poor, you are a Millionaire who is temporarily out of funds. Here: we will lend you some credit (not money, credit) at Mafia like rates so you can spend like the millionaire you should be. I am one of these people, too. I love buying stuff I don’t actually ‘need.’ I spend too much, I eat waaaayyyy too much ( bread, treats). I worry about these things and promise myself to ‘be better’ while I’m doing them.  

We think we control our own destinies, but we don’t. Because for one thing, ‘Destiny” is hooey. It’s a cop out. Things happen, you deal or don’t deal. Dealing is guiding your own path even a little bit. Also, the average person, even millions of the average persons have no actual say in the rule or law of wherever you live. We live in a world where it’s a really big deal if you can get a job where you are treated like a human being, let alone be allowed to feel proud of your place there. Governments (aka giant corporations) try to paint Teachers, and other Unionized workers as bad somehow for receiving a living wage to do something vital for the world. You never hear them talk about Plastic Surgeons making too much money, or CEOs, rarely. 

We have certain freedoms (to consume being the only one that counts to the people running the world. Consume our stuff, don’t think about it, just do it. Thinking is bad.) We can vote, sure, but the rulers have divided up the way the votes are counted so that 17% of eligible voters voting for your team (they are not parties, they’re teams) somehow constitutes a ‘Majority’ of voters. 

There used to be at least an ideal called fairness in politics. That's like some dirty word now. Billionaires just tell the politicians what to do, and they do it, no matter how much you protest. There could be 5 Billion protesters, it would not mean squat to these petty mean horrible people at the top. Like ‘Money’ actually has any real value. It’s a concept, not a thing. It has only the value we agree to pretend it has.

See, this is where my mind is most of the time, impotently fuming over things that I personally have no power to do anything about. Nor do I feel like I have any ‘power’ in my life. 

What is it like to feel like you are not on the verge of homelessness, to feel secure in your career, to feel like someone is in love with you at the same time as you are in love with them? 

I have no idea about any of these things. I am not whining about them either. They are the facts of my life, stunted thing as it is. 

The one area of living where I do feel like a blessed person is in my Friendships, and with my Family. I am in awe of almost all these folks. They have kids, pets, lives. They juggle these things in ways that scare the hell out of me. Every one of my friends has been really generous with me and my decades of whinging about gender, and my inability to live up to any of my dreams. I feel like I have also been there for many of them too, and we all continue to do so. Without my friends, family, and community, the street where I live, I would be truly lost.

What does any of this whiny bullshit have to do with Transition you ask? 

Well, it’s my life. My life is transition, it’s not just a transition from one gender to another (aside from my hatred of any binary system) it’s a transition from a life unlived for the most part, to hopefully one that is less closed off and more hopeful. If I was without hope, I would not be transitioning, I would not be blogging about anything. I wouldn’t be working on the second draft of my ridiculously fun to write sci-fi novel. I am at a bit of a crossroads in that regard also. In the editing phase I’m missing the daily brain drain of pouring out the story in the daily short doses that I got used to doing every day for over two months. 

As soon as I finish my sweep for continuity, though in a day or two, it is back to the daily spew, this time, character descriptions, histories, place descriptions and plot restructuring, eventually I will jam all those bits together with my basic draft and if I can afford it get a pro editor to give it a boo for obvious things the writer misses. Then publish it. I hope to be started the draft of the sequel book by that point. So, I do have some plans for the future, and until I actually get close to publishing, none of them have anything to do with money, or the world outside, in the time I spend working on it.

But wait, Josie, the title says Love & Death, and while there has been lots of darkness in this post, where’s the Love? Hmmm. Well the love of my friends and family, I will reiterate is amazing to me, who often does not feel worthy of any kind of devotion. That other kind of love? The ‘romantic’ kind? I don’t honestly know anything about where my head is at in that regard. I haven’t had any crushes in so long that I kind of forget the feeling. I’m in a hormonal space of no sex drive to speak of. 

So I am not very ‘driven’ to even ‘look for love,’ nor am I sure I know where to look to find someone interested in a low sex style intimate relationship. As a non CISgendered woman I am mostly a fetish object. I have met some nice flirty gay guys recently, but they are looking for men. That’s not me... 

I’m 48 this year, and I have never had a real relationship. I don’t know that it’s in the cards for me to have that in my life. Lots of people are in the same boat, Trans and non Trans alike. I don’t even know what to think about the idea of pairing off, though I know I have no interest in a poly relationship either, I’m there intellectually, but the idea of it for me is wrong, as wrong as pretending to be a dude. I would just like to someday meet a person who is as into me as I am into them. That said, I am not counting on it, or mooning about it. what’s another 25 or so years alone at this point, at least I am getting to be myself in that time.

So yeah, I do have some direction, the world is not quite as horrible as I think it is. I am really focussed on finishing my book, and moving forward on all the novels I plan to write when I am done with this one. I am prepared if I have to; to completely wipe out my banking stuff, hopefully be able to pay my debts, using my teensy savings for the future. Sometimes you have to make hard choices. 

But I will not be pestered by bill collectors ever again. I am prepared to move if Vancouver continues to become more expensive while most of it’s population gets poorer. I’m ready for the end of my world. But I hope it doesn’t come to that. I want to be able to finally see myself as a functioning person at least trying to make my mark with some cheesy Sci Fi (and some other genres) novels, leave at least that legacy, having denied myself, love and family in order to Transition and live as the person I really am, at least for a few decades.