Why can’t I be more decisive?

I know, I know, its been a while.  And I left you in suspense the last time too.  But to be honest, I don’t know what to say really.  Things haven’t really moved forward.  I’ve made a couple of attempts to man up and face the future.  These normally end in disaster with me feeling bereft at the lack of Rhiannon in my life and result in some over compensating behaviour where I will place an order for some new shoes or dresses or something.  Or worse / better depending on your view - I turn up at work in Rhiannon mode.  I’m allowed to do this - small office, nice people, understanding boss etc etc.  The photo was the last time this happened.  But its still not really in the spirit of going home and being normal.  (I realise that sentence is very loaded)

Please don’t judge me too harshly, I am one very very confused bunny.  I’ve not articulated my doubts at home because I’m wary of rocking a precarious boat.  I don’t want to plump for a decision when I may end up being able to pull something out of the hat for my family.  They love me a lot and are going through some tough stuff from other directions too at the moment. I don't really want to add to their pain.  Daily, I oscillate 20 plus times between staying and going.  Hence, my question, why can’t I be more decisive?  I have many and various weaknesses that I have learned to live with in my life: this is one of them.  In my personal life, I am appalling at making difficult decisions.   Never so evident as in the last few months.  I seem to be at the point of being annoying.

In other news, I've lost a stone and things are always a bit happier when weight comes off.

This is probably a something or nothing post, but from my perspective it was an update so you could know where things were up to and reassurance that I’m still alive and still as crap as always.  Sorry.

A long time coming...

You are probably about to despair of me, so I give you fair warning.  If you are the kind that slaps your forehead at others' bizarre antics, a treat is in-store for you.

Do you ever think that your life is a mess?  Realise you are not really sure how it happened?  And find yourself seeing no obvious way out - at least, not without negative consequences in all directions?  If so, welcome, pull a chair up.  I want to enjoy a wine spritzer with you, through a straw.

As you know, my wife and I separated in January.  I moved out and have had a very mixed time.  Sometimes it's been fab, other times have been some of the lowest I've ever experienced.  During August, we put up the flags in a kind of marital entente cordial to try to spend two weeks giving the kids a fab holiday.  Mrs A's attendance was touch and go, but eventually she signed up and off we went.  We had a very good time, lovely location, relaxed.  Twin beds.  Like old friends together.

Sounds perfect?  It was.  Except. It made my sadness complete.  I realised in a major major way what I am giving up.  Since the holiday, screaming loudly away in the back on my mind has been an ever greater realisation of my unhappiness that I have to sacrifice family for my inability to stop thinking I'm really a girl.  I know we all know its unfair. But for fe*k sake, sometimes it bares repeating.

So with this screaming going on, I opened up dialogue.  Is the position the same as before?  95% yes, but a glimmer of 5% appeared and opened up an opportunity for discussion.  The despair point is that the 5% didn't mean she was now a born again trans lover, but it gave some wiggle room.  Namely that she is adamant I stop.  No negotiations on that front.  But that as long as I'm moving forward to stop, then if sometimes I find it hard and dress up, it won't result in an immediate divorce, but that there is an expectation that this would happen less and less often.  What would you do?

When I look into the eyes of my children, the answer is almost obvious.  The sensible thing is to make the sacrifice.  When I realise the heartbreak of separation, it is obvious.  So I sorta, kinda agreed to try.

We began breaking the news that there is the possibility of reconciliation and I hadn't realised how unhappy our separation had made the people around us.  The delight of family and friends was overwhelming.  Everyone sure that I had done the right thing, that I'm brave for trying and that it is for the best for the kids.  Etc, etc, etc. Plans began for us to be together again and are still pushing towards it.

So why the dilemma?  Yesterday really is the answer. Do you ever get caught up in thinking you are ok and then you remember that you aren't?  I was, for the best of purposes going along with this.  I was thinking that I could do what everyone is hoping and find my way though things.

On Saturday, I went to see Priscilla Queen of the Desert the Musical.   Not everyone's cup of tea.  And not normally mine, but actually it was really good.  There were two tracks within the story.  One that is glitz and glamour and drag queens. And another, darker one which is about societal rejection of and violence towards trans people, the way that we are stereotyped and more importantly to me, the possibility of familial rejection when kids find out who you really are.  I actually went twice on the same day which wasn't my choice, but actually was fantastic in the end.  And after the first one I was very conflicted.  So for the second, I took my brain out and just enjoyed it much more.  Go figure.

Anyway, that started a train of thinking and events. The transsexual character in the musical is Bernadette and subconsciously I challenged my own decisions as I watched her.  Since then my brain has been gnawing away at the issue.  Pondering it, even more than usual.  The heightened thinking has led to greater sadness as I ache for what I'm about to give up.  And yesterday, it led to a day in Rhiannon mode in the office.  Do you ever just sink down with relaxed happiness and sigh.  It's like you are in a desert and you get offered a tea spoon of water.  On one level you are happier.  But in reality, it makes you thirstier.

And that's where I am now and why things have taken a turn for the worse.  There are a lot of people, including my family who are delighted that I'm trying again.  And I'm not sure I can.

Another TED talk

I don't know about you, but I find TED talks incredibly helpful and a friend sent me the link to this one which is so great - and she is very funny and honest.  Worth a watch!

In other news, there is a blog brewing with more revelations from the daytime soap opera that is my life... :o)

Time for an update - part two

So, to carry on from yesterday, I tantalised with tales of a trip out.  Here you go...

On Monday, I had the chance to do lunch with two of my girlfriends.  Honestly, even writing that line makes me smile ridiculously.  We went to Pizza Express for lunch and Costa for, well, coffee!  Except none of us actually had coffee.  I don’t have a photo from the day, but the outfit was this one.

The day was a mixture of great and tough moments as I continue to learn to cope with being out amongst the general public and with the continuing heat we are experiencing.

I woke up really early in the morning because I needed to get a load of work done before I left for the day.  So a 5am start, work done, time to get ready.  First job was obviously to try to get my make up on.  Disastrous.  I pride myself on the fact that I’m getting better at make up.  By no means am I an expert, but I’m improving.  That day it was like trying to paint water.  My new place, whilst lovely, is very hot and after I had put on my foundation, bronze and blush, I was dripping and dripping and dripping.  Horrible.  A full on fan was employed and I rushed through the rest of my routine.  My car has air conditioning and all I could think about was getting into it and cooling down.  In the rush, it also meant that I came away without my glasses and had to survive two days without them.

After a long drive, I arrived at Pizza Express.  Both L and S, my girlfriends, were already there and waiting for me.  S is used to being with me in Rhiannon mode and is one of my biggest advocates.  She is lovely.  For L this was the first time, but for various reasons she is very comfortable around trans people.  So when I arrived, she didn’t bat an eyelid.

I will hazard a guess in a moment as to why, but suffice to say, when I arrived, I really felt out of sorts.  The place was heaving, full of families, lots of noise, screaming kids etc.  All the other women were wearing sandals and I had some ordinary small heel shoes on my feet.  It became apparent that my foundation had dropped off in places which meant that some of my shadow was showing through.  And finally, the people at the next table decided that they would just take their time to look grumpily in my direction for a long time.  All small things, but I went quiet and felt like crying.

Half way through the meal, S asked me if I was ok because I was being uncharacteristically silent.  I owned up to how I was feeling and we talked about it and I started feeling better.  S stared out the table who were looking at me and they largely stopped.  What is it with some people?  We made plans to get my foundation fixed and I began to cheer up.

Given it was L’s first time meeting me, I was absolutely intrigued by what she thought.  L has the most wicked sense of humour - I absolutely love spending time with her and her response was typically L.  She basically said that she was relieved to meet me as she was worried that in real life I wouldn’t look like my photos.  Given that situation, she felt there would have been no option other than to lie or at least to be nice whilst thinking ‘ugh’.  Instead she was pleasantly pleased at how good I looked :o).  That’ll do for me :o)

After lunch (small salad and sparkling water), we went to sort out foundation.  S and L are both complete fans of Bare Minerals and felt that it would help me with my perspiration issues.  So we went to a concession and the very helpful lady at the counter helped choose my tone and applied some to me.  She added some more blush and as well as being amazed at how good the stuff was, I was back to looking properly made up again with no shadow.  Double yay!

So we headed to Costa.  By this stage, I was comfortable and back to my normal self and was really starting to enjoy the day.  We went in and ordered our drinks.  The barrista took time to use lots of female pronouns, ‘ladies’, ‘girls’ etc.  Probably a bit too much, but I’m seriously never going to complain about that. Quite the opposite in fact. So we sat down and continued our nattering, or as Sheldon Cooper would put it, ‘jibber jabber’.  I felt for all the world like just another girl, chatting to her friends and enjoying a nice day out.

Complete kudos to S and L.  They treated me as they would treat any of their girlfriends.  In doing so, they gifted me with another day I can look back on and smile about.  They are both completely fantastic.

Time for an update - part one

So much has happened lately and yet things have been so busy that trying to find a slot to write has been impossible.  Hence it is 4.50am, I’m in a hotel room in Glasgow and trying to bash this out before the next mad day gets going.

There is lots to tell that is more interesting, but probably the place to start is following a particularly tough time, I have begun seeing a counsellor.  About a month ago I went to an annual event that I’ve described before on my blog.  This event has every one of my worst situations rolled into one.  It is predominantly filled with women making an effort to look fantastic for one another.  There is a black tie event.  And for added fun, this year the weather was traumatically hot, which brought out the most impossibly cute sundresses while I was uncomfortably buttoned up in my male suit most of the time.

Honestly, in those few days of the event, I quite literally had an emotional meltdown.  Some of the people who I turn to in tough times got some of the most painful texts and emails I have ever sent.  I got to the point where I just didn’t know what to do with myself.  I didn’t know what to say, to think or really how to carry on.  In my pain, I reached out instead and contacted a trans counsellor.  Amazingly, I think she saw the gravity of my strife and just hours later we had our first discussion.  It was such a refreshing oasis of calm.  Together with some friends, I came back to myself and got through.  This was even when on top of it all, I’d hired another straight-jacket of a dinner suit for the black tie event and the shirt didn’t fit my collar even though it was the right size.  I contemplated not bothering going, but I summoned the fortitude to carry on.  I did go and it was ok.  I survived.

That preamble was to say that I had my latest counselling session this week.  I opened it up by saying that I’d not done many Rhiannon things this month - that I was putting it on hold a little.  Then I listed a long long long list of all the things I’d done in the last four weeks or so and I realised that I now do Rhiannon things without even thinking about it sometimes and that I’ve stopped traveling between him and her and have largely merged them together.  Even if I’m not presenting as Rhiannon at a given moment, I am still who I am.

Anyway, so what’s happened?  Well, three main things really...

Firstly, I Sparkled.  For the uninitiated, Sparkle is the UK’s preeminent trans festival, held in Manchester’s gay village and attended by seemingly hundreds or thousands even of trans-people.  I have to say - and it is with no shadow of a doubt down to the company of Becca of Mutterings fame - I had an absolutely fantastic time!

Becca and I are good friends and we have talked about going to Sparkle for a few months now.  I was reluctant at best.  A weekend as me, wandering about doing girl things was a bit scary.  However, I did it.  I went through it and enjoyed it.  There are a couple of photos here that are slightly low quality.  Becca is a wonderful lady, a great friend, a wise sage and a courageous human being.  But she is a lousy photographer.  So I can only really apologise for the photos. :o)

My main memories from the blur that was that weekend will always be the pleasure of going out on a Friday night with my legs out in my favourite LBD with some great heels, getting slightly (ok a lot) inebriated and walking back to the hotel holding my shoes.  I have always always wanted to walk home in a cute dress holding my shoes.  Another one off my bucket list!   The other memory is that I spent the entire weekend melting.  I have just the worst propensity towards facial perspiration and it was the hottest weekend ever.  My make up and I suffered.  So I extend my apologies to those people who had to endure looking at a rather wet looking large woman like person dripping all over the place.

But I met some great people and had a lot of fun and am keen to go back.

Second, along the way this month has been dressing rather more than usual around other people.  I have had a selection of visitors to 'Rhiannon's Place', including said Becca and (on a different occasion) my mother, which was great fun. The heat has curtailed some of my make up application, so some of the Rhiannon time has been hair and make up free, but its still me!

And thirdly I went out, Rhiannon-style, for another day out with two fantastic GG girlfriends.  But I am conscious that some stuff happened on that day that I want to share with you and that this is already a long blog, so I am going to do that annoying thing of deferring telling you about that.  Plus, its nearly time for the day to start!  So, give me a day or two and I’ll put it out there...

I remembered how to cheer myself up...

I know my blogs have been unhappy of late for which I apologise.  Every effort is being made to be chirpy forthwith.  Starting right here in fact...

Yesterday, I was travelling home from work - I'd been working away - and I thought I would pop into Boots to buy some new nail polish.  Buying natural colour tights was really the aim of the expedition, but who wants to stick with just boring natural tights when there is a distracting colour fest available?  I think that you really need colour to balance out the shopping basket, surely?  And after all, its not like I'm obsessed with nail polish or anything like that.  Or that this blog would incriminate me in any way!  Or that my toes are always painted apart from the two weeks a year on holiday with the kids.

Anyway, so I arrived at the shop ready to buy.  As you know, I have been sad for a while.  In fact this has meant that I've not even not been shopping or put on nail polish for weeks.   So glumly, I was looking at the range available and noted that they didn't have my favourite colour in. :o(((  Was even Boots the Chemist conspiring against me in conjunction with the evil people from Rimmel?  I just love the oddly named red called, 'hearts on fire'.  What else could add to my woes?

But then I saw it and instantly smiled again.  Clearly, just for me, they'd renamed my favourite colour (or a near facsimile) with something that cheered me up no end.  I purchased a bottle of Rimmel's 'rock n roll'.  :o)  Such a cool name.  Boots and Rimmel are both redeemed!

And I'm not saying (see picture) that my skills are any good in terms of application.  In fact, they are usually better than the photographic evidence would imply.  But when I got home, poured a glass of wine (of course), got changed into my skimpy nightdress (I know - too much information) and put on my nail polish, I was really really happy.

When friendship kicks the dust...

I have not blogged for ages and a certain lady has been giving me a hard time about it recently.  In fairness, she does write the most boring blogs in the world, so she can talk.  Now I’ve been shamed into it.  The dearth of blogs has largely because I have been really really down of late.  I know that, in reality, when you are upset is best time to blog given its cathartic benefits.  Opening a bottle of wine is faster.  So I’m sorry, but the quick fix has been winning out.   Feel free to disagree, but repeated blogs detailing how unhappy life can be are not fun or edifying.  So I let it be.

Today is a particularly sad one though, so as a window, is interesting.

I have known one of my friends for nearly 20 years.  We don’t see each other that often really any more - we don’t live near each other, lives got busy etc.  We are Facebook friends and at one stage we were really close.  I was his best man at his wedding.  I watch from afar, but I am really proud of him and of some of his achievements - he’s done some great things.  Today he receives the accolade from his latest accomplishment, but I’m not going to get the chance to share in it.  I don’t know why, but it is painful.

Recently, I told his wife and him about my separation from Mrs A.  They were busy at the time with a lot going on in their lives.  I told his wife first in a Facebook conversation (she uses it far more than him) and the response was quite lukewarm and it felt like it was uncaring.  It was a one-sided, short conversation with little response and an abrupt end.  I play the conversation over and over again.  Was a private Facebook conversation the right way to tell them?  Was she was worried about loads of other things?  Is it that we haven’t seen each other for a long time?  Did she just not know what to say?  There are loads of reasons for it, but I was left feeling bereft.

I showed the conversation to another friend who felt that his wife was just preoccupied, had lots on and I had picked a bad moment.   I agreed.  The issue was more about where I am right now - that I am lonely and am probably looking for things from people that they can’t possibly be expected to give.  The day after that conversation, my friend of nearly 20 years in finding out that my long marriage was in trouble, Facebook messaged me a quote about how things get better in the end.  No commentary, no words, nothing.  Just the quote.  Fine, he was busy too.  They both had a lot on.

But I guess the problem is compounded by what has happened since then really.  In the last three months...nothing.  I thought I would have warranted more really.  A call, an email, a how are you, anything.  I’m the type of friend who if someone has a problem, I want to be there for them.  I want them to know they can turn to me.  I want to help out.

I talked to Mrs A about it recently and how upset I am and she said that I should make contact with them and say how I’m feeling and that I should, in particular, ask them if they mind me being there today.  I even planned my route and printed off parking details.

Today arrived and I know Mrs A’s recommendations are the grown up thing to do, but actually, I’m going to let it pass. Sometimes, despite how sad it makes you feel, it is easier to let things go.  I have a number of one-way friendships that exist because I make the effort to make sure that they do.  I barely have enough wherewithal to keep myself going at the moment, why continue to fight for things others don’t appear to want either?