Thursday, June 27, 2013

Surprising find

I went trolling through some of my old writings in search of something I started awhile back and instead I have stumbled across this gem. I don't remember writing it, but I like it.

I want to tell you a story. It has happy parts and sad parts and parts that might make you cringe. I want to tell you that it has a happy ending but I can't. Not because all the characters of the story die, although they ultimately might, but because I do not know how or where it ends. 

Here I sit in the midst of this story, the one I wish to tell you.

You, I have no doubt, you are an amazing creature. But right now, in the middle of my story, you do not actually exist yet. Not for a lack of desire.

We are working toward having you.

Everything I do is focused on us having you. I imagine what it will feel like carrying you around inside of me. Will I love it, will I hate pregnancy. I will admit I am nervous that it will be a let down. Only because of my high hopes, my overwhelming desire to have you. 

I wish I could tell you everything, but I must edit to keep the parts I need to tell, and others I simply wish to. I want to fill you up with knowledge and strength. I want to protect you and empower you. More than anything I want you to be a proud, honest soul. A person I would call friend. 

No road is entirely easy, we all have the burdens of the past unfairly and unceremoniously dumped on to our shoulders. Your road will be hard, and harder perhaps because of who your parents are. For that, I beg forgiveness. My dear child, if I could protect you from this world and its cruelty I would, and will when I can. But here I am to tell you what I can, to let you see how and who I am. This is not the story to justify or win your love, just the story of me and in large part also your father

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Insemination


On Thursday we had our first insemination. It was an unexpectedly amazing experience.

The lead up to it however was not so much fun. A few days earlier to the insemination I had a major melt down of sorts. I had not slept without night terrors until last night. The melt down was because of demons in my past and it hurt that somehow they can still have such an effect on me. It's true, the effect was less then it has been in the past, but it still angers and frustrates me that they still have any power at all.

I'm feeling better on that front.

The insemination was a miraculously personal and gentler experience than I thought it would be. Frankie was able to be the one who actually inseminated me (so I can still blame him in delivery(;). As a lay there afterward we had time just the two of us, and it was a small moment that meant the world to me.

Since the insemination I have been in near agony. Pains in my stomach have been crippling me and making me worry that something has gone wrong. I'm trying to keep focus on the positive but it will be two weeks before we know whether or not we have our little stranger ... It will be the longest two weeks in memory.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Fraud

Today, someone I admire quite a lot told me that I was one of the strongest people she knows. She also told me, that what I am doing, she simply could not. I wish I could say my first reaction was a warmth of love and appreciation for recognition that life at the moment is not the easiest for me. I wish that I could even say I felt a sense of blushed embarrassment.

However, what I felt overwhelmingly more than anything else was that I am a fraud.

I do not feel strong, I do not feel like what I am doing or going through isn't something that others could and do go through. And they do it with a lot more grace, charm and ease then what I am managing.

It was lovely and kind of unexpected to hear that from her, but I still have this gnawing sense of being 'found out' at any point.

Eviscerated


Bitter roots firm and unforgiving
Eviscerated of Sunday afternoon memories
They are replaced by the dark
Shame and sodden mould growing inside

Twisting around spine and bone
Ripped and shred of all that feels safe
Bloody hands dig deeper, fingernails sharp
Brutal sounds of tearing flesh and laughter


Saturday, June 15, 2013

Re-reading

Reading old books that I truly love is like curling up in a warm comfy blanket. With so much going on in my life at the moment, the idea of embracing a new reading journey is just a little too daunting. The idea of not reading at all is just unacceptable. So I am re-reading books from my past and finding comfort in the known. They are words that are wrapping around my like gentle arms letting me collapse in to their embrace.

Cocoon


It's a bitter sweet sensation when you finally bare your soul, your secrets to another, even when the feedback is nothing but positive. It all becomes that little bit more real. I don't do well to exposure. 

My past, cruel and vicious events that have shaped me whether I wanted them  to or not are a completely different story. When I have worked through pain and anguish, disgust at my own self, feelings of betrayal from life's cruel ironies then I can babble about them for hours. I can laugh and roll my eyes and I can be pissed with the perpetrators (even when it is my own self) but not linger on any hatred. But events that I feel are the storm around my thinly veiled calm, this has never been my strong point. 

I wrap myself so tightly up with anything that will do, just to mask what's really happening inside. The true problem with this, is that even when I know that something is wrong, I have mastered my art of cocooning too well. I couldn't tell you what was wrong, even if I wanted to. I have my theories, but weeks later I will discover that wasn't even the true issue at all. High five (in the forehead) to being a master of the cocoon. 

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Giants

They stumble from out of history
Life and fantasy
I feel my knees trembling beneath 
My inferiority complex

They are giants, fearsome and distant
As sirens they call and beckon with smirks 
I slink beneath unknown fears and horrors
But they continue, closer to my nightmares

Eyes penetrate me, pleasure and pain 
warped into crescendo 
I want to scream but cannot without voice
Their eyes glisten and I sink under their weight

A silence, heavy and thick like too many blankets
On a steaming night of restlessness

Gentle, too gentle and soft the point 
Of their touch, beneath my lowered chin
I give in and my head rises, flickering my eyes
They betray me and my desire to hide, to run, to not exist

It must be a trick, of light of deception
Until I feel the warmth from their enfolding arms
My giants; my protectors, 
cursed for too long by my own judgemental fear

My giants

Our adventures


Life is filled with a thousand daily adventures - there are things that terrify, things that inspire, things that invoke fear and doubt and joy. Sometimes, these things can all be found in individual journeys.

Frankie and I, we are embarking on two major adventures that at different times have not just evoked these emotions but a thousand or two others to go along with it. Sometimes good and at other times I have struggled to find good in it at all. But this is what human nature, what living is all about (at least that's what they say).

Frankie and I are trying to have a baby. Seems simple enough. Well, it seems that it isn't. Our journey is still in the infantile stages really and yet I feel as though the journey has already taken a life time. I have had exploratory surgery, looked at a detailed histories of unknown families in profiles all to find sperm (I dont know this much detail about my own family) and have been taking so many vitamins and tablets of all kinds I am beginning to feel like I could open up my own pharmaceutical company. There have been moments of pure excitement, visions of our family, of our little stranger. There have also been the fears, the doubts and the horrors that come with caring that much about another who in reality may or may not even come in to our lives. It's a stressful situation. Financially and emotionally draining, but there is more I would suffer for the chance to meet our little stranger.

But this is only part of our major adventures at the moment.

It's been awhile now, but things are at a point where they are progressing and it's all swimming around in my head like murky water with secrets too hidden through the thick colouring of the unknown.

Frankie is transgendered. For years I have known to some extent that she didn't feel right in her skin. There were days and sometimes even weeks where it wouldn't be an issue but those are fewer and further between now. Frankie has embarked on this journey and through many conversations, tears and break downs, I will travel this journey along side him, as his wife as I was before and will continue to be. In this we are also at a sort of first steps stages in the journey.

I have struggled with writing anything about it for several reasons. Firstly, not everyone in mine nor in Frankie's life know about the transition from female to male. It's not something you can always simply slip into conversation. Coming out wasn't always easy, and I feel for Frankie because he has to do it all over again. Another reason I have delayed in truly writing about it, is because I have felt as though I had no right. This is Frankie's journey, Frankie's story, surely it's not my place to write it down. In some ways that's true. I don't and can't know exactly what it is like to be transgender, but I am on this path with Frankie, and the journey I can write about, talk about is the one of taking the steps beside him to find a happier truer self for who he is.

Life is still filled with the smaller daily achievements, adventures, frustrations and disappointments. The larger adventures do not take away from these, but I've noticed in myself of late, they have helped me carry a slightly different perspective to them.

NC

Monday, June 10, 2013

Anniversary

Today is mine and Frankie's wedding anniversary. To most it might seem to be our first but in the reality of our lives it was in fact our second wedding anniversary. 

Two years ago we were asked by Frankie's father to move our wedding forward so that he could see his only child be married. It was a request neither of us hesitated to grant. 

We had a little over a week to organise an extremely small ceremony with half a dozen family on the balcony of the Ipswich hospital. I will never regret our decision to move the wedding forward for John. A year later, exactly, we had another wedding ceremony and reception for all of our friends and family. 

Today we celebrated our second anniversary. I love Frankie with all of my heart. The best of me is alive when we are together. I have thought today about all that we have come up against, worked through and survived. We are stronger for every challenge and I will fight to never take our marriage or our love for granted. 

There are huge changes on the horizon of our lives and marriage. And while some of these give me moments of terror, they also fill me with such hope and excitement. 

Things are changing and I'm working on this fear of change. 

NC

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Latest Adventures

The adventures are rolling at the moment. There have been so many exciting things happening at the moment ... a lot of changes which are making my head explode at the same time as making my arms flap around with happy excitement. 

Hmmm, but where to begin?

There is a list of things, are without down playing any of them I want to share these things.

I finally received the beautiful long waited copy of Dr Nike Sulway's latest novel Rupetta. It's so beautiful, the paper thick and luscious in order to hold the beautiful of the words pressed upon it's pages. It's so surreal reading it again, in hard copy. Finding the small differences from the version I read some years ago. I'm reading it very slowly and enjoying the words as they rush over me.

I have now officially, legally changed my last name. It's taken so long for me to get around to it, but I finally did it. Me and my most amazing partner will be starting our family with one united name. I am now officially a Cohen. It's been interesting figuring out how to now sign my name. It's also a little daunting all the businesses and companies I now must contact in order to have all of my records changed to reflect my new name ... but it can't shake the excitement.

Work has sort of promoted me of sorts. I'm now Room Leader with my kids. I'm so excited (it was another arm flapping excitement moment) ... but it's a lot of new pressure and responsibility but now I've accepted that sudden forced time to grow up, I'm really excited about this opportunity. Plus, the biggest bonus being I get to stay with my kids and keep them in a routine and stability that I've been working on all year.

Latest news. We are moving! We found a place we truly love and adore. It's a little further out then I would have originally hoped, but it's worth it for the amazing feeling to our new home. We move next weekend so there is a whole lot of packing, calling and organising going on right now ... but it's going to be more than worth it.

I feel like there has been more things happening, but unfortunately these things have obviously overshadowed them, or my memory is simply failing me.

Oh I remembered another exciting thing for myself. I started working on a story that is flowing wonderfully. I haven't written anything I have felt as worthwhile for some time now, but this story, this tale it feels necessary and needed .... and makes me feel better.

Monday, February 11, 2013

New Literature!


I’m having an extremely jump around like a crazy person happy moment! I just preordered my very own precious little copy of Dr Nike’s new book, Rupetta … and now to test my patients … I have NONE! I want it in my hot little hands now, lol!



I’m so excited about getting it, about having it. I went and reread The True Green of Hope and have discovered that my copy of The Bone Flute which was loaned out to a friend has never been returned and the friend is no longer in my life. This saddens me greatly, I must now go on a hunting mission to find a new copy.


There is nothing like the excitement of waiting for a new shining book, and getting in touch with amazing literature.

(This was supposed to be published some time ago ... Oh interwebs how you mock me)

Too much electricity

The world has been in crazy disarray. Perhaps not so extreme but change is definitely not something I deal well with. Quite frankly it brings out the worst in me. I like to know the way things will go, I like a smoothness. But being the contradictory soul I am, I also get bored quite easily. So, I am difficult to please.

There have been a lot of changes of late, and it just doesn't seem that there is a light at the end of the tunnel - or perhaps there is but I'm terrified that it is a train.

I read about these amazing characters who are strong and determined and always know what to do, who they are and where they are going. My characters always turn out too much like me and lately I haven't written anything about any of them because I think one version of me floating around is quite enough thank you.

Don't take me the wrong way. I love my life. I love my partner and I love my best friend. I feel grateful every single day that I found the both in the one person. I am excited (and terrified) about what the future holds. The plans we are making for our lives together entwined and parallel, our desire to start a family. These are all amazing things, but not having control over some is sending fear finger tipping up and down my spine.

I'm also aware that I am feeling weighed down and as though I am buzzing with too much electricity running through my veins.

Perhaps it is merely my inner writer screaming to be listened to. It's time to pick up the pen and paper again