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

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. 

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

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