May 16, 2007

Climbing the stairs of transition

Transition is a strange yet fun process and it not only has a lot of similarities from person to person, but it has differences as well. Similarities can come in the form of how hormones change our bodies, our minds or even our total outlook on life. Differences are usually just based on our own experiences in how we deal with them .

I stumbled across another blog last night that in so many ways seems to parallel Dee and my experiences with this metamorphosis that is is really amazing. Annie and Claire are dealing with Claire’s transition in much the same way my blog does, they are being open about it. Yet in their stories the one constant I seem to find is the same sense of intense love for each other that my lovely wife and I have. I have to admit that while the dynamics within the relationship have change we certainly have a much stronger bond with each other. Diane has often said that she prefers this depth to our old husband wife relationship in whatever form I tried to make that last in.

Annie’s blog is called "Gardens in Bloom" and it can be read here.

http://annierushden.blogspot.com/

In the near future I will probably try and add it as a link in the side bar.

I’ve had my share of downs over the last few weeks in regards to my daughter and the way we are being treated. I told Diane last night that I am at the point of feeling like I don’t feel like going on as life seems to be clogging my proverbial arteries lately. I know I’ll get through this and I’m intently trying to find pockets of happiness to pull my sorry butt from the curb. I know this cloud will eventually float by but I can’t explain the pain I feel for giving over 22 years of my life selflessly only to be treated so poorly, it certainly leaves the soul wondering why …

On a new note and the title of the blog, climbing the stairs I had a strange but progressive night last night. My brother Rob called me to talk and noticed something wasn’t quite right about my voice and started to push to find out why. Eventually I opened up a bit and explained to him what was going on with my daughter, but then the conversation took a weird twist and I came out to him.

I shouldn’t say I was shocked by his reaction but I guess we prepare ourselves for the worst and hope for the best when throwing caution to the wind. His reaction was simply that he loved me no matter what and he would always be there for me. It’s such a nice feeling on one hand and such a jaded feeling on the other.

Rob and I are ½ brothers from my dad and sadly we grew up on opposing coasts without my dad ever telling him of my existence. In 1994 on a cross country truck drive Rob stopped by my ½ brother Roy’s house. (There’s a lot of ½ in this family) While there my brother Roy asked Rob would you like to drive up and see Kev? Rob’s reaction was Kev who and he had to meet me.

To some degree I’ve never forgiven my father for keeping my siblings from knowing me, I think it was very selfish on his part. The funny thing is out of 7 ½ siblings Rob is the only one I keep a connection with because he cares. It’s so strange having a brother 3000 miles away that cares more about you than the ½ siblings that live right down the road and in all honestly I’d consider myself an only child if it wasn’t for Rob .. I guess I don’t have to worry about the others finding out… I simply don’t care..

In the last 3 weeks this is the 3rd person or people that I’ve come out too and so far 2 of the 3 have been nothing but supportive. The 2nd (my sis in law) just hasn’t responded either way. I’m so worried I’ve done damage to that relationship and our nieces will be pulled from out lives now. I’ll feel really guilty if Diane gets hurt by this … What has amazed me so far is the amount of support and love I’ve been given so far which counters a lot of the stories I’ve read about transition from other people. Maybe I’ve actually been a good enough person for people to want to care…

Last night was certainly a very emotional night and I decided to shake things up a bit. This past weekend in our grocery trek I found some temporary hair color that gives a slight hue to whatever color hair you have. The one I chose was a plum color that I figured would pop against the brown. I just wanted to try something that 2 years ago I would have never been able to do out of fear. The nice part about it is that it’s only a temporary color so it washes out after 8-12 washes.

So as Diane played a computer game I snuck off the bathroom to dye my own hair. Now this may not sound like a big deal but I will simply say that every 6 weeks ..Diane keeps my gray away. She was pretty surprised I had done it and seemed to like the results. I think I created a monster because now she is asking me to try a different hue for our trip to Maine next week. I’d been needing some me time lately, I guess this was a good way to get some.. Needless to say, I’m proud of myself for not only trying something I never would have been able too before, but doing it totally on my own without help from my wife…

I had an hour of not thinking about anything else but me ….

~K~

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