Tag Archives: constipation

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Trickle Down Liberation

Last night marriage equality passed on the ballots in Maryland, Maine and we’re hoping in Washington State as well.  I got an email at 1:10am from my dear friend saying, “‘I’m getting married!!!!!???!!!!”  On Monday, another dear friend could hardly contain her awe and joy that she had the opportunity to vote for her right to get married, while, in the same room, a third dear friend pent up her anxiety and didn’t dare hope – the populace had shot down the measure each of the 30 times it had been on a ballot in the past.

When I read the news on waking up this morning, I had this huge sense that the tide of the world is truly shifting.  I have believed this in theory – we’ve overcome inequality for blacks and for women and I have believed it to be hopefully inevitable that it will continue…for LGBTs, for hispanics…that all the yelling from those who are against is so loud because they are losing the fight.  But this morning is different.  This morning proves that the world moves when enough people are ready and when that happens, it doesn’t matter that some aren’t ready yet.  Growin’ and Changin’ as my friend is so fond of saying.

Growin’ and changin’ happens even when I don’t feel ready…in fact, one could argue that I’m struggling to keep up – working in the wake of growth and change that was so ready to happen that it already has.  I’ve been wrapped up in my cocoon trying desperately to learn how to grow up a little more, how to change in some ways, how to hold on to myself as that happens…thinking that I’m needing to figure out how to lead the charge.  Perhaps it’s the other way around and I’m really negotiating the waves that were created by being in the wake of a huge tide of change.  Damn it!    How many CEOs and world leaders do we love to laugh at for being out of touch know-it-alls!  They are so wrapped up in keeping their position and their loyalties and their sense of power that they are not only afraid to change, but they don’t even realize how far the world how moved beyond them because they haven’t changed.

The tide of the world shifted yesterday.  Despite the nay-sayers and the sniping political ads – and also with the enormous effort and enormous love of many hard-working people.  The liberation feels like a deep, calm shift to me – I know that’s strange and I’m sure that it was not a calm night for so many folks…but where I am, waking up to the news and having been in my cocoon, it sends a message that we’re walking through change and we are growing even when we are blinded to it.  The phrase that comes to mind is”trickle down liberation”…which amuses me greatly!

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I’m a Mess!!

Both physically and metaphysically!!  YAY!  This is very good news!  Let me ‘splain:

PHYSICALLY

I’ve known I’ve was a mess for over a year now but, according to my many doctor visits, I was CRAZY.  “Nope!  All the numbers say that you are the healthiest you’ve ever been and couldn’t be medically healthier!   When you’re feeling shaky or woozy – you should just buck up and barrel through!”  Really?  There have been times this year when I have been on the floor because I can’t stand up and times that I couldn’t put two thoughts together if my life depended on it.  My energy that has been nearly boundless even at 320 lbs has left me for a lump of jello in the space of 5 minutes.  And, by the way, for most of my life I have been the poster child of buck-up-and-barrel-through.  I know how to do that.  I COULDN’T DO THAT.  Now, it’s true that I also have some crazy going on…we’ll save that for the next section on the metaphysical…and it’s true that stress can play a huge hand in physical distress, but I have known for a long time now that there is more to the picture.  Back in January and February, I was actively begging for them to find a tumor or SOMETHING that we could work with.

Last Tuesday, I went to the Roselle Center for Healing seeking a more holistic approach to nutrition.  Seeking for someone to say those three little words that are so important…”in your circumstance.”  That doesn’t mean that I’m looking for a magic pill or to avoid the pillars of science and nutrition…just simply for someone to look at MY history and MY symptoms and MY circumstances and help me find approaches to food and health that fit what I need.  I have been steeped in nutrition and weight loss for 25 years.  I can plug my own numbers into the cookie cutter database and have it spit out how many calories I need in a day.  That tells me NOTHING about how my body reacts to carbs vs. protein when I hit a low, how my gastric bypass totally F’s up my absorption of nutrients, how…you know what?  I think I need a separate blog for this rant…

ANYWAY, from the start, the Roselle Center was different. Cue #1 – on their intake form, they have a question that asks, “what do you think is wrong?”  I took in a 4-page document that I’d put together a couple months ago that I thought would help a nutritionist meet me where I am.  A summary of my weight gain and loss, an overview of my last year of symptoms, a summary of my current activity level and approach to food, a list of specific questions.  Oh yes, and my legal-size-paper spreadsheet of my bloodwork vitals going back to 1989.  The last nutritionist said “oh, thank you” when I handed this to her and put it behind her.  Sue Roselle said, “this is perfect!” and dove in – quickly and efficiently going through and pulling out the information that she needed…which, not coincidentally, were exactly the pieces that I thought were the most important!  She hacked and slashed through my bloodwork results pulling out indicators of concern that no one has ever mentioned.  Phrases like this one were typical…”Yes, this [insert nutrient name here] value is technically in the normal range, though it’s lower than I’d like to see it…but in your circumstances it’s alarmingly low and it indicates that nutrients related to it are likely deficient.”  And that was just considering the gastric bypass.  She went through the factors…a gastric bypass surgery, a highly restrictive Medifast diet (to lose the last 50 lbs), a major reconstructive surgery that I’m just really in phase 2 of the recovery and that requires different nutrition, a solid year of high emotional stress, the fact that I am peri-menopausal and a few more.  Any one of these, she said, would be cause for concern given my numbers, and I have layered them on like a club sandwich and it’s no damn wonder that I haven’t felt good for a year!!

So…she concluded…I’m definitely a mess.  Pretty much a body in nutritional crisis.  BUT, we have all the tools we need and all of it can be turned around!  THIS.  THIS I CAN WORK WITH!!!!

By the way…Nelson goes in tomorrow for his initial work over (and me for a follow up).  She is going to have a HAY DAY with him!  Between his food allergies (to all but 4 foods in the WHOLE WORLD) and the hormone replacement therapy.  HAY.  DAY.  And when she learns that a MTF transitions is also part of what we’re going through along with everything else – not to mention that he lost his job the day after I saw her last week – she is going to give me a look that says, “You are a mess.”  And I am going to look back with “I KNOW!!!!!!!”

METAPHYSICALLY

Also a mess.  As you know, really.  But the more I see it, sometimes, the more I realize that railing against it only makes me more of a mess. If I can say things to myself like, “okay, so you are [insert emotion here].  That’s okay.” Or if I can recognize that the 15-year-old is on the scene and say, “what’s up, little girl?” rather than actually act out.  These reactions help the negativity pass through me and out.  But often (and very often lately) I do the first part of recognizing the emotion or the petulance and then I take that and get angry or scared or anxious that I’m feeling that way or acting in a way that I don’t want to act…and instantaneously double the anxiety.

Here’s the simple statement.  We are all a mess at times.  I’ve just spent my life up to this past year ignoring that.  And now, I’m paying that price.  I’m gathering up all the messy places of my teens, my twenties and I’m sure my thirties are in here somewhere – and I’m seeing them for the first time.  Yes, they need some attention and some processing, but really not so much sometimes!

Alex (my life-long friend) and I used to use the image of taking these gremlins out from behind us – where they were lurking and poking and generally mucking about – pulling them around in front and saying, “I see you.”  I used to picture telling them to sit in the corner in front of me where I could see what they were doing.  And that does work sometimes…it’s my metaphor for actively recognizing and processing something.  And, many gremlins just don’t like to be seen – so they go away or calm down just for doing this.  However, I need to add a step. SOME gremlins – either right when you pull them around front or once they’ve been in their corner for the appropriate amount of time – need to be shown the door.  Creating a play space for them – no matter how visible – invites them to get comfortable again.

Is this saying to buck up and barrel through?  Sort of.  But not because there is nothing wrong.  Not because I’m not a mess.  Because I AM a mess sometimes.  Life is messy.  And the only way out is through.  That is also something I can work with.

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The Girl in the Woman

It’s become very clear to me that I am currently living as both a 15 and a 41 year old woman at the same time.  I’m not going to say I’ve regressed because I truly believe that I have not yet been through this stage of development – I’m visiting it for the first time in many ways!

I knew when I started this blog that talking about the “Girl in the Mirror” was the right way to put it.  I’m not sure I could have said why, exactly, but folks have asked why I’m saying girl and, I think, concerned that I’m not giving myself credit as a grown woman.  I actually see it as somewhat the opposite.  As I shoved away painful parts of adolescence – namely, my weight and the whole world of attraction and relationship – I seized on growing up quickly in other areas.  I was a rock-solid friend and emotional pillar.  I developed a leadership style, a work ethic, a cultural outlook.  In my 20s, I fell up the career ladder at the University of Maryland.  I taught an honors class in leadership and developed a full set of consulting and facilitation skills.  I looked at the world of opera and made decisions to go in my own direction, lining up with my own way of contributing to the world.  I got a grip on my finances, well, after graduate school!   I paid attention to retirement savings.  I am the worldly friend.  The wise friend.  The one with great advice and, oh, so balanced.  I give myself plenty of credit as a woman.

I have not ever given the 15 year old any credit and barely any time to do the things that 15 year olds do.  I have not flailed around in the throws of emotion.  I have not acted impulsively or selfishly.  I have not felt lost or naive or innocent or incompetent.  There was no sowing of wild oats.  There was not even a casual scattering of oats.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that I was decidedly in denial that I was in possession of any oats.

So, imagine my surprise when this hurt and confused 15-year-old comes roaring out of me a year ago and starts demanding and flailing around in my perfectly crafted 41-year-old life.  At first, I shoved and ridiculed and railed against her.  I didn’t give her any credit or any time.  But she was not going to be denied.  And it was my veil of control and maturity that made it impossible for her to be heard.  So she had to shout…at me and, through me, at the people that I love.  And she wreaked havoc on my body and on my heart.  And she got her way.  And I, the 41-year-old, have had to try to make sense of the mess that she made, live my adult life as best as can through it all, and find ways for her to be here and have a voice while she needs it.  So, my current thinking is that it’s best to be in conversation with this 15-year-old rather than at war with her.  My parents probably have some fabulous advice about that.

About when I was 15 (or somewhere in there), I pulled a chair out from under Amy Wellington – a girl that I was becoming friends with.  It was a stupid prank and meant to be funny and, instead, I found that I had been hurtful and mean.  Amy (and her parents) were angry and our friendship stopped there.  I was so confused that it had happened that way – and dismayed and sorry.  And I didn’t really have words (except to apologize) to explain why I thought it would be funny.  It certainly seemed ridiculous when I went to explain it.  These are things that 15-year-olds do.  And it’s way harder to find myself in the same position as a grown woman without words (except sorry) to explain how I pulled the chair out from underneath us.  But I understand that my 15-year-old needs to go through some awkward, insecure, flailing stages.  Everyone needs to go through their stages or they won’t ever fully grow.  And I understand that not having things so perfectly, maturely, wrapped up is a much more authentic (and, actually…MATURE, by definition) way to live.

That doesn’t mean that it’s any easier…and especially on the days when I don’t really LIKE my 15-year-old self.  I think, however, that I’ve heard many many parents say how much they love their teenagers even on the days that they don’t like them.  And she does need a whole heap of love right now.  And I’ve got to be first in line to give it.

 

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Too Many Thoughts, Too Little Time

Hello!  Hello!!  The longer I go without writing a blog, the more impossible it feels to choose what to write about!  Not that there is a dearth of topics, oh nay nay!

One thing that I am seeing more clearly lately is how emotional energy really does directly correlate to any other kind of energy.  There has been so much focus over the last 10-12 months on so many huge, personal and interpersonal emotional transitions and sometimes I can really see how that’s just as demanding as physical work – especially when it comes to what I feel I have time and energy for beyond that.  And…I’m completely willing to give that emotional energy…I’d just like to do two things.  1)  recognize that it’s a factor in not having energy for other things sometimes and 2)  keep my feelers out for things that can be let go once they’ve been worried or pondered into oblivion.

This past weekend, N. and I freed up a few pieces of emotional energy and that ease translated immediately into being able to make the final few decisions we needed to start a new eating/exercise plan.  No coincidence, I’m sure!

Yes, there is a topic…moving from a life-long diet mentality to the needed guidelines of healthy living, minor course correction and maintenance.  One of those things that conceptualizing is a poor substitute for actually experiencing!

And another topic…the way that I balance “I” and “We” mentality.  My therapist put it this way…there are “I” people and “we” people.  Think of the forest or the tree.  Some folks are SO much an “I” person that they can’t see beyond even a single leaf.  Some are primarily focused on their personal tree.  Some balance the forest and the tree.  Then there is me.  I believe the term she used was “Mega-We.”  This is a fascinating lens to look through!  I do largely like my we mentality and I think it’s very much a core of who I am.  However, I would like to have the “I” more woven in, rather than grasped at with juvenile rebelliousness once it’s built up a need.  Just a small topic there, don’t you think?

Random topic – things that happen when you make a sudden change to the proportion of your body:

  • parking a car is no longer possible.  Yup, as a direct result of surgery, I can no longer turn my car into a parking spot between the lines.  This was never a problem.
  • long-distance driving.  I don’t know if it’s a different sitting posture or the tailbone thing or the sciatic nerve or what – but I’ve got to figure it out!
  • not having a good place to rest my hands…used to stay on my hips!  But they go now to my new favorite place…the flat where the pelvis meets the legs.
  • foward-motion.  I can run forward and back with so much more speed and agility!  Someday soon I will win a racquetball game!

One thing that does not change with body proportion:  I am not a Victoria Secret customer!  I mean, get over yourself with the 4 different kinds of tissue paper and the names of things!  I think I tried on the exquisite, the beautiful, the stunning, the gorgeous, the very lovely, the very very lovely…I’m not kidding!!  I found one (ONE!) that I wanted to consider.  The name of it?  The balconet.  That’s right.  Dictionary.com defines that word for us:  a railing or balustrade before a window, giving the effect of a balcony.  Why, I believe that was precisely what I was looking for, Victoria!  I would like to purchase a $50 purple piece of silk that makes me feel like a sexy, voluptuous, oh, what’s the word…balustrade!!!

And one more topic…lately I’ve realized that I feel like I’m waiting most all the time.  Waiting for N’s transition to show us the next steps (not to mention waiting to know what the whole thing is going to feel and look like!)  Waiting for us to get through the rough patches of this past year.  Waiting to get to places that I hope for.  I think that feeling like I’m waiting makes all the things that I do now feel more like transient, treading-water things.  It robs me of just living my life and all it’s moments.  So, I’m going to try and think differently about that.

There!  A Smorgasbord of topics and updates for you!  What should I dive into?

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Glimpses

Just a small observation for tonight, though I know it’s been too long since I’ve blogged!

I’ve mentioned before that I think we work in glimpses.  Glimpses of what the future could be.  Glimpses of what’s inside us.

Tonight I caught a glimpse of my wife.  I saw how possible it is for her to all that she wants to be and how it might be to be with HER.

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Adventure = Life

I believe that my sense of adventure is one of the things that is most precious to me.  I’ve always had it and as I’ve grown older, it’s widened to include littler moments than the grand romantic notions and far-fetched road trips.  Not to say I don’t love those!!  Anything from taking off to find Ohio’s famous Grandpa’s Cheese Barn (even though it was 100 miles out of the way) to taking 3 days to cook a formal French dinner for a French professor and her State-Dept.-Official-husband when my best friend and I didn’t know thing one about French cooking.  Countless camping trips, excursions that revel in getting lost first, racing the car through my hometown (sorry, Mom – no harm done!)

I love it still more whenI have the adventure perspective on little moments  – my hair adventure, a trip to the farmer’s market or…like today…a quest for Paw Paws!!  I was introduced to the Paw Paw just yesterday as a friend identified them along the Potomac.  They look like green potatoes and taste like banana custard inside.  You have to find them  yourself and use them because they are very perishable – but they are supposedly delicious and have all sorts of laudable qualities!  So, this morning, the dogs and I set off to see if we could find some.  We easily found a Paw Paw Paradise in the Potomac riverbank park closest to our house and I had a great time shaking the trees and trying to dodge the ripe Paw Paw cannonballs while the dogs romped in the river.  Brought home a basket full and spent a part of the afternoon making Paw Paw custard and Paw Paw cookies.  Awesome!

I realized, as I drove home from the outing, that it felt like my sense of adventure had returned…and that it had been away.  Yes, this summer and this past many months have been huge and full, challenging, enlightening and many things…but I’ve not had the perspective of adventure that I love.  When I felt that today, I both missed it terribly (as though I had to feel that active sense of missing) even as I was happy and relieved to have it back!!

It’s a sense that I want about me often – through big things like Nelson’s transition and my journey with my new body – through little things that break up the routine – maybe even about how I face routine!  A little bit too optimistic, perhaps, but worth the moments that the perspective takes hold!

It fits in with my “no more normal” language stance.  Wikipedia’s definition of Adventure reads, “An adventure is defined as an exciting or unusual experience; it may also be a bold, usually risky undertaking, with an uncertain outcome.”  It’s not the risk that I’m focused on in this post though sometimes the risk is certainly a part of the fun!  It’s looking at any given experience as potentially exciting and unusual…read unique.  And the uncertain outcome is paramount to going with the flow and staying present.  Of COURSE, really, anything has an uncertain outcome no matter how certain you are!

So, that’s my two cents for today!  It’s time for a Paw Paw cookie!

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The Fuzziness of Being Human

No matter how I feel about it…we humans are simply not going to stick to a plan!  Or even know what the plan is most of the time!  And by plan, I am, of course, referring to MY plan for the universe as a whole.  It’s the only one that I can really speak to and even though I’d love to pull a Zaphod Beeblebrox (come on, now, look it up if you have to!), I guess that everyone is the same – only being able to truly speak for their own perspective.

The fuzziness that I speak of is built into all of us.  It’s the way that time passes and our feelings and perspectives change.  Our lives and all the things that make up our lives are part of a process.  And this is a good thing!   It’s the whole idea behind growing and learning, healing and hurting.  It’s how we love deeper and express ourselves more fully.  It’s the reason that “going with the flow” is such universal advice sometimes.

But it’s damnably hard to will into submission!  You can have the highest of hopes, the most comprehensive of plans, but you can’t make anything happen unless it wants to and you let it.   And if you think you can (like I have for years), you’re probably not seeing the whole picture.  Even if everything worked out as you wanted – it was because of many components, not just your perfect plan and indomitable willpower!

What brings on this philosophical outburst?  Simply the fact that I am facing an unchartered “re-entry” into my hodge-podge life and recognizing that my old tools of barreling through and applying heaps of energy, willpower and a work ethic on overdrive, is not only not what I WANT to do, but really isn’t the stellar approach that I thought it was.

Let’s not go too crazy – I am still going to be a lister  – though I’m finding it hard to get the comprehensive list together just yet!  I think that is because many of the components of what I want to do and what I want to have priority are now intangibles.  They are ways of being rather than things that need done.  And a list seems to crowd my space to think at the moment.  Of course, the lack of list makes me panic a little and I worry that I’m not thinking of all the things that I should be.  I wonder if I could trust that the things that need to get done will get done?  Should I try a non-listing experiment?

<SHUDDER>  <ACK>  <BLANCH>

I’m not sure I can do that.  Maybe I’ll just start with not worrying that I don’t have a list yet and see how it goes?

Oh dear…perhaps the way ahead is more unchartered than I even thought when I started writing!  Damn this blog!

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Huge Hope

I have approximately 20 minutes before the whirlwind that is Gen Con descends and carries me off to Kansas (well, nearly…Indianapolis!)  I would love to have found a nice, long quiet time to write a few different blogs…but it was not to be this week!  I’ve even taken some pictures of some of my new outfits…frankly, because I’m afraid that I’ll be lynched by some of you if I don’t post some soon!!!

Gen Con, for those who don’t know, is the huge Gaming convention that we go to every year with our company, Cheese Weasel Logistics.  We run a program there that helps new and small game publishers get their products and ideas out to the masses (40,000+ people!) and compete with the big guns.  We used to sell products there ourself, but we don’t anymore.  That’s a longer story for another blog.

The interesting addition this year is the fact that I have NO IDEA where my stamina is.  It’s the most that it’s been since the surgery, but is certainly still very squirrely and I really want to not only make it through these crazy, crazy days, but do so with a sense of pace and calm and not be snippy because I’m frustrated with my restrictions!  As Nelson would say…just relax!

This is yet another very strange time for me.  The off-the-grid 8-weeks is over and the Gen Con whirlwind is a familiar thing…one that is a full immersion, so it’s off the grid in a totally different way.  The start of all the things that usually make up my life – choruses, teaching, daily schedules, etc. is right around the corner, but not here yet.  I have many, many, MANY plans and hopes for how I want to walk back in.  About everything – healthy patterns, balanced time, energy and enthusiasm for my jobs, care for my relationships.  It all feels just now like HUGE HOPE.  And hope is a wonderful, positive thing.  Hope is also, as I like to say, not a strategy and I don’t really have a strategy other than to “just walk in” and try to keep my sense of balance and presence about me as everything finds its place.

That doesn’t seem like the kind of plan that I’m used to, but I do think it’s a good one.  Anything more specific would be unrealistic!  Of course I’ll GET specific – carving out voice studio times and music plans, working with some food planning and an exercise schedule…but the point is that all of that will need to happen as it happens.

I’ll have to write more later about these hopes and the still-so-full feeling that I have.  I don’t want to be afraid of walking back in to my oh-so-full life and I’m mostly not.  I’m mostly excited.  But I am a little afraid as well, intimidated maybe?  It all comes back to my want to do things “right.”  Which I now see as a too-judgemental way of putting it.  It’s not about right and wrong…it’s living life well, loving myself and others well, doing the best I can and being happy.  There are MANY ways to do that and MANY of them do not require a specific level of excellence on my part.  I know this and it also takes time to change a mindset – particularly when I didn’t even know it WAS my mindset until recently.

Alright – I have to go!!  But, I did have time to grab a couple pictures off my phone – the others are on the camera.  So…here’s one of Nelson and I…Nelson with some new hairstyling and me in my new flirty skirt (which I was unsure about, but loved after wearing it yesterday!).  And then one of me on the top of Hogback Mountain in Vermont as we drove back from New Hampshire.  The shirt says…”The Spanish Inquistion – Expected by Nobody since 1970.”

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More Than Half Full

I began this blog by saying:  “Life is so very, very full right now…  I’m aware of this full feeling every waking moment.”  I’m thinking that, by now, you may be seeing why!?  We’ve been traveling for the last couple weeks and so blogging was logistically less likely, but also I have to say that it’s hard to narrow in on a munchable set of topics!

I do feel full up most all the time and that’s not a bad thing.   It’s usually a feeling of awareness and emotion and…well…life!  And it makes me take notice of small moments and feel truly present in my surroundings and with my friends and family.  Of course, it also dovetails interestingly with the fact that I am more emotional now than I have ever been – so I do get leaky much more often.  What I am wondering about lately is how this full feeling will go with my quite-often-crazy schedule.

First, I’m wanting very much to create a different feel about my schedule right off the bat.  I’m trying to construct teaching and working schedules that don’t have me running just to get through them and I’m trying to separate work time from down time in a way that I have not in recent years.  I also want to have more patterns and habits (for food, exercise, housework, etc) that settle into something reliable, healthy and comfortable.

Mostly, though, I want my mentality to reflect this new perspective regardless of busy days or light days.  I don’t want to run and stress and worry and fix.  I recently had a small thought – what if part of “my thing” – my competency, success/failure, fool the world into seeing me a certain way thing – was also the driver to how busy I keep myself?  Is that part of not turning and facing various realities?  Right now, I feel like there isn’t anything that I don’t want to face and spend time with.  And, no matter if I’m facing big or trivial, hard, wonderful, weird, whatever…I’d like to do that with the initial platform of saying that everyone and everything is going along just fine in the big picture.

So, that should clear the way for small and big blogs, right?  Maybe one day, I should just put the list of heavier topics aside and tell you about Cheese Weasel or shopping or the dogs!  Of course, all those things wouldn’t stay small topics either!  Well, maybe the dogs…

For now – thank you all for the responses that I (and we) have received from the last posting.  It was both a relief and a nervous moment to put it out there and, once again, my community has (so far) responded they way I have hoped for.  And, with that, I must go pick up N. for her 3-month check-in with the Whitman Walker physician (our first since she started the HRT) and then another laser hair removal treatment…let’s hope it’s not as painful as the last two!  These are the things that are in our lives just now and it’s wonderful to be able to include them here!

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Cue: The Rest of My Life

So, now that I have you here…

This blog, as you all know, began with the focus on my journey with my weight and there is lots more to say about that  – from the past and whatever is out there for me in the  future.  In huge times like this, it would be logical to hope that life clears a little space and only throws you one doozy at a time.  But life doesn’t always comply (in fact, I wonder if it EVER does) and it certainly is not a nice, linear progression.  So, I find, that if I’m going to write plainly about my life and have this blog as my way of thinking out loud and putting things out to the world, it’s time to start bringing in the rest of the picture.  Without it, I would have to start parsing what and how I talk about things and that is precisely not the point here!

For those that know me – you know that there is a LOT that I could (and will, over time!) talk about.  My career in music is multi-faceted – conducting, teaching, performing.  It’s a constant juggle and also a constant source of inspiration, aspiration and little microcosms of life!  I’ve often thought that there’s material there for at least a couple books.  There’s the hobby business that I have with my partner, Nelson, that has stuff in it that you just can’t make up.  The world of gamers is a fascinating and broad spectrum of humanity.  We’ll get to all of that – later.

Anyone reading this blog also knows that this has been mammoth year for me.  I’ve talked about some of that directly and some less directly, but I think you know that it’s been a time of both emotional and physical revelation – excruciatingly hard at times and also a time that will change my life and my perspective on life permanently and, I very much believe, for the good.  And I have not been alone in this.  Yes, in the sense that I have not been going through this alone , but to the point of this blog post – I also mean that my journey is not the only revelatory event at center stage in my life.

[Ready, honey?  Here we go…]

My partner is undergoing a transformation of his own.  It, too, is about coming into who he really is.  It, too, is an enormous physical and emotional transition.  It, too, will be excruciatingly hard at times and will change his life, our life and our perspectives permanently.  And it is here, now, and happening alongside my own huge time of life.  My partner…my husband…will become my wife!  He has identified as transgender and is in the first months of a male to female transition.

[For those of you who didn’t know…deep breaths]

There are questions that I would guess start springing to mind and let me attempt to answer some of the broadest ones:

What does this mean for your marriage?  It’s something that is going to happen within our marriage.  The safe space for him to explore this need has developed over the course of our marriage and we are in this together.

Where is this coming from?  Well, for him, it’s coming from as far back as he can remember.  Up until now, he didn’t feel that it was something he could explore/pursue without too high a price…or even at all.  For us, it’s been a very gradual discovery that we didn’t know would lead to this reality until fairly recently.  I’ve known since before we were married that Nelson had thoughts about being female and, together, we have a trust and a communication in our marriage that made it possible for him to say more about that and what his true feelings are.  In this year, yes, we’ve had a crisis that was driven by my crisis, and through it we’ve learned so much about the capacity that we really have in our relationship and we’ve recommitted ourselves to doing the things that we truly want to do and doing them together.  Well, you can’t talk about realizing your true self or your dreams without this one coming in for him.

When is this happening?  It’s happening now.  He is starting his third month of hormone replacement therapy.  Since he has not been outward in any feminine presentation, we can’t really say when the milestones will be, but the whole transition will take some time.  Milestones include – when to switch names (from Nelson to Nicole) and, along with that, those pesky pronouns; when she’ll be out at work; when she’ll feel ready to be out in public as a female (or any of the steps leading up to that)…and many more.  We’ve told our families and a good number of friends.  The response has been mostly just incredible and we’re very, very grateful.

And there are a ton of other questions, details, thoughts and feelings all wrapped up in this.  We know that there will be hard things about this decision and it is my very great hope that we will come through whatever hard the world (and ourselves) has to throw at us with our tremendous community around us.  We are not out to put this in anyone’s face (though there isn’t any way that it’s not a visible, physical process) and, in the end, Nicole simply wants to live as the gender that she feels she truly is, not have her life be defined by the transgender label.  But it is a complex, awkward (and, I say, why not wonderful as well!?!) road between here and that state of being.  This blog will be a part of the way that we choose to walk that road.  We also are documenting the process through a video blog together.  You can find that on YouTube.com.  Our channel is Two2Transform and here’s the introductory video.  If you choose to walk with us, you are very welcome and we are, again, very grateful!

See what I mean about life not complying?  It just doesn’t work that way!