Tag Archives: norm

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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!

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The Day The Mall Almost Ate Me

There is SO much shopping to do – I know, go ahead, feel sorry for me!  With the exception of 2 or 3 tops and bottoms, I had to get rid of everything in my closet.  I’ve been wearing the same 2 shorts and 2 t-shirts that we bought after the drains came out for 3 weeks now.  And I’ve been waiting for this 6-ish week mark when the swelling has largely gone away (supposedly).  AND…thanks to my UU Choir in Rockville for their so generous gift…I’m sitting on nice wardrobe budget to get me started!!

So…it’s pretty much time!  You’d think that I would be skipping in glee to the nearest mall (if I could skip – which I cannot just yet!)

And…I ALMOST am…but there has been a sense of hesitation and a feeling that I should go a little slow.  I even tried to say that this is part of my attempt to be less impulsive sometimes and take my time with things – which I would like do occasionally, but in this case, I think that’s a cover!  It’s kind of hard to say why, but I think I’m figuring it out.

So, on Thursday, I decide that I will go to a mall, on my own, for a limited period of time before my first hair cut in 2 months.  I have two goals – find a real bra  (non-underwire, but anything that will give me two distinct breasts rather than the sports bra uni-boob) and discover what my size range is.

I walk in and I’m pretty sure that you would have laughed at my face or started in with the reassurances.  I just felt totally swallowed!  Almost to the point that I didn’t know what to do there!  And I’m thinking, “This is silly.  Of course you know what to do here.”  And I’m telling myself that there is no specific expected outcome, no rush, just experiment, just enjoy it.  I’m walking by these stores and realizing that I could go into any of them when before, 90% of the stores were just automatically off-limits.  AND I’m realizing that I know nothing about them.  Which ones I’ll be drawn too, which ones are out of my price range.  A clerk at Talbots welcomed me warmly as I passed their door and hesitated and I wandered in, but immediately knew that I wasn’t ready either to put myself in someone’s hands or to shop for “real clothes” without some good undergarments and with slightly less wide eyes.

So…I made my way to Penney’s, focused on the bra section, and let my comforting research mentality take over!  I choose one style and getting every permeation of size between 36C and 40D.  Dressing room visit one – I found the most likely bra size and went back and got an armful of other bra styles in that size and close to it.  Plus, grabbed a couple dresses that caught my eye on my way back to my lab (a.k.a dressing room).  Dressing room visit two – success!  Found a bra that worked and happened to try it on at the same time as a beautiful striped maxi dress (which I assumed would swallow me in length) and turned to the mirror and was…well…delighted!!  I was VERY tempted to get another dress that looked good – get this, a purple polka-dotta flirty number!!!  But it was full price ($60) and I talked myself out of it.

With 3 bras and the maxi dress in tow, I went off to my hair appointment.  My wonderful hairdresser chastised me for denying myself the dress – especially at this first stage in the shopping experience and her words stuck as I drove home…so I kept going to another mall near me with another Penneys!!  They didn’t’ have the dress, but apparently my hesitancy about shopping had been banished and I had myself a small whirlwind and a grand time!!

So…the mall did NOT eat me – just almost!  And I’m ready to shop!  Shopping companions beware, I’m coming for you!

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Eschewing the Norm

Today, before it got too stinkin’ hot, I got the dogs together and went out on a walk.  Both of them nosing around and pulling this way and that, taking a usual path for us through the neighborhood woods and trails.

I’ve been wrestling with the concept of “normal” in a lot of ways and this walk was no different.  In some ways, it was “back to normal” – moving at a normal pace, walking for a normal length of time, the usual dog shenanigans.  And, of course, in many other ways it wasn’t normal at all.  I haven’t walked the dogs on my own since surgery.  Moving at a “normal pace” was a first, but it felt fine so I went with it…being aware of every moment and every move to keep two leashes untangled and keep me in control, not them!

I’ve been talking and thinking about how I’ll be ready to “jump back in” to my “normal life” and how this body will “become normal” to me and how this past many months of intensity will somehow settle into a normal life again.  And I think that today, I’ve come to a good conclusion that I’d much rather explore.

“Bullshit.”  That’s my conclusion.

I think that the whole concept of normal is bullshit.

I do understand the draw of it – the comfort of routine schedules and known surroundings, the feeling of fitting in with the world, having things that are predictable and easy.  Why do we try to force those into a norm?  Aren’t we also surrounded every day by new things, ideas and people that cross our path?  Aren’t we (hopefully) growing and learning and changing – even if in little ways on most days?  Don’t we struggle with fears of complacency, taking things for granted and getting stuck?  Why would we want a norm when it would dull out the first two lists of things and make the last more likely?  Why would we want for a day to pass “without incident” or to lose sight of the wonder of an ever-changing reality?

I don’t even want to go into some of the “normal” statistics about our society…I found out this year that, apparently, it’s “normal” for women to have a crisis at age 40.  It’s normal for marriages (and careers) to go through crisis at the 7 year mark.  It’s even now normal for couples to divorce.    And let’s not send me into a research frenzy about other things that I suspect may be normal – Ritalin for children, education levels…oh, let’s just stop.

I know I’m on the high brow here, but really.  I feel that my life – especially given all that’s happened this year, has been yanked out of normal and I find that, in many ways, I’d like it to stay there.  Of course I don’t mean that I’d like to keep high, hard emotion all around me…but I *would* like to keep my emotions around me (as opposed to shoved away from me) and I *would* like to have a mindful sense of living with them in the present.  I’d like to have a renewed sense of my body and my journey with it every day and not let that settle into something less appreciative.  I’d like to look at my partner every day and have a fresh sense of why we’re together and all that we want to do.

I’m pretty positive that I’ll have my “normal hodgepodge” of a schedule come the fall.  (See, now, how can normal and hodgepodge even go together in the first place!!!)  But if I think of it that way, it could easily be stressful.  I’d much rather choose that hodgepodge – on a daily basis! – and then also plan to revel in both what it gives me and in the spaces in between – no matter if they are spent doing everyday things or unique things.  And, as my friend Tim wisely said, who says I have to “jump in” anyway.  Can’t I just walk in from where I am?

I’d like to keep this sense of calm/relax that I’m beginning to have at my core and look through that lens when a day gets crazy or when I borrow trouble.  I don’t mean this in a rose-colored-glasses kind of way.  It’s just about recognizing the fluidity of life and people.  Fluid is moving.  Norm (in my mind) is rigid.  If I can embrace the ups and downs, the fast and slow, the *process* and course of life…wouldn’t I flow better with it and wouldn’t I enjoy it more, or at least get stuck less often?

In the bigger picture, I have never aspired to be normal.  I used to mean that in a creative way.  I also now think that I may have meant it in an elusive way (part of the weight demon) and maybe even an elitist way (part of my success/failure demon).  But now, I just mean it in an everyday way.  Every day, any day would be less if it’s consigned to a “normal day.”