On Friends
Looking back on what I wrote on 2004 I felt that I hadn't said enough on friends...and friendship.
I don't think I ever had a real friend before I transitioned. There were some - like Alex whom I first met 25 years ago! - who were promising but nothing enduring ever came of them.
There must have been a lot of reasons bound up with the type of person I am to cause that. But I do believe that a big factor was my unresolved transsexualism - a condition I've lived with consciously since the age of 4 or 5.
What I mean is that I think it's real hard to acquire and put to use the requirements of friendship (which I see as integrity, honesty, responsibility, self-discipline, self-acceptance and loving oneself and the world for who you are and what it is) when you are spending a considerable proportion of your life energy dissembling, deceiving, hiding, faking and masking.- the real you that is.
It is said that the way transsexual people in a hostile (or perceived hostile) social setting get by is to create a false persona which accords with the messages they receive about how and who they are supposed to be. In other words, for me, who wanted only to be a girl, and was most interested in being with and doing girl stuff, the safe thing to do was to create a false boy persona who did boy stuff; stuff that did not arouse giggling, ridicule, harassment and bullying.
Now if you're living two lives - the inner one that feels most real and most like you and most desirable but is verboten and dangerous to express - and an outer one that is safe and acceptable but to which you feel little deep attachment - which do you use to form friendships? Obviously, you can't use the inner feminine (in my case) one because friendships are the occasions of great intimacy and risk but if you use the outer (masculine) one which is not "you" how do you bring to bear the prerequistes and concomitants of friendship - namely authenticity, self-acceptance and spontaneity?
So "friends" came and went like wisps of wind, leaving little trace. I was a distant, aloof, fickle character lacking colour and allure.
I didn't really care for friends, didn't really mind when they drifted away (or more likely, when I did). I felt safest and most comfortable alone. My relationships were Linus security blankets and weren't real either. We never got to be friends. They usually dragged on far too long and ended sadly if not acriminiously. If I revealed my feminine self friends and partners alike would become nervous and uncomfortable.
So friendships didn't factor very highly in my considerations when I embarked - belatedly - on my journey of transition to womanhood. But god! did I find out the meaning of loneliness and the colour of it - the blackest of blacks!
But as I became me , the more authentic, open, exposed, real me people were intrigued, attracted. Friendships did develop. Oh! there were some false starts - I guess I was a pretty pathetic (50 year old!) puppy to start with but eventually I found a solid core of real kindred spirits with whom to begin the equally amazing and challenging journey towards friendship.
They have taught me a lot - and put up with a lot I am sure. They have been an integral part of my growth towards not only lived womanhood but also lived humanity and towards wholeness and authenticity and integrity.
I envisage my friends (mostly female) as treasured flowers and herbs in a garden which delight me and fill my days with beauty and fragrance and colour and healing and learning but which I must tend and water if they are to survive and grow.
Perhaps I madden or annoy or bore them but I love to ring them and write them and send them little cards and pot-pourri ( I am the original card lady - no, not true, that's my mum from whom I learned the habit!).
I go into paroxysms of angst and worry lest i have said wrong things or been too intrusive. So much do I value their nourishment of heart and soul.
Maybe I'm "needy" or perhaps emotionally famished or perhaps just some gawky fourteen year old dork trapped in the body of a fussy old woman.
Anyway, whatever! I love my girlfriends ENORMOUSLY! And my darling man, Alex, the love of my life, my lover and partner and husband is my BEST friend. You know, when you get to a really dark, windy, howling, wet patch on the road and you look across and your best friend is there, trudging along, head bent down towards the storm, right there with you. That kind of best friend!
Yep! We need friends...whatever our journey!
I don't think I ever had a real friend before I transitioned. There were some - like Alex whom I first met 25 years ago! - who were promising but nothing enduring ever came of them.
There must have been a lot of reasons bound up with the type of person I am to cause that. But I do believe that a big factor was my unresolved transsexualism - a condition I've lived with consciously since the age of 4 or 5.
What I mean is that I think it's real hard to acquire and put to use the requirements of friendship (which I see as integrity, honesty, responsibility, self-discipline, self-acceptance and loving oneself and the world for who you are and what it is) when you are spending a considerable proportion of your life energy dissembling, deceiving, hiding, faking and masking.- the real you that is.
It is said that the way transsexual people in a hostile (or perceived hostile) social setting get by is to create a false persona which accords with the messages they receive about how and who they are supposed to be. In other words, for me, who wanted only to be a girl, and was most interested in being with and doing girl stuff, the safe thing to do was to create a false boy persona who did boy stuff; stuff that did not arouse giggling, ridicule, harassment and bullying.
Now if you're living two lives - the inner one that feels most real and most like you and most desirable but is verboten and dangerous to express - and an outer one that is safe and acceptable but to which you feel little deep attachment - which do you use to form friendships? Obviously, you can't use the inner feminine (in my case) one because friendships are the occasions of great intimacy and risk but if you use the outer (masculine) one which is not "you" how do you bring to bear the prerequistes and concomitants of friendship - namely authenticity, self-acceptance and spontaneity?
So "friends" came and went like wisps of wind, leaving little trace. I was a distant, aloof, fickle character lacking colour and allure.
I didn't really care for friends, didn't really mind when they drifted away (or more likely, when I did). I felt safest and most comfortable alone. My relationships were Linus security blankets and weren't real either. We never got to be friends. They usually dragged on far too long and ended sadly if not acriminiously. If I revealed my feminine self friends and partners alike would become nervous and uncomfortable.
So friendships didn't factor very highly in my considerations when I embarked - belatedly - on my journey of transition to womanhood. But god! did I find out the meaning of loneliness and the colour of it - the blackest of blacks!
But as I became me , the more authentic, open, exposed, real me people were intrigued, attracted. Friendships did develop. Oh! there were some false starts - I guess I was a pretty pathetic (50 year old!) puppy to start with but eventually I found a solid core of real kindred spirits with whom to begin the equally amazing and challenging journey towards friendship.
They have taught me a lot - and put up with a lot I am sure. They have been an integral part of my growth towards not only lived womanhood but also lived humanity and towards wholeness and authenticity and integrity.
I envisage my friends (mostly female) as treasured flowers and herbs in a garden which delight me and fill my days with beauty and fragrance and colour and healing and learning but which I must tend and water if they are to survive and grow.
Perhaps I madden or annoy or bore them but I love to ring them and write them and send them little cards and pot-pourri ( I am the original card lady - no, not true, that's my mum from whom I learned the habit!).
I go into paroxysms of angst and worry lest i have said wrong things or been too intrusive. So much do I value their nourishment of heart and soul.
Maybe I'm "needy" or perhaps emotionally famished or perhaps just some gawky fourteen year old dork trapped in the body of a fussy old woman.
Anyway, whatever! I love my girlfriends ENORMOUSLY! And my darling man, Alex, the love of my life, my lover and partner and husband is my BEST friend. You know, when you get to a really dark, windy, howling, wet patch on the road and you look across and your best friend is there, trudging along, head bent down towards the storm, right there with you. That kind of best friend!
Yep! We need friends...whatever our journey!
posted by Paula at
7:41 pm
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