I didn't have much to say today....

 

My late wife and I loved going to this joint on our two trips (together) to the West coast.  On all my trips to the region (save one), I made an effort to stop by this place for some of the freshest seafood I could get.  Even though it has changed hands since I was last out there, I expect that the new owners will treat the place with the respect it deserves, so that it can attract customers for many years to come.

So why do I open up about a restaurant a continent away from where I live?  The answer to that is simple.  I'm thinking of making a future Hawaii cruise an open jaw trip at both ends.  Instead of flying to Hawaii from New York (and returning to New York after the cruise), I'm thinking of flying to LA to see my Uncle, then flying to Hawaii for the cruise.  After the cruise, I would like to fly to San Francisco and visit some of the places my wife and I enjoyed when we were in the Bay area.  From there, I would then fly home to New York after a San Francisco stopover.  (Or course, I could fly to San Francisco first, then return home from LA.)

Considering that my uncle is 87 years old, I'm not sure if I should put off a trip to LA next year.  But I certainly don't want to let him know about Marian.  Why put him under any additional stress?  Yet, I want to be able to afford that Hawaii cruise.  So, I'm going to need to make a hard decision soon....

An Anniversary - a quick note

 

It's hard to believe that today would have been my 36th wedding anniversary.  And I've been widowed for over twice as many years as we were married.  Do I miss my wife?  Yes.  There are only two other women who got that much of my heart, and both of those relationships were failures.

Would my wife have accepted this side of me?  Who knows?  But I can say that she accepted me wearing my feminine frills at home.  So there was a good chance that she might have accepted the Marian side of me as long as I presented myself well.

- - - - - -

It is acceptable in our society for a woman to present herself in a "masculine" way.  But it is generally not acceptable for a man to present himself in a "feminine" way.  For the life of me, I'll never understand this with the rational side of my mind.  But I can understand it with the more primitive side of my mind, as it has over 60 years of social programming to reinforce these views.  Hopefully, this will change for today's youth....

I miss my friend.

 

I was thinking of a good person today.  She was a member of our community, but we didn't lose her due to Covid-19 itself.  Instead, we lost her because nearby hospitals were overloaded with Covid-19 patients and were unable to diagnose or treat her cancer before it was out of control.

My friend's last communication with me was an email which I've edited for both brevity and for privacy. The following email was her acknowledgement that death was soon to come.

Things were not supposed to go this way. I had planned two more years of working and then get going on my bucket list. I have been fortunate beyond belief being blessed with the best wife and family any man could have. I have had a good career and have fought many battles but those days are behind me.

I am sad that I will not likely complete some of the plans I had. I figured I would reach 70 in two years and retire and then start living my life and doing all the things I could not do while working. There are many of you that I planned to see and visit but unless something good happens that will not occur. Right now any movement is exhausting and talking is difficult. I wish I could breathe or even walk from one room to the next. I will continue to fight one day at a time but the current prognosis is depressing.

I am thankful for the life that the Lord has given me. It has been a good run with good friends and a great family. In June I would be married 48 years. My goal was to make it at least until 50 years married. I would love a few more rounds of golf and a few more runs down a ski hill but now it is hard to move from the recliner. I had planned to take my wife across the country to meet some of my friends but if the doctor is right that is not in the cards.

I thank you for your support and prayers. I may not have the ability to write again since getting on the computer is a strain. I will look to see you all again on the other side.

I wish you all health and happiness.

I do not think she would mind if I shared this last message as well as showing her picture.  This is the person she always wanted to be, but had to keep in a closet.  When she got too sick to have realistic hope of recovery, her wife disposed of her female clothing because she was afraid of what others may think.

Life is way too short to worry about what others may think.  One must live authentically.  For me, it is currently a life split between two worlds.  But for my friend, it was a second life mostly led in secret.  She could never take the risk that other people would find out about this side of her, nor could she share the beauty in her soul that this side of her represented.  Yet, she helped make it possible for me to be the person I am.

My friend and I met in person only once.  She could only treat her female side as part of a fantasy because the reality of coming out would be way too risky.  If I could have advised her to do one thing, I'd have advised her to be brave and share this part of her soul with others.  Yes, it would have come with big risks. I lost someone special because she couldn't deal with this side of me, or couldn't talk about her feelings about this side of me until it was too late.  But the rewards may have been worth the risk.  Sadly, only my friend would know if this is true - and by now, she has likely passed away. 

I would have liked to say my goodbyes in person while she was alive.  It would have been nice if her wife had sent out an email with wake/funeral information, so that we could pay our respects after her death.  (This is one time I'd choose to wear a dark MEN'S SUIT, as the wife did not approve of my friend's need to express her femininity.)  There were so many things that could have been better that were not to be.

It's hard to believe that I don't even know my friend's last name, or where she lived.  Several years ago, she gave me advice that helped me break down the wall of fear that prevented me from going out and about as Marian. She later gave me more good advice when I needed it - all while she was suffering with her cancer.  I miss my friend.

 

I'm over the hill, but I don't mind it much.

 

For all practical purposes, it's been 7 years since I had my hands on a mainframe computer.  My programming skills have atrophied since then.  Yet, I am tempted to throw out a few applications to do some old fashioned Cobol programming.  Would I be good at it?  I'm not sure anymore.  I threw away all of my old manuals, never thinking that I'd ever need them again. Why do I mention this?  Well, I'm starting to see ads for remote work that my old skills could be used for.  As much as I am a relic, there are jobs around the country which now beg for remote workers.  And I wouldn't mind being one of them if I could get hired for a job befitting my skills. 

Sadly, I do not think I could brush up on all of my old skills and fake it with the skills I only had training for.  There are better qualified people than me out there, and no one wants to pay the big bucks for someone who is as obsolete as I am.  So, if there's work for me out there, it'll have to be grunt work.  Do I mind where I'm at now?  Not really.  I was able to retire a few years earlier than I had planned, and I have had the opportunity to explore the world as Marian - something which has helped me grow a lot as a person. 

The other day, I went to get a coat altered, getting the sleeves taken up about an inch and a half.  Today, when I went to pick it up from the tailor, I got into a discussion with the seamstress - who likely didn't suspect that I was not a cisgender female, except for my size. We talked about her marital problems, and I talked about my widowhood - with me translating my late wife's experience with cancer into that a male would have.  As long as the person doesn't know I'm transgender, it makes sense to talk about my past as if I'm cisgender. But I will talk about being transgender if things call for it - there is nothing to hide.  It's too bad that I don't have a good excuse to patronize her shop, as I would love to befriend this woman in the same way another cisgender woman would in the same situation.  Alas, this will likely not happen.

I may be over the hill, and far from any important rat races. But the view from here looks as good as the view I had 20 years ago - for very different reasons.  I now know what I want from the rest of my life, and I'm investing the time to get it.  I just wish I had this wisdom while my wife was alive - she deserved to be with someone who fully appreciated her while she was alive....

All I want for Christmas

 

I have to be realistic about romance and me.  I'm a failure at love.  You could blame it on my bi-gendered nature.  You could explain it away from attachment issues from childhood.  You could just say that I'm selfish.  No matter what is the root cause, I've loved and lost way too often.

Fortune granted me 11 years with my late wife.  She was no saint, but I would like to think that she could have accepted me for who and what I am now.  However, could I have accepted what she was while becoming a more mature adult?  I'm not sure.  Over the years since then, I've dated a string of women - with no long term success.  Most recently, I was in a relationship for 5 years, and failed at that as well - in part, because of who and what I am.

My Christmas wish is simple - to find a lasting love, and to be able to show her I really care.  What is your Christmas wish?

There are times I think about the failures in my life

 

There are times I think about the failures in my life.  One of those failures was my inability to realize how much I loved my wife before she died, and not to say "I Love You" when she was alive. Another set of failures was related to my relationship with my most recent (ex) girlfriend. I never told her how much I cared for her before we broke up.  Nor did I sense we were growing apart, even though she was signaling just the opposite.  It's been about 6 months since we were last in contact, and she's just a lingering memory of things that shouldn't have been.

Occasionally, a person should ask him/herself - what would I do differently if I could live my life over again?  In my case, I'd have told my wife that I loved her very much, and do it often. When thinking about my ex, I wouldn't have gotten back together with her the first time we broke up, and I would have tried to have the type of friendship that I have with Vicki. I made a lot of mistakes with this lady, and I wish I hadn't spent the better part of 5 years with her in a romantic relationship, when we would have been better off as close friends..

But I don't want to dwell on matters of lost love.  

There is so much more that I'd want to change if I could.  To many, I could be considered a success.  I own my place free and clear, and I have enough resources to last the rest of my life if I am careful with those resources. Yet, I look at myself as a successful failure.  If I had been able to deal with anger issues earlier in my life, I'd have been able to build better friendships, have better romances, and have been much more successful in my career.  If I could tell the 21 year old version of me anything, I'd advise myself to find a good therapist before I got serious with any woman, and before I wasted time in my early career positions.  Although my life would likely have been extremely different from the one I lived, I think I would have been much more successful than I am now.  (And no, I don't mean just financial success.  I also mean that I'd have better and more fulfilling relationships with people.)  Yet, I have few regrets about the life I've lived.

When I think about my career, I was lucky to avoid going for the big bucks when I didn't have the maturity to invest in myself.  Once I developed the basic skills to make a good living, I didn't maintain a saleable skill set to preserve the marketability of my skills.  Yet, I was able to stay at a firm for 30 years, and earn a decent pension while I was able to do so.  This would not have happened had I jumped around for short term money, as I did at the beginning of my career.

If I had chosen to write this blog with the benefit of foresight, I'd have revealed less about some people in my life.  For example, I would have been much more careful about what I wrote - especially when it came to an ex-girlfriend and an ex-cruise partner.  (Long time readers of my blogs know who I mean when I mention them.) Regarding the ex-girlfriend, I would have been less aggressive about pursuing my interests. And regarding the ex cruise partner, the other day, she must have "butt dialed" me.  She didn't respond to an olive branch I sent her in response.  Just as well.  Vicki says that it was a mistake to send out the olive branch.  And she's probably right.

There is one other regret, and this regards a reader of this blog.  I only had the opportunity to meet her once.  Unfortunately, things got in the way for the two of us, and we were never able to meet again.  Sadly, she no longer lives near here, and meeting with her is virtually impossible. Hopefully, I will be able to see her again.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving - And nothing got in the way to mar it except traffic.

I'm not sure of what I can and should say about today.  Nothing bad happened.  But part of me would rather have stayed in Westchester and taken advantage of an invite I had to spend the day with my friends from Game Night.

- - - - - -

Not sleeping well last night, I set the alarms to get me moving around 11 - and slept through my favorite TV show of the day.  I prefer the fictional courtroom drama of Perry Mason to the real life political drama going on today.  There is a part of me that always wants to see justice done, and real life doesn't provide enough of that for my taste.  By the time I finally got out the door, it was 1 pm, and I was about an hour late.

My drive to Long Island was uneventful until I reached the Bronx.  From there, traffic slowed to a crawl, and I was forced to get on side streets to make it to the bridge.  Once I was across the bridge, I went back onto side streets again to make it to my brother's place, arriving there at 3 pm, when I was expected at 2.  This was not a problem, as my brother had already picked up my dad from the nursing home, and the turkey was almost cooked.

We chatted about many things, and brought my dad back to the nursing home around 8.  One area of discussion covered addiction, choice of mate, and how relationships flounder. And that gave me an opening to discuss my criteria for choosing my late wife, my issues with Ex-GF-M, and some of the issues GFJ and I are having with each other.  (By my mention of complacency in the relationship, I avoided the need to talk about my transgender nature.) He touched on similar issues he had with his wife.  And we both (at different times) brought up our problems with my niece to make sure that she knows when to cut and run from a dysfunctional relationship.

Eventually, it was time to go home. And I hit only one small traffic jam on the way home.  On the whole, it was a good day - especially, since my brother was able to open up to me and that I didn't have to see my sister in law as expected.  (Nothing against her, save that her presence would have gotten in the way of my chat with my brother.)

A weekend in the middle of the month

The weekend.  Most people live for it.  As for me, those two days are like any other day.  This is both the blessing and curse of being out of the workforce for several years.  I have the freedom to do what I want, but no urgency to getting around to doing it.

- - - - - -

This weekend, the only thing I really wanted to do was to go to dinner with Vicki #1.  So, on Friday night, I decided to give my wig a bath and let it dry overnight.  This allowed me to have fresh, clean hair on my head when we would go to Xavier's H2O in Yonkers in the evening.

For the most part, I hung out around the house all day Saturday.  My GI Tract was giving me problems, and it did so just before I got ready for the evening.  As usual for me when going to a fancy restaurant, it was on with the LBD and some of my nicer costume jewelry, and out the door when Vicki arrived.

Vicki has grown very uncomfortable driving in the dark.  So I agreed to do the driving to Yonkers.  In a way, it was like visiting a past that is long gone.  My late wife worked near the Getty Square area, opposite the former city jail.  I remembered the area with quite a few run down industrial structures made of old red brick.  Most of those structures have been either been rehabbed to look better than new.  And the ones that have been town have been replaced by sleek, new multistory buildings which fetch excessive rents.  And this would effectively be my first time back in the area in years.
 
Xavier's is in the building which used to be the old Yonkers pier. To park there, one must use Valet parking shared between two restaurants.  It's not bad when one drops of her car. But when one picks up her car, the wait in the cold on the waterfront can be quite chilling - I was glad I was wearing tights under my dress. 

Vicki preceded me into the restaurant.  The dining floors of the place were one and two stories off of water level.  I'd bet that they are making sure that in case of potential floods, that the operations areas of the restaurant are unaffected.  But I digress.  We arrived at the reception desk and were guided to a table on the second floor.  (The above is the view from the window directly behind me. It's nice to have the NYC skyline as a distant background.)  There's not much I can say about the place better than that I'd go back there in a heartbeat. The service was excellent, and everything put in front of us was perfect.

We talked about many things on the way home, including my relationship with GFJ and the possibility of my finding another partner.  She was trying to avoid unnecessary cruelty to me in saying that "not every pot has a lid."  (Not her words, but it's an expression that works here.) This is something I already knew, and was comfortable with her being able to tell me an uncomfortable truth that I've had to deal with for a while.

Eventually, we made it home, and she left for the evening.  As for me, I stripped off my dressed and packed it in for the night.  What I didn't know at the time was that I wouldn't be going out the following day.  I had no energy or desire to get up and about.  Nor, did I see any other reason to have me do so.   







Dinner with Vicki

What I think was a minor cold woke me up, and kept me awake until I used some cold/cough syrup. 

And now, something completely different.

I have to stop and smell the roses from time to time.  Today was one of those times.  Even though I didn't get the sleep I feel I need, I felt rested.  Yet, it was a nice day to stay indoors and enjoy a "jammie day" for most of the morning and afternoon. You might wonder why I opened up my entry this way.  Well, I've been thinking of a lot of things as of late.  And one of those things has been understanding and appreciating the options I have as a "semi-retired" person.

- - - - - -

Recently, I went on a couple of interviews for part-time positions.  One of these positions would likely have resulted in me (if hired) being taken on for full-time employment within a year.  I would have enjoyed this, but would have felt a little sad due to the loss of an ability to take long cruises whenever I wanted to and could afford to do so.  If I had known the importance of experiences when younger (youth is wasted on the young), I would have lived my life very differently than I did.  Yet, I have few regrets, as I know that I would have needed much of the knowledge I have now to have effectively use my experiences to nourish my soul. And that includes the choices I made involving work, the career I chose, and my work/life balance.

When I was young, I never appreciated personal relationships, the value of chit-chat, or the need to stay tuned to what's going on in my community.  I ended up marrying a woman who was very much like me in this respect, and we had a relationship that pulled each of us closer to the other while pushing all others away.  Couple this with a job that would have me on call 24 hours, isolated from the trends in the computing industry, and minimally connected to others, and I would have problems in late middle-age when I lost many of the things that initially brought me success in life.

What would my late wife have thought if she could see me now?  There's no way I can know that.  But I think she might chuckle to know that I am regularly out and about as Marian, and that I'd scheduled a fancy dinner tonight with Vicki #1 as Marian.  Hopefully, my wife would smile because of the confidence I've gained in the past few years due to my ability to present myself to the world as Marian without embarrassment.

- - - - - -

Several years ago, I'd have worried about what others would think if they saw me when presenting as Marian.  Now, I don't give it a second thought - especially when going out to a nice restaurant.  Tonight, I drove to Vicki's place at 6 pm, then she drove the rest of the way to Purdy's Farmer & the Fish for a Restaurant Week dinner. If I had known how bad her night vision was, I'd have volunteered to make the 30 minute drive.  Not knowing where the restaurant was, Vicki overshot the place, and she made some driving mistakes on the way back to where the restaurant should have been.  I noticed the entrance, and Vicki found a comfortable parking spot.  Unfortunately, the ground was uneven, and I could feel the rocky ground beneath the soles of my shoes - this was the first of many rustic touches involving the restaurant.

Before opening the door, I noticed that the building built in 1775.  The front door looked like it was as old as the house, and we both enjoyed the rustic atmosphere upon entering the place..The setting was nice, but the tables felt a little cramped; the food was tasty, but something was off.  Both of knew what the problem was - the lights were way too dim to allow patrons to fully enjoy the food.  Even the best of food presentations will be harmed by poor lighting, and we missed out on much of the visual experience of eating a good meal.

I told Vicki about things with GFJ and with my former cruise partner.  Vicki understood the situation with GFJ, and made a comment that reflected a problem that GFJ and I had from the beginning of our relationship.  Unlike my former cruise partner, Vicki clearly sees our problems and understands what we have to overcome if our relationship is a long term relationship.  We talked about her life and issues with money.  She has to be the frugal person, as her husband is not as good as she is with managing significant sums of money. Then we got talking about the cruise partner.  Vicki agreed with me about my need to sever the connections with this woman instead of seeking out a reconciliation - some people won't grow unless unneeded scaffolding is removed.  Now, Vicki is very glad that she never had the opportunity to meet this person....

It would be easy for me to go on and on.  Even though I don't see Vicki that often, I am glad I have her as a friend.  I appreciate how level headed she is and how we connect with each other.  Too bad that sometime in the next few years, that she will retire and move elsewhere.  Until then, I'll cherish the friendship I have with her....

They've paved paradise, and put up a parking lot.

I think it was Joni Mitchell who penned the line "You don't know what you got 'til it's gone." And she is so right!  I lost my wife over 20 years ago, and I didn't appreciate her presence in my life until she was gone.  No, I don't beat myself up over ignorance and mistakes in my past.  Instead, I do my damnedest to avoid making the kinds of mistakes that I'll regret in the future.


So why am I referencing the line from a classic song?

Lately, I have been thinking about the impermanence of life and the people I miss.  There are times that I want to visit my friend Barbara in Cape Cod, and then I remember that she isn't with us any longer. Not all of the friends that I miss have passed away. But some are just too far away to be in regular contact.  For example, YGM now lives in Florida, and it is very inconvenient for us to keep in contact.  She has a job, two kids to care for, as well as a mother and a husband.  I can only imagine what she has to deal with, and keeping in touch with her friends is not high on her list of priorities.

It's been ages since I've heard from my friend, WDS.  He gave me the present of a fully loaded iPad when I got the job with the payments firm in NYC.  Sadly, I lost that job due to my own inadequacies for that job.  But in many ways, it was the best thing that could happen to me.  I didn't know the freedom I'd have when I decided not to work on a full time basis anymore.  And I didn't realize what I lost when I had to start watching my pennies again.

Change is an ever present constant in our lives. The older we get, the more we lose from the lives we once led.  Yet, this gives us new opportunities - if we're lucky to see them.