Chatting with my family.

I wish my real life family could have been like the Addams' Family.  They all were able to show love, manage their own lives, deal with adversity, and be their authentic selves.  Instead, we did not demonstrate love, were poor at managing our own lives, had a hard time dealing with adversity, and could not be our authentic selves.

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Today, I  spent the first half of the day doing nothing, then drove to Long Island to see my father.  This visit was much more rewarding than usual, as some family "secrets" were revealed that needed to be revealed.

I didn't get moving towards Long Island until 2:00 or so.  And my first stop was at Stew Leonard's to get lunch.  Normally, I'd pick up a fresh Lobster Roll and something to drink. But I thought the $3.99 Shrimp Roll special was good from Sunday through Wednesday, when it was only good on Tuesday this week. So I picked up a Pastrami wedge and finished it before continuing on my way. 

Normally, I'd have continued along Route 87 until I reached the Cross County Parkway, then headed South to either the Throggs Neck or Whitestone Bridge.  Instead, I made a major time-wasting decision - I decided to take the Triboro Bridge to Long Island, then the Grand Centrap Parkway to the Long Island Expressway to reach my dad's nursing home.  This more than doubled my time on the road, as I was stuck in traffic almost all the way to Roslyn.

When I got to my dad, we went downstairs to the lobby to chat for an hour. My dad gave me the heads up on what was happening in my brother's life.  Of course, I told him what was happening with me and GFJ.  Although there is no way that I'll tell my dad that I'm TG, I did say that some of the issues we're having have been there since the beginning of the relationship, and that others are communication related.  That was both true and protective of GFJ's privacy. Since my brother told me to call him when I was leaving my dad, I did so, and we agreed to meet at his office.  Originally, he thought we had enough time to get to Flushing for an Oriental dinner, but he had a 7:30 appointment he had to make.  So it was a quick dinner down the block from his office.

The first thing my brother did when we sat down to eat was to show me a video of a burning house.  Last night, around 1 am, his fire company rushed to a nearby house on fire and extinguished the fire before it burnt down the house.  He explained that the fire was in the basement, and if it was able to find a form of "chimney" for its burning gases to escape, the house would have had no chance of surviving.  Luckily, the firefighters were able to get in the house and drown the fire with (as he put it) less than a minute of margin.  Any later, and the fire would have escaped the basement and totalled the house.  Next, the two of us started talking about events in our lives.  My brother has family problems related to issues from two codependent addicts.  It is not pretty.  But it has allowed him to get to know his only daughter even better AND to enjoy the time he has left with her before she gets married and starts living in Europe.  All too early, dinner had to end, and I was back home in roughly 60 minutes.

Last night, something came out of the blue

Last night, GFJ came over after hiking with her friends.  Neither of us were hungry, so we sat down and watched some movies on TV.  By the time we were most of the way through the last film, she wanted to have a serious conversation.  I always feared something like this could come, as she isn't comfortable with the Marian side of me.  Although I'd like to be Marian 24x7, there are some things I value much more than this, and being in a relationship with a loving woman like GFJ is one of them.  Hopefully, she will understand this, as I would be heartbroken if she were to leave me.

By the time I hit the pillow, I knew that my sleep wouldn't be restful.  Since I lost my cruising partner, I now had no one close that I could talk with about this. From having a couple of people I could confide in to none in less than a month, I was hurting inside. And the last thing I wanted to do would be to anesthetize myself with food, alcohol, or other things that dull my feelings.  Grief is a bitch.  But avoiding it would be worse.

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But enough of that for now....

Sunday came along with torrential rains.  Even though I woke up at 7 and could have gone to church, I was not in the mood to do so.  The combination of everything I've been going through over the past few weeks put me in a funk. I was not in the mood to do anything (including eating), so I hung out in the apartment and watched old movies.  By the time I was ready to eat anything, it was about 5, and I scarfed down some chicken from a can. This was not the time for me to get showered and dressed, as I know I'd overeat if I went out to eat.

Will I be talking with GFJ again soon?  Maybe.  The one time we separated, she made the first move to reestablish contact.  I'm hoping she does so again.  But I won't push her - she needs time to think, and it wasn't easy for her to start last night's conversation.

I woke up late today and decided to take it easy

Normally, I would get up and out of the bed by 10 am on a typical day.  This was not the case with today.  By the time I realized the sun was out, I was not in the mood to do much of anything but watch TV.

As I noted in yesterday's posting, GFJ didn't come down last night.  After I wrote the entry, we chatted, and she said she'd be going on her nearby hike, go out for dinner with the group, and finally come to my place.  I may have had the freedom to go out as Marian, but I didn't have the emotional energy to do so. There are things I need to take care of at the apartment before GFJ arrives, and I plan to take care of some of them.  Doing some laundry is a must, as well as straightening up the bedroom.  And this will not take up much energy - it will take up time.

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Watching TV shouldn't use any emotional energy.  But if one watches the news, it's hard not to spend any energy if one is concerned about national affairs.  We live in stressful times. Our nation is polarized.  One faction is concerned about law and order, and the other is concerned about the feeling of law and order.  These are two different things, easy to see when watching news coverage on the networks.

I don't want to make this a political posting, so I won't go into the differences between the networks and how they use their "dog whistles" to manipulate their viewers.  But I feel sad that we don't agree on any objective criteria that can be used to have honest discussions.  So a simple discussion of politics becomes unnecessarily charged and will often become an energy suck.  No wonder why many people (including my former cruise partner) simply tune out.  They have only so much emotional energy to use in a day, and they don't want to waste that energy on things over which they have no control or influence.

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It is very important to save one's energy for the people and things we care about most. I figure that it is important for me to have some energy left when GFJ comes over tonight. This relationship is important to me, and I want her to always feel glad to see me when she comes to visit.

Ending the week on an off note

I only had a visit to Arts Westchester on the docket for today,  Last week, I said that I'd be making a return visit - and my contact at AW forgot that I was coming.  So she wasn't prepared for me when I arrived.  Yet, there was work that I could do that involved miscellaneous office chores . And I did that work for a couple of hours, until there was no more work to do. On the way home, I got a call from WDJ telling me about the first meeting of her new meetup group.  It didn't go as expected, but what first gatherings go as planned?  I wish her a lot of success with the group, and then remembered to sign up for it when I got home.

As you can guess, there wasn't much to occupy my day.  Since I was very tired when I got home, I stripped off my clothes and took a nap.  GFJ would likely not be coming down tonight, as she wasn't feeling that good.  Hopefully, she'll feel good enough to go for her hike tomorrow (with dinner afterwards).  If not, I'd better start looking for a meetup to go to on Sunday.  Or, I should prepare to drive to Long Island (in male presentation) to see my family. No matter what happens tonight, I still have no idea about what I'll be doing come Sunday....

I started the day with some bad news

Last night, I sent an email just to touch base about the job interview I had a month ago.  This morning, I received my reply - I was no longer being considered for the position.  Since I didn't absolutely need the job, it shouldn't bother me much.  However, I do feel a little bit of a sting due to the feeling of rejection.  Whether I was rejected because I was transgender, or if they found a better candidate shouldn't be an issue.  But I'd love to know that answer if it was appropriate for me to ask it.

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Misplacing things has always been a problem for me.  I have often dealt with it by buying extra stuff, so that I can find what I need when I need it - without having to organize my environment beforehand. Now that I don't have "excess" money coming in, one of the things I have to do is develop better habits for where I temporarily store things that I bring into the house.  The other day, I brought in a prescription I took home from the drug store, and do not remember what became of it.  Did I combine the pills with the ones remaining from my old prescription?  Or, did I misplace them in one of my rooms?  If the former, I'll have no evidence that I did so.  If the latter, the pills will show up some time in the future.

Just before I left for my weekly speech therapy session at Mercy, I found the pills that "My Pooka" hid from me.  (I'm always joking about a mischievous pooka when I'm missing something I know I have in my apartment. Just don't call him "Harvey".  Harvey hangs out with Elwood P. Dowd.)  And I was able to leave for Dobbs Ferry with a more relaxed attitude.  While on the way down, I remembered that I had to schedule my yearly physical with my doctor.  Since his office closes at 3:00, I pulled off at a highway exit, made the call, and got back on the road, losing only a couple of minutes.

Arriving at Mercy a little after 3:00, I worked with the two student clinicians.  If my voice is recorded on the iPad they use, much of my masculine vocal resonance is captured and magnified.  But if recorded on a cell phone's voice mail, my voice almost sounds feminine.  There is still a lot of work that has to be done.  But I know that a reasonably feminine voice can come from my voice box, given the voice of a famous transgender woman who was well known when I was young.

I drove back to my apartment to kill a couple of hours, and then drove down to Yonkers for the weekly round of board games.  For once, I won a game - a round of "Exploding Kittens".  And I didn't do too badly in the other games either.  But my mind was elsewhere - I was checking the news and email quite a bit on the phone.  (It didn't help that the host's daughter wanted to join in a couple of games, and she was another distraction to deal with.)  Yet, I enjoyed myself, and will miss the camaraderie of the group for the next 3 weeks.  While playing games, I had a quick message exchange with JS.  Seems like our daytime get together this weekend is off - she is seeing a couple of real estate agents on Saturday.  I guess financial reality is catching up with her after all....

Thinking about a friend's problems

Please note: I have edited a lot of the original information from this post, in order to respect the privacy of these individuals as much as I can.  However, the underlying problems are common to many families, as my brother's family is similar to the one discussed here.

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A while back, I participated in a three way phone call between me, JS, and her financial advisor.  If you could have seen JS over the past few days, she's been about a hair's breadth away from her own nervous breakdown.  And this is all because of a daughter who needs the help that her mother can no longer give.

First, some background:

• JS - A woman who turns 65 in a few weeks.  She is a widow of 12 years, has 2 adult children, lives in Connecticut, and has just taken a job in Brooklyn as a school principal. The school of which she's the principal has been mismanaged for years, and the board of directors wants her to clean the place up.
• ES - JS's daughter.  She is 20, has done poorly in the few college courses she has taken, and has been an albatross around her mom's neck.  She throws temper tantrums whenever her mom tries to steer her towards taking on responsibility. 
• FA - The financial advisor.  She's a CFA, and seeing her in action, I feel that she's giving JS good advice that JS is hesitant to act on.

JS barely has enough resources to retire, and she has been worrying about what will happen to her daughter if she pulls the ripcord and moves to Florida to retire.  Her daughter shows no signs of taking on any responsibility, avoids doing so after making commitments to do so, and will throw temper tantrums if one attempts to hold her accountable for her lack of success.

A therapist told JS that the best thing she could do for her daughter would be to "divorce" her.  She needed to hear this from more than one person she could trust. What can be done for ES when her mom moves to Florida?  What services are available to ES?  What remaining responsibilities does JS have, now that ES is legally an adult?  These are questions that must be addressed, and JS will need help to do so.

FA has figured out a way to extract enough money from JS's resources to allow her to enjoy retirement in Florida.  She also suggested that JS give ES an allowance to help bridge a gap between what ES may earn in a minimum wage job and what she'll need to pay her basic bills.  Loans may be taken from life insurance policies, money taken from annuities, and Social Security collected from her late husband's benefits.  FA is putting JS's needs first, over those of ES.  And this is the right thing to do.

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It will be a rocky path for JS and her family.  A mother's most important duty to her daughter is to see that her daughter can function without help from mom.  And if this means that the daughter is forever alienated from her mother, so be it.  Sadly, there is a dysfunctional codependency between mother and daughter.

I think that the daughter must be forced to grow up.  Does one keep enabling her as some people would suggest?  Or does one use "tough love" as her therapist and financial advisor would suggest?  I'd choose the latter and hope I'm right....

Another meetup with the Fun Time Friends

I had two things on my docket for today, and I almost forgot the one I wanted to take care of the most....

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When I got up this morning, I didn't feel fully rested.  Instead, I felt like a battery that was charged to 90% of capacity, but needed a little more juice to bring myself to full alertness.  For a change, I awakened before 7:00, and was out of the bed for the day before 8:00.  If my 7 hours of sleep could be counted from the time I put my CPAP mask on, I'd have had a full night's sleep.  But I didn't start falling out until 1:30 or so, and that was reflected in how I felt.

Taking it easy all day, I didn't start to get ready to do a volunteer stint at the LGBT center until 2:00.  This meant that I'd get to the center around 3:30 for my shift.  And today, my tasks were a little more interesting than usual (but not much).  First, I had to do a Powerpoint slide, a flyer and a couple of calendar updates for an LGBT related movie to be shown next month at a community theater.  Once done with that, I checked all of the LGBT Center's resource website links, making sure that their site contains only validated links.  This took up the better part of my 2 hours there. And then the alarm pop-up came on my phone - I had a meetup scheduled in Southport, Ct. for dinner - OOPS!  I almost forgot that!!!.  So I walked over to my car, started to play some tunes, and off to dinner I went.

When traffic is running smoothly, driving from White Plains to Southport takes about 35 minutes.  However, if one is dealing with rush hour traffic, the drive can take 3 times as long. Tonight's drive took only twice as long - and I got to the restaurant shortly after 7:00.  I remembered this restaurant's location from years ago.  It is the former site of the Southport Brewing Company, a brewpub that an ex-girlfriend and I used to frequent a few years ago.

Parking my car and entering the restaurant, I noticed that there were no seats available at the table in the background of the above picture (where the meetup's hostess was sitting). So I sat down with the ladies at the table in the above picture.  It was a pleasure being treated as one of the ladies, and even more of a pleasure when the hostess came over and greeted me very warmly.  (If I were presenting as a male, I'd interpret this woman's physically warm greeting very differently.  But I digress.)  She makes me feel that it is worth the effort to come to this group's meetings, as I know she remembers how long it's been since I've been around to one of the group's meetups.

Service at the restaurant was very slow.  We didn't have our orders taken until 8:00, and didn't even have food until 8:45 or so.  For a busy night (this was Fairfield County Restaurant Week), they didn't staff the place well.  And by the time we were finished with dinner and paying our checks, it was coming on 9:45.  Even our hostess was unimpressed with the place, and will likely never schedule another dinner there in the future.

Leaving the restaurant at 10:00, I called GFJ for the ride home, and we chatted for the next hour.  As much as neither of us had a lot to say, it was good to know that there was someone on the other end of the line who cares for me, someone to keep me company on a boring drive home.  She is the reason why I said in one email: "There are some things I want more than transition." Hopefully, GFJ knows that our relationship is that important to me....